Had they continued on with Brian and Keith on guitars...and maybe both sober....they would have been respected band and would have sold a lot of studio lps....but they would have not have been the band they became live in concert.....almost like CCR.....catchy tunes nice singles....but no fierce I mean fierce interplay between the guitarists....no GRRBITW tag......Taylor was a fantastic lead and slide player...and not a riffer like Keith but a very good solid rhythm player who provided a strong rhythm when Keith was soloing.....Keith and Brian would never have pulled it off....not good enough lead players either one....it would hsave been nice weaving like RW and Keith....but with Taylor all bets were off with his ability!
Well put....they are as good as it gets live still....people flock to them...like lemmings following the piper to the sea! For sure.....the Stones are a band you would see on Fri-Sat night at your local bar.....drink a ton of beer, chase some ladies...and maybe meet one....get a buzz, and rock out big time...and when the lights came on you wanted to have another cold one and rock once more....millions of bands across the world following this plan....due to the Great Rock and Roll Band...and Bar Band in The World...The Stones!!!.....Macca said so....cause he wanted to be able to rock like that...with his band....but it was not meant to be...not their niche!
Agreed. I think the Stones were more of a singles band, or a band where the individual song trumped the value of the album. Gimme Shelter is great, but the fact it's on Let It Bleed isn't really significant.
For me from all the Stones albums they are in my top five and frequently flip-flop between No. 2 and No 3. Essential Stones no matter what number or values we may apply to them...
Let it bleed is to my mind where they go from a English band putting an English stamp on American music to an English band making American music. For all intensive purposes with Let it bleed they became an American band and this is what distinguishes them from the Beatles, Who, Kinks etc.
No matter how each of us feel about the band and these sides I love them all and really do not have to choose...think all are important.......I think it is very safe to say that with the release of JJF Beggars HT Women and LIB and that time period from May 68 to Nov 69 (JJF from late May UK early June 68 US Beggars Dec 68 HTW July 69 LIB Nov 69) that included the downfall and death of Brian, the addition of Mick Taylor and the 1969 American Tour really changed the way the world looked at The Stones. No matter what, they could never be considered followers any more they set the trend and raised the bar pretty high!
The single-only release "Jumpin' Jack Flash" along with "Street Fighting Man" and other Beggars' Banquet tracks were also done with Keith Richards running his acoustic guitar through a cheap cassette recorder and using its signal distorter to make the acoustic sound more electric. Modern cassette recorders no longer allow you to make it go that high. I don't believe more artists have done anything like this, running their acoustic guitars through cassette recorders and distorting their sound. ~Ben
I always thought that Beggar’s Banquet had a slightly British sound to it Conversely, I always thought that Let it Bleed sounded American. Bigger market = the US. Let it Bleed is their make or break. Better though? Debatable. And JJF was their comeback.
Indeed, Jumping Jack was massively big and the first Rolling Stones record of any format I bought, and it had that amazing picture sleeve of the band. Street Fighting Man, also huge. Honky Tonk Women, on the other hand, I didn't like at all. Everything I thought was special about the group - their unique weirdness - was thrown out in favor of insincere "back to basics" synthesis of older musical styles which were better experienced by listening to the sources who inspired them. Too bad.
JJF was their ticket to the Stratosphere. I love every phase or period of the Stones ( mostly) but that track sowed the seeds of their Worlds Greatest Rock and Roll band mantle.
The Most Important Album of 1968 Wasn’t The White Album. It Was Beggars Banquet. (Slate article from 2018, but popped up for me on Yahoo today)
I prefer Beggars probably because Brian Jones is on it, well he’s still on fairly on board, still a Stone, and contributes to it here and there, especially on his epitaph No Expectations, so it has greater meaning as the final album by the original band too, still in their mid 20’s pretty tragic really.
Interesting question! Due to the '69 tour, have to go with Bleed and Taylor. As purely an album, that's a tough one. I prefer BB, but with the choral aspect of You Can't Get, the sinister and ominous yet catchy tunefulness of Gimme Shelter, and the 'better' recording that Bleed is, plus Midnight Rambler, well, I suppose it would be Bleed there and then, and bringing them into the '70's also?
Never thought of BB in such a specific way as to its merits and it being his swan song and also being the last of the OG's. As obvious or blind as that may seem!
Hm, I'll have to re-listen to their albums with this in mind. I've enjoyed them but they just seemed to me like solid, middle-of-the-road blues. And when it comes to that it's hard to choose them over Please Please Me or With the Beatles.
My cousin gave me Beggars for Christmas that year - I hadn’t heard it. I put it on and wow! It was so shocking . . . Anyway, I think you nailed it.
