Remastered "Exile on Main Street" out today

[The Knize]

I'm with you on most of what you're saying here. So many great albums in just a few years. But Jagger's vocals on Sticky Fingers are about as good as it gets in rock. Well worth the damage to your hearing to listen with great headphones cranked up.

I like that a guy with a handle of "jazzman" is writing this! I agree. Wonder why someone decided to bury the vocals on Exile. Jagger's voice is good on this. Make your hair stand on end in Sister Morphine. Transport you to Neverland in Moonlight Mile. Firey and spiting in *****. I really think Taylor and Jagger had chemistry and my fantasy is that on this album Keith is competing to keep up, which he does.

 

[jdudley76]

FWIW, I think the unreleased tracks (I've heard Following the River and Plundered my Soul) are good.

Following the River feels like a less-produced, more gospel-influenced version of Let It Loose.

 

[Trawlerman]

Just listening to the original CD release of this now.

Gonna listen and see if it's worth me getting the new remastered release? Have had the CD for some time now but never really listened to it in that great a detail.

Am at work at the moment so I have to time to dedicate to listening - i'm a security officer so lots of downtime .


On the track 'Shake Your Hips', the opening is the same as John Lee Hooker's 'Boogie Chillen'.

 

[Trawlerman]

Just listening to the original CD release of this now.

Gonna listen and see if it's worth me getting the new remastered release? Have had the CD for some time now but never really listened to it in that great a detail.

Am at work at the moment so I have to time to dedicate to listening - i'm a security officer so lots of downtime .


On the track 'Shake Your Hips', the opening is the same as John Lee Hooker's 'Boogie Chillen'.

 

[jazzman]

I like that a guy with a handle of "jazzman" is writing this! I agree. Wonder why someone decided to bury the vocals on Exile. Jagger's voice is good on this. Make your hair stand on end in Sister Morphine. Transport you to Neverland in Moonlight Mile. Firey and spiting in *****. I really think Taylor and Jagger had chemistry and my fantasy is that on this album Keith is competing to keep up, which he does.

I like all kinds of good music. And I've been a Stones fan for quite a while, since long before the first time I saw them--RFK 1972. The opening act wasn't too bad, either: Stevie Wonder!!!!

 

[Rughi]

The last of the great Ry Cooder Stones Albums ! (?)

Over dinner probably a decade ago, I asked my only friend who I thought might actually know anything about it how the Stones almost overnight went from being a great Britpop group who wanted to play the blues to suddenly hit what I thought was a much higher plateau in their string of great, great albums Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street.

Maybe it was just that I didn't rattle off Beggar's Banquet as the start of my list, but he confidently pronounced one name that I didn't expect to hear: Ry Cooder.

It seems common agreement that Cooder was a teenage prodigy who by the late '60s had already absorbed and assimilated into his playing an incredible understanding of how blues and other American roots music were constructed and that he was invited to Stones sessions for Let it Bleed in the waning days of Brian Jones life. I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, and the 'Ry Cooder boosted the Stones into the stratosphere' angle is a very juicy one.

That's rattled around in my brain for some time until, in the wee small hours last night, I surfed around the net on my iPhone while laying in bed waiting for sleep to bless me again. I found many fun discussions, but make no claims other than that they are on the net. I'm sure there are shavers amongst us who know a lot more and are much more invested in the truth behind this story than I am. Anyway, this is what I found:

The Mighty Wikipedia gives this middle-of-the-road synopsis of Cooder's tenure:

Cooder was a guest session musician on various recording sessions with the Rolling Stones in 1968 and 1969, and his contributions appear on the Stones' Let It Bleed (mandolin on "Love in Vain"), and Sticky Fingers, on which he contributed the slide guitar on "Sister Morphine". During this period, Cooder joined with Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and longtime Rolling Stones sideman Nicky Hopkins to record "Jamming with Edward". Cooder also played slide guitar for the 1970 movie Performance, which contained Mick Jagger's first solo single, "Memo from Turner". The 1975 Rolling Stones compilation album Metamorphosis features an uncredited Cooder on Bill Wyman's "Downtown Suzie", which is also the first Rolling Stones song played and recorded in the open G tuning

Linky​

.

Things heat up, though, with this fun excerpt from a rock book (nope, I don't know the creds of this writer):

THE UGLY TRUTH ABOUT THE ROLLING STONES
From Old Gods Almost Dead by Stephen Davis:

Ry Cooder arrived at the Let It Bleed sessions in May 1969, brought in by Jack Nitzsche to fill out the Stones' sound. Cooder was put up in a little apartment near Earls Court. Some felt he might be asked to join the Stones as a perfect foil for Keith and were disappointed when he wasn't. Playing his fluid slide-guitar themes and original interstellar riffs, bursting with new ideas and approaches to the music, Cooder was involved in long taped jams with Mick, Charlie, Bill, and Nicky Hopkins that contained the germs of many Bleed-era arrangements. (Excerpts would be released 3 years later as Jamming with Edward on the Stones' own label.) On May 16, Cooder played on a band version of Sister Morphine (with different lyrics), as well as adding mandolin to Love in Vain. The Stones also worked on Midnight Rambler and Monkey Man, and Ian Stewart played piano on the fatalistic new Let It Bleed, which seemed to sum up the general gloom at the end of the 1960s. It was the antithesis to the Beatles' quiescent song Let It Be.

Cooder didn't like what was going on. "The Rolling Stones brought me to England under totally false pretenses", he told Rolling Stone a year later. "They weren't playing well and were just messing around in the studio. There were a lot of very weird people hanging around the place, but the music wasn't going anywhere. When there'd be a lull in the so-called rehearsals, I'd start to play my guitar. Keith Richard would leave the room immediately and never return. I thought he didn't like me! But, as I found out later, the tapes would keep rolling. I'd ask when we were going to do some tracks. Mick would say: 'It's all right, Ry, we're not ready yet.'

"In the 4 or 5 weeks I was there, I must have played everything I know. They got it all down on these tapes. Everything. Brian was still alive then, definitely a phased-out person, a sad character. Sometimes when we'd begin playing, Brian would grab a harp and start blowing into a mike. But most of the time he just sat in a corner, sleeping or crying. Jagger was always very contemptuous of Brian and told him he was washed up. They're bloodsuckers, man."

Found in this internet forum's "Keith & Ry Cooder" thread with a lot of other fun speculation.​

It's only fair to say that for every conspiracy theorist on this angle I read ten "quit yer bellyaching, Ry" naysayers. Whether it's actually Gram Parsons, Mick Taylor and a whole slew of other talented musicians who became part of the Stones circle around this same time, or primarily the mind opening influence of Ry Cooder's short few weeks caught on tape for Richards to review at his leisure, who's to say. It is a great story, though, on how the Stones could have grown from what Richards called being "sick to death of the whole Maharishi guru **** and the beads and bells" of the Satanic Majesties era to record great, great music.

...And then I was once again blessed with sleep.
Roger

 

[The Knize]

I like all kinds of good music. And I've been a Stones fan for quite a while, since long before the first time I saw them--RFK 1972. The opening act wasn't too bad, either: Stevie Wonder!!!!

<since long before the first time I saw them--RFK 1972>

I could say exactly the same! I was at that show! I hate to admit it, but that is the only time I have seen the Stones live. And I can't say that show did anything to increase my adoration for the Stones, who were probably my favorite band at the time. I would love to have a bootleg recording of that show to see if my impression was correct, but they seemed pretty sloppy, and my overall impression was too much Mick J. Stevie W was great. And it was probably at a nadir of his career. I remember hoping for Tina Turner!

The last of the great Ry Cooder Stones Albums ! (?)

Over dinner probably a decade ago, I asked my only friend who I thought might actually know anything about it how the Stones almost overnight went from being a great Britpop group who wanted to play the blues to suddenly hit what I thought was a much higher plateau in their string of great, great albums Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street . . . .

Yeah, the legend is that the Stones stole Ry Cooder blind, and I believe it. I assume they stole Gram Parsons blind, too, although I do not know if Gram was in any shape by that time to actually be an active player with the Stones. I cannot possibly see Ry Cooder as actually being the second guitar in the Stones. Not his personality to be in the Stones. The legend was that Roy Buchannan was offered the spot. That would have been interesting, but I do not think it was Roy's personality either.

Actually, of course, the Stones have always stolen from everyone, starting with the greatest of the African-American blues guys and the best of Motown and Stax. They have a way of taking other people's stuff and making it their own, translating it for the masses so to speak. Of course, they have a way of directly stealing, too. Mick Taylor successfully sued the Stones for credit and payment for stuff he laid down when he was still with them used in later Stones records with no credit or payment given. I suspect that Mick Taylor did not leave the Stones because the environment was just so friendly and supportive.

On the other hand, I do not think that Keith can play a lot of what Ry Cooder plays. And I do not know that I hear all that much Ry in Stones work of that era. I have tremendous respect for Ry Cooder and I love his albums around that time. I think he was highly influential in all good ways, but I do not think he can get all that much credit, any more than Gram can. I tnink Gram did a lot for the Byrds, too, but he was clearly not the only force at work even when he was with them!

I guess I think that a lot of the greatness of the Stones is their ability to recognize excellent creative work by others and to bring it out in a way that is highly popular. And that it is pretty clear that they have treated some folks that were highly helpful to them pretty shoddily over the years. But who is to really say. Brian Jones was pretty much washed up by 1969. Mick Taylor really did not do very much at all after the Stones. Ry Cooder is interesting and talented, but what has he done snce that was anything in the same league what the Stones have done. I have no doubt that if Gram Parsons had lived and dried out--which seems unlikely on both accounts--he would have been even more important to popular music than he is. They blame Keith for bringing Gram down into a morass of drugs. Who is to say it was not more Gram sending Keith down heroin road. And lots of sidemen for the Stones have never gotten proper credit, probably. How long did Ron Wood work for the Stones as a hired hand, before they made him a full member of the Stones?

I suspect none of us think if the Stones are really nice guys, anyway. And no doubt they got utterly screwed in the early years. I feel bad that Ry feels bad, but he was probably a bit naive and maybe a little self important.

 

[raisindot]

Um, re: Ry Cooder....

As good as he is on the tracks he's on, he wasn't on "Beggar's Banquet," which was the first of Stones mid-period masterpieces and pretty much set the stage for everything they'd do for next five years or so. On BB, songs like "No Expectations," "Dear Doctor," and "Prodigal Son" clearly demonstrated that the Stones were quite comfortable appropriating American folk and country forms and these songs were the most 'natural' they did in genres.

From then on, nearly all of the iterations they did from "Country Honk" and "Train in Vain" on LIB to "You've Got to Move" on SF and "Sweet Virginia" on "Exile" seem far more mannered, artificial, self-conscious, and, dare we say it--sometimes over-respectful of the source materials. Whether Cooder was responsible for some of this is hard to say.

Jeff in Boston

 

[The Knize]

Um, re: Ry Cooder....

As good as he is on the tracks he's on, he wasn't on "Beggar's Banquet," which was the first of Stones mid-period masterpieces and pretty much set the stage for everything they'd do for next five years or so. On BB, songs like "No Expectations," "Dear Doctor," and "Prodigal Son" clearly demonstrated that the Stones were quite comfortable appropriating American folk and country forms and these songs were the most 'natural' they did in genres.

From then on, nearly all of the iterations they did from "Country Honk" and "Train in Vain" on LIB to "You've Got to Move" on SF and "Sweet Virginia" on "Exile" seem far more mannered, artificial, self-conscious, and, dare we say it--sometimes over-respectful of the source materials. Whether Cooder was responsible for some of this is hard to say.

Jeff in Boston

All of that is probably fair. Among other things we are talking about the British group which for its fifth British single released and got a number 1 rating from Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster," the only blues song supposedly which has ever been a number 1 Brit record and which to me is pretty much authentic sounding with no overt irony or mannerist attributes!