Mick Jagger & Keith Richards - The Team

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by MHP, Jun 27, 2017.

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  1. John Fell

    John Fell Forum Survivor

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    Undisclosed
    And Keith will show you the blade. :D
     
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  2. joethomas1

    joethomas1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Yorkshire, UK
    Amazing songwriting team. One thing to remember is that they are on the whole a guitar riff based band, which form a big part of their songs (by and large). Just think of Gimme Shelter, Satisfaction and Start Me Up without the guitar riffs and things would be a lot different, arguably blander IMO.
     
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  3. Hardy Melville

    Hardy Melville Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    Being more of a Keith fan than a Mick fan, I find it a bit weird to have to defend Jagger here, as I do defending Paul when criticized by a (fellow) John fan. But I fear your post here implies (assuming one agrees with the basic premise, as I surely do) that if Mick is less cool than Keith, then he's not cool. Certainly back in the day we were and are ALL less cool than Keith (maybe Gram Parsons?), so that doesn't mean much. In short I don't think Mick thought he wasn't cool even if (as I strongly suspect) he knew he was less cool than Keith.

    Kind of like what my friends must think.
     
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  4. CVernon1985

    CVernon1985 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    It wasn't always fake though, imo. I think he could sell anything at one point. Singing more conventionally "technically" hard songs is nothing compared to trying to sell something like Fool To Cry without sounding like a complete tool.

    Around somewhere in the mid 80s though, aroudn 'Hard Woman', he really did literally start sounding fake, more and more, to the point that he now does so almost exclusively. What happened there?
    Even on his more organic and good stuff, like Wandering Spirit which I love, the 'fake' voice comes out on Angel in my heart. It's like he sounds like he's embarrassed to be singing this, but is doing it all the same.
     
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  5. Glenn Christense

    Glenn Christense Foremost Beatles expert... on my block


    The problem is, this ends up turning into a Lennon/McCartney vs.Jagger/ Richards psychology thread and Lennon and McCartney have nothing to do with this thread .

    Why don't we just celebrate the Jagger/ Richards writing partnership here and leave the Fabs and also the psychological profiles of four people we have never met out of it? :D
     
  6. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    Mick surely based his singing style on Don Covay. The similarity is stunning sometimes.
     
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  7. SurrealCereal

    SurrealCereal Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    To me, they are the definitive rock guitarist-singer team. There is something about them that just makes them fit perfectly together. They are also probably the ultimate rock & roll songwriters.
     
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  8. Olompali

    Olompali Forum Resident

    Competing for the Mtv/ Pop market against the likes of MJackson and George Michael, Sir Jag began extensive singing and choreography training.
     
  9. gkmacca

    gkmacca Forum Resident

    It's really a very good point, and very well expressed. And I truly appreciate it - enough to go back and listen again.

    He always sounded to me, though, to be honest, like a pate-eating boy trying to sound like he subsisted on a diet of grits. Like the many middle class fans of him I've encountered over the years. That's my misfortune!
     
  10. coniferouspine

    coniferouspine Forum Resident

    I dunno, man... You're saying Keith is cool, but Mick wants to be cool? I don't think that's a fair juxtaposition at all. Mick has always been pretty freaking cool. The guy who drinks Château Lafite-Rothschild, straight out the bottle?

    I mean, of all the people in the whole wide world that he could have gotten signed to Rolling Stones records, Mick goes out and gets Peter Freaking Tosh? The reggae guy who was so radical and militant he even made Marley look tame? That's pretty freaking cool! Mick did that. And remember it was Mick, John Lennon and Dylan, all three of those guys wrote songs about Angela Davis in 1971-1972 while that story was going down, and nobody else would touch it -- and of the three, Mick's was the most explicitly personal and in support of her. Again, pretty freaking cool.

    It's all personal opinion, or taste, of course, and that's fine, but think about it -- slugging Château Lafite-Rothschild straight out the bottle is arguably way more subversive and decadent (and shocking!) an action, than Keith and his little vials of clinical Merck. Same with Mick's adding and combining "black" and "gay" elements into the white rock frontman persona -- that is way more truly radical than Keith's English pirate shtick ever could be. Mick was palling around with Bowie, Baryshnikov and Burroughs, while Keith was having parcels delivered to him by the likes of Spanish Tony, Freddie Sessler, or his other shady visitors, including the dealer who sold Jim Morrison the dose that got him killed. If anything, the company that Mick kept was in a totally different league of cool from Keith's gang of pals. Put ol' Freddie Sessler and William S. Burroughs side by side on a scale of cool, and see which way it tilts -- who's heavier!?!?!
     
  11. stewedandkeefed

    stewedandkeefed Came Ashore In The Dead Of The Night

    To me Keith is the emotional engine of the Stones whereas Mick had more of an eye on the Stones' career and their long term sustainability. Mick gets a bit of a bum rap for that but it was he who basically kept the band productive and together during the dark days of Keith's drug dependency during the 70s. So many of us live through Keith's outlaw image of that era (he lived it so we didn't have to) and it's easy to slag off the man trying to keep the whole thing together because it's not cool especially from such an originally anti-establishment band. They both serve an important part in a historic band. And you need both to make it work
     
  12. George Blair

    George Blair Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Keith himself has spoken about this, saying that the drug allowed him to focus on a guitar riff, for as long as it took to perfect it. I think he was referencing the endless hours spent on some "Exile" songs, "Tumbling Dice" being one. I don't have the quote at hand, but the gist was that he could tune out any distractions that might otherwise have made him give up on an idea.
     
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  13. groundharp

    groundharp Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger

    Location:
    California Day
    You're in for a rude awakening in the near future. Remember people used to say the same sort of thing about Lemmy...
     
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  14. George Blair

    George Blair Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Lemmy didn't give a ****, I think Keith does. He'll be around for awhile.
     
  15. thrivingonariff

    thrivingonariff Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    Interesting that he said that, but . . . really? He needed help to focus on the creation of a riff? I understand that a riff, with its various rhythmic or melodic possibilities, doesn't necessarily arrive at your fingertips in a flash of divine inspiration, but the idea an experienced, talented musician needs help to focus on the creation of a rock riff sounds a bit odd to me.
     
  16. George Blair

    George Blair Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    A riff can be a complex thing. Take the intro and coda parts to Tumbling Dice for example. Now we've all heard those guitar parts enough to hum them, but invention is another thing altogether.
     
  17. thrivingonariff

    thrivingonariff Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    That's "complex"? For a talented musician who'd been playing rock guitar for the number of hours and years Keith had? I don't see it.
     
  18. George Blair

    George Blair Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    All I'm saying is invention is hard. Everything's easy after that. Complex is subjective I guess, but I would bet Beethoven spent much energy perfecting the intro to the 5th Symphony, even for a talented guy.
     
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  19. Hardy Melville

    Hardy Melville Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    Nice job here putting the situation into words. Someone else in Jagger's situation could have just said F it, wait til Keith gets it together, or not. But here and there in the mid seventies Mick took the initiative, and on songs like Sway and Winter got Taylor to help him fill the void as it were, and came up with excellent stuff. Cool? Really at that point how cool it was was beside the point. He made it work.
     
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  20. jgkojak

    jgkojak Mull of Kansas

    Location:
    Lawrence, KS
    I think Mick thinks he's cool, tries to be cool... Satisfaction is actually about trying to be cool and failing... but that self-awareness left him, and what I get from him is more of a talented narcissist. He's a great front man, and a great lyricist and singer, but I don't think there is much authentic about the persona.

    People claim Dylan is a phony, but Dylan's phony/act is at least authentic to what he's personally striving to be (and he doesn't always tell us). Mick's seems very calculated.
     
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  21. groundharp

    groundharp Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger

    Location:
    California Day
    Look... I, like most people here, hope Keith will be healthy and productive for many years to come, but I don't like the myth-making delusional thinking that says Keith Richards will outlast everyone, and will survive the apocalypse like the cockroaches, indestructible.

    There are quite a few examples of great musicians who "gave a ____" who are now dead. EVERYONE has their allotted time, and when it's over, that's it. When KR does die, there'll be enough teeth-gnashing and wailing without having to listen to someone moaning, "...but Keef's supposed to be indestructible! How could this happen?"
     
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  22. dead of night

    dead of night Senior Member

    Location:
    Northern Va, usa
    For every Jagger/Richards rock team, there are millions that never left the basement, or even the undercard of Monterey Pop. Here is what set Jagger/Richards apart:

    1. Both men were stunningly beautiful. The rock kingdom is shallow and mean, and ugly guys generally don't get anywhere. Mick and Keith held your eye on the stage and you could not stop watching.

    2. Both were supremely talented; they could get together and write some of the best songs in history. If they entered a song writing contest with a 100,000 contestants, they would win the contest. If you repeat the contest 1,000 times, they would win the contest every time. Do you want to put your song up against Wild Horses, or Midnight Rambler, or Stray Cat Blues?

    3. They were ambitious and ruthless and lived in absolute squalor, playing and practicing night and day until they made it.
     
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  23. George Blair

    George Blair Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    I was only suggesting Keith is taking better care of himself than Lemmy. No Jack for breakfast anymore.
     
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  24. groundharp

    groundharp Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger

    Location:
    California Day
    At least no more climbing palm trees anymore!
     
  25. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards at their best is the absolute epitome of straightforward hard rock. There has never been anything quite like them. They made great music whatever their personal failings may or may not have been.
     
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