All language subtitles for ROLLING STONES - Under Review 1975-1983 The Ronnie Wood Years

By the mid-1970s, the Stones were in

trouble. Having lost their inspiration,

their relevance, and their lead

guitarist, they bravely changed their

sound and recruited Ronnie Wood, who

galvanized the band. Ronnie is sort of

like a glue that holds this band

together. He came in there with an

energy that they needed

that nobody else provided. His

personality imbues the Stones with a

vitality that they had been missing for

a long time. Even though the rest of the

world may not know it,

Mick and Keith knew it.

As the decade progressed, the band

adapted to new trends, incorporating

funk, disco, and punk into their sound.

And as guitarist Keith Richards was

deteriorating, it was up to Mick Jagger

to lead the Stones into uncharted

territory. The period from '76 through

to the mid-'80s, Jagger is really at the

helm. Keith was out there crashed out

under the sofa quite a lot of the time,

and he really had his work cut out. When

the Stones have their backs against the

wall, there's that element of sort of

fight there. But by the dawn of the

1980s, the creative partnership that had

made the Stones so influential was

mutating, and a feud between Jagger and

Richards threatened to tear the band

apart. You got to have one guy who's

extrovert and ambitious and together and

controlling, all those things. And then

the flip side of that, or the yang to

that yin, or however you want to put it,

is the more saturnine, darker figure,

the creative animus of the thing. But I

think at a certain point, those poles

become more starkly defined. You know,

in other words, you know, Mick becomes

more controlling and more ambitious, and

Keith becomes more sort of set in his

ways. This program looks at the Stones'

output from 1975 to 1983, a troubled

time in which, despite the internal

conflicts and the continued struggle to

remain relevant, the band still managed

to produce enduring work. If you listen

to these records today, yes, they are

patchy.

But they are

the last moments of Rolling Stones'

majesty and greatness in these records.

In the late 1960s and early '70s, the

Rolling Stones were at the height of

their powers. Where the death of their

founding member Brian Jones in 1969 may

have broken a lesser band, the Stones

instead discovered a greater drive and

focus in his absence, and with a string

of remarkable albums ascended to the

very top of popular music.

With the Beatles gone, Dylan treading

water, and American figureheads Jimi

Hendrix and Jim Morrison succumbing to

the same excesses that had taken Jones,

by 1972's Exile on Main Street, the

Stones were left seemingly unchallenged

as the world's greatest rock and roll

band.

Yet over the next 2 years, their

fortunes changed, and the albums Goat's

Head Soup and It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

were met with a more muted response from

fans and critics. While a new wave of

young musicians, spearheaded by David

Bowie, began to make their presence felt

in the UK, the Stones seemed to be

losing their grip.

Right around the time of Goat's Head

Soup and It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, you

really began to wonder about, you know,

what was the meaning of the Rolling

Stones at this point. Now, that was

happening with rock and roll in general,

by the way. You know, there was a I

mean, you know, I've interviewed Bruce

Springsteen about this, and it was

around the time he was coming out, and

as he said, he goes, you know, at the

time that people were referring to me as

the new Dylan, the old Dylan was 33.

Just being past 30 raised questions

about your relevance as a rock star and

your ability to be part of this rock and

roll world. And everybody was feeling

that.

With the Rolling Stones, I mean, they

had just come off, you know, a run of

records that I mean, they're as strong

as anything anyone has ever done in in

rock and roll.

But everybody was trying to find their

way in the '70s, and Goat's Head Soup

and uh It's Only Rock 'n' Roll are

records, I think, that

suggest, you know, the Rolling Stones

were responding to things rather than

driving them. There were good songs on

both Goat's Head Soup and It's Only Rock

'n' Roll, but, you know, you can't

really make a strong argument for them

as, you know, major Stones statements.

It's Only Rock 'n' Roll did not produce

a top 10 single in America, which was

the first time that it happened since

Their Satanic Majesties Request. Well,

that you can understand because

the Stones just did not cope with 1967.

They were not a peace and love group.

But in 1974, you would have thought they

should have been able to come up with

something, but nothing off of that album

was a hit.

And it actually looked like they were

winding down.

Internally, the band were also

struggling. With Mick Jagger and his

wife, Bianca, stepping out into high

society, the frontman's dedication to

music seemed to be waning, and Keith

Richards' worsening heroin addiction was

leading to a very visible deterioration.

By the end of 1974, just before the

Stones intended to return to the studio

to begin work on a new album, Brian

Jones' replacement, Mick Taylor,

announced that he was leaving the group.

Although many felt he had never seemed

comfortable as part of the ensemble, the

departure came as a shock to his other

bandmates.

When Mick Taylor announced his

departure, I mean, Jagger said he was

very, very disappointed by I think it

really shocked the band. Uh within a few

weeks, Jagger was saying, "Actually,

Keith Richards is the sound of the

Stones. Mick Taylor wasn't really a

Stone at all."

But

uh in a way, at the time, we undervalued

him, I think. But

listening back, he contributed so much,

and he saw the Stones through that

period with his very elegant, virtuoso

playing, which I think was crucial at

that time, when everyone was looking

towards, you know, progressive rock and

rock being almost on a classical status.

Mick Taylor contributed so much from the

guitar machine from Honky Tonk Women,

Sticky Fingers, I think he he co-wrote

Sway,

he's all over Exile, Ventilator Blues,

he got a co-credit. Um and then right

even It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, when you

felt that he was being nudged out a

little bit, he does this wonderful

Carlos Santana-style guitar solo on Time

Waits for No One. So, his contributions,

I think, were immense um in that way,

and we almost didn't realize until he'd

gone, you know, what he weaved into the

fabric of the Stones.

Despite the setback, the band pressed on

and immediately began looking for

another guitarist. One figure in

particular stood out as a potential new

recruit.

Ron Wood, formerly of the Jeff Beck

Group and then a member of the Faces,

had become close friends with Keith

Richards.

In early '74, he had both contributed to

the title track of It's Only Rock 'n'

Roll, and enlisted Richards, Jagger, and

Mick Taylor to contribute to his own

solo LP, I've Got My Own Album to Do.

As the Stones went into the studio in

December to begin sessions for Black and

Blue, Wood seemed the natural choice to

join them.

Just as the Faces were a kind of version

of the Stones, a sort of more laddish

and less

sort of decadent, you know, more more

boozy, laddish version of the Stones,

so Ronnie was Keith to Rod Stewart's

Mick Jagger. I mean, that's very clear

that they were sort of Xerox of the

Stones in many ways. And so, people knew

Ronnie in that way, that he was like

this kind of you know, he was like one

of the crows out of The Jungle Book with

a kind of [ __ ] sticking out of his mouth,

and you know, the

the sort of rug rat's hair, and you

know, so Ronnie was a bit of a cartoon,

I think, you know, uh more than anything

else, you know. You didn't revere him as

a riffmaster or rhythm guitarist in the

way that Keith was.

The main appeal about Ronnie Wood was

that he felt instinctively as if he was

a Rolling Stone even before he'd been in

the Faces, I think. I remember his

brother, Art Wood, I interviewed him

once, and he said that was he Ronnie

always felt that was his destiny. And

also, he was Keith Richards' playmate,

which was the polar opposite of what

Mick Taylor was. They were very, very

different both in in the way they played

and in their social lives, as well.

Ronnie and Keith mid-'73, I think, they

were living together, or, you know,

Keith lived at the bottom of the Wick.

Ronnie was a little bit at a loose end

in the Faces because Rod had this

solo career that was going along at the

same time. So, no one in the Faces quite

knew what they were, you know, what

their status was, really. And Ronnie

came up with his solo album in '74,

which Keith and Mick both contributed.

Keith actually contributed two great

songs, Act Together and Saw the One You

Need, to that. And Keith actually played

at the at the gig. So, Ronnie did have a

have a profile. Certainly a high profile

than some of the other guitarists that

were mentioned, you know, um

there was even talk of Alexis Korner,

Harvey Mandel, Wayne Perkins, Jorma

Kaukonen from Jefferson Airplane. I

mean, that would have been incredible,

but very, very unlikely.

Um

Ronnie was

the second guitarist in waiting. You

really felt that even when he was in the

Faces.

Throughout the early months of 1975, the

Stones invited three of the guitarists

on the short list to the sessions for

Black and Blue. Along with Wood, the

American guitarists Wayne Perkins and

Harvey Mandel also recorded

contributions.

Yet with the first official compilation

of their Atlantic Records contract, Made

in the Shade, ready for release, the

band put the new album on hold and

planned a major American tour with

Ronnie Wood brought on board as the live

guitarist.

Despite seeing their crown slip with the

previous two albums, when the band

announced this new tour by performing on

a truck down Fifth Avenue in New York,

the reception proved that the Stones had

lost none of their appeal.

You know, you can look at the records

that they put out in the '70s, but at

least in the States, there's something

else that you have to bear in mind.

Every 3 years between '72 and '81, the

Stones toured. And every time they

toured, it was a very big deal.

The biggest deal in rock and roll.

Bigger than Rolling Thunder, bigger than

Led Zeppelin, bigger than anything. The

Stones were not diminished at that time,

as I ever understood it. That happened

in the '80s, not in the '70s. They were

a real presence in American rock. They

were the world's greatest rock and roll

band.

Even if they were the world's greatest

rock and roll band, the times were

changing and the Stones were ready to

incorporate new elements into their

sound.

In 1975, funk was emerging with George

Clinton's Parliament and Funkadelic

bands, Kool & the Gang and Sly and the

Family Stone all achieving mainstream

chart success.

As ever, it was Jagger who had his

antenna out for new musical trends. For

their live shows, he invited Billy

Preston, who had joined them on their

1973 tour, to participate in their

performances in a far more prominent

capacity, while bringing on board

ex-Stevie Wonder percussionist Ollie

Brown to add to the rhythms and make

them more fresh.

Jagger, particularly, I think, was

always on the lookout for for what's

happening contemporary-wise. You know,

Keith might have his heart back in

Robert Johnson days or Chess, but Mick

is there listening to what's going on

now and what will be going on next year.

So, I think he was always very

aware of trends. Funk, I mean, well, he

took his dancing from James Brown, the

godfather of it. But, um

they were always aware of Stevie Wonder.

They did, I don't know why they covered

that Stevie Wonder song. Billy Preston

was with them from '72, Goat's Head

Soup. And you can hear on 100 Years Ago

this the funk element creeping in there.

So, by '75, it made sense. It brought a

new kind of energy to the live

performance as well, I think, just so it

wasn't just a

a rock sound. And they were playing

America. That tour was America, where

funk was big.

And Jagger, again, his keen eye for

David Bowie and what Bowie There was

this amazing rivalry that people forget,

I think. Bowie changing

course on every album, changing his

musical course, changing his image

course. I think Jagger looked at that

and thought, "That's what I should have

been doing."

Bowie was starting to embrace plastic

soul. And Jagger didn't want to be left

behind with that. So, it did make sense

to bring Ollie Brown and Billy on board.

That sense of having Billy Preston on

stage, you know, a guy whose roots go

back to gospel, go back to Little

Richard, go back to all of that core

stuff that the Stones always wanted to

emulate. Well, Billy Preston lived it,

you know, when he was as a teenager. You

know, the guy's a first-rate player, a

great songwriter, a fantastic singer, a

showman. You know, and I think, you

know, Mick kind of latched on to him.

He got a couple of solo numbers, and you

know, that's not That's not very

typical. The Rolling Stones are not

particularly generous that way. But, I

think Billy Preston got that partly

because of who he was and, you know,

just how good he is, but also partly

because he served a certain function

within the Stones' emotional dynamic.

You know, I think the 1975 tour for the

Rolling Stones was not a high point. And

I think having Billy Preston along just

kind of kept everybody's spirits up, you

know,

beyond what he added musically.

Yet for many, these additional musicians

were simply window dressing, a smoke

screen to deflect from the Stones' own

lackluster performances. And despite

record attendances, for the first time

in the band's career, the press widely

criticized the shows.

I think you could feel Jagger being a

little bored with the Rolling Stones

live. And there was an element of kind

of self-parody, really.

Uh and it particularly with Jagger. And

the band, I I think was uh a little

monochromatic.

So, it was uh discouraging because

obviously, you wanted them to be great.

And uh they had always been great. You

know, that famous announcing, you know,

the greatest rock and roll band in the

world, that was about live performance.

That wasn't, you know, they made the

greatest records, they're the greatest

songwriters, you know, anybody can, you

know, make that argument. But, the

greatest rock and roll band in the

world, that was about the Stones on

stage. And the Stones on stage were

getting to be a little tired during this

period.

The one thing the tour did manage to

achieve was to put an end to the Stones'

search for a guitarist.

When Rod Stewart announced that he was

breaking up the Faces to fully embark on

a solo career in December 1975, the

group formally offered Wood a permanent

position as a Rolling Stone.

When Ronnie walked in the room, just

played fun numbers.

That's it. It's obvious. Everybody else

was up for the gig agreed. You got to,

you know. So, it was uh

There we are. I'm lumbered with him

still am.

I think it was a perfectly good decision

for them to make. I don't You know,

Harvey Mandel, what would that have

meant? Nothing. Woody means something.

Woody means something. He commits them

to that kind of scruffy thing they

started out with.

Uh and

given who the rest of the guys are,

especially Jagger, I think that's a good

thing.

Were you a bit overawed when you joined

the Stones? Well, there's no reason you

should be overawed. Was it difficult to

join the Stones?

overawed because I always wanted to be

in that band from college. And I said,

"Well, I'm going to be in that band."

Really? Yeah.

And I just happened to make myself in

the right place at the right time. Is

the experience of a big band like the

Stones is that very different from, say,

the Faces? Or was it just a uh another

another shift of gear? Well, the Stones

are very much more well-organized

working unit, you know, it's

fantastically well-organized unit.

Whereas, the Faces was um

very um

Oddbins-sponsored

you know, very

um party, very party. Yeah.

I think Ronnie was a safe choice for the

Stones, really. Ronnie

was a party animal. Ronnie was a good

time chap who was going to just look

right on stage in some way. I mean, I

still think it was a really

disappointing choice, you know, and I

think it just said everything about the

Stones

kind of laziness that they just thought,

"Oh, well, you know, Ronnie, we'll just

we'll just have Ronnie and you know,

whereas obviously Mick Taylor had

provided such an interesting

counterpoint, such a melodic

counterpoint to to Keith.

Ronnie just didn't So, I can to this day

I couldn't tell you what Ronnie is

really doing in the Stones.

You know, even when I know that he's the

primary guitarist on on on a track, he

just seems to me utterly kind of

indistinguishable guitarist with no real

style of his own at all.

The choice of Ron Wood in the band was

kind of Keith asserting himself and

making that decision. Now, Mick Jagger

always got along with Ron Wood and I

think finally

uh

you know, certainly went along with it

and you know, and I think ultimately,

you know, Ron Wood found ways to really

be an interesting guitarist in the

Rolling Stones. But, I feel like, you

know, it was like Keith's buddy,

you know, getting into the band.

Obviously, he's like Keith's little

brother, emulates Keith, looks like

Keith, acts like Keith, to a degree

plays like Keith. And you know, I think

Keith needed that. I don't think Mick

Taylor, as fantastic as his playing was,

you know, ever really fully settled into

into the Rolling Stones. I mean, there

were too much turmoil. I don't think he

ever figured out a way to to sort that

out. Whereas, you know, Ron Wood was

just kind of an easygoing guy. I mean,

along with everything else and you kind

of had to be. You know, if you didn't

have the right personality, that was as

important as your playing.

Wood's musical contribution to the

Stones could finally be heard on record

in April '76 when the album Black and

Blue was released.

Continuing the band's run of US number

one LPs and hitting number two in the

UK, it demonstrated the Stones had lost

little of their commercial appeal.

Yet, outside of the top 10 ballad Fool

to Cry, the album was light on anthems

or potential hits and saw the band

experimenting with both musical forms

and three guitarists.

Critical and public reaction was

polarized. Black and Blue is an

interesting record. I think it was Ron

Wood who said, you know, "It's very

characteristic of Mick that he would

manage, you know, in his kind of canny

way to make the process of recruiting

guitarists also be the recording of an

album." And you know, so

um you get like, you know, Harvey Mandel

and you get

uh you know, Wayne Perkins and you get

Ron Wood and you get Black and Blue

also.

It is a work in progress album, really.

But, the work in progress is not the

album, it's the group.

But, give me the choice of listening to

Black and Blue and It's Only Rock 'n'

Roll and eight times out of 10 I'll take

Black and Blue. I

had a sense with It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

of decline.

At least with with Black and Blue, I had

a sense of either marking time or in a

couple of tracks, oh, these are okay.

It definitely seemed that Fool to Cry

had effort behind it. And that becomes

an important concept

because

with many albums

uh after

Exile on Main St.,

one doubts Mick Jagger's fundamental

commitment to songwriting.

Fool to Cry is one of those Rolling

Stones Marmite tracks that you love it

or you hate it. For me, it's it's it's a

great haunting ballad and uh terrific

vocal performance by by Jagger. The idea

that Jagger

uh was going through the motions at this

stage, I think is is quite misguided. I

mean, there are lots of other things

going on in his life as well and

arguably uh his band is no longer the

most important thing in his life, but

it's still incredibly important to him.

And uh

you know, he

I think he he was aghast at the idea

that the Stones could put out a

deliberately substandard record. So,

this suggestion that that he somehow

wasn't trying or or

you know, was operating on autopilot, I

don't buy at all. And on a song like

Fool to Cry, you know, I mean, he

it's really quite an affecting song, you

know, and he sounds vulnerable and uh

he he sounds that Jagger and the band

cared was most evident on the album's

notable opening track Hot Stuff.

If the presence of Billy Preston and

Ollie Brown on the 1975 tour had

suggested the influence of funk on the

Stones' music, with this song they

boldly broke from the formula and leapt

into this flourishing genre.

You know, on Black and Blue, if you take

the track Hot Stuff, you know, Harvey

Mandel playing guitar on that, you know,

kind of a funk riff, you know, Jagger

doing his reggae thing at the end. And

there's um you know, the beginning of

this kind of New York obsession that's

starting to work with the Rolling

Stones, you know.

You know, all you people in New York

City, I know you're all going broke, but

I know you're tough, you know. I found

that a really a kind of compelling

track. I mean, I liked it.

I think Hot Stuff was a remarkable track

as soon as the needle went down, you

know, my god, what's this? What have the

Stones done? They've really broken out,

broken from type, uh especially after

the disappointing previous album. So,

and I think it worked amazingly well.

You had the Wayne Perkins Harvey Mandel

who was playing the, you know, Isley

Brothers style guitar uh lead fluidly

guitar over Bill's bubbling wonderful

bassline.

Um

and I think it's you know, it was almost

like the rock band's version of

Superstition or something, that that

energy that it had. So, it was a

you know, I think it set the tone for

Black and Blue as well. That was this a

real positive positive step.

I really like that record and I really

like that record because at the time I

thought, "This is a good idea. I'm

really glad they're doing this. This

took some guts. I don't think disco

sucks." And although this is clearly was

not a disco record, uh it was a rhythm

record. This is not a songwriting

record. There are no great songs on this

record. But, there is something else

really rather courageous going on. Now,

I know Mick now dismisses all this and

maybe

it was a uh last resort for him, I don't

know.

But,

formally,

they took a chance, especially Hey

Negrita and Melody, which is mostly

Billy Preston playing both piano and

organ.

And rhythmically,

these are very, very strong, interesting

tracks.

I you know, Charlie Watts is the ideal

rock drummer. He's not a funk drummer.

So, he isn't really and and Bill Bill is

hanging in there.

Uh that's all. He's not Bootsy Collins,

either.

Um

so that it has a certain kind of there's

a kind of drag to the groove.

It it there is still very much some 4/4

feeling and spirit in it even if they're

trying to not quite do that.

But, doesn't matter.

Everything else is just clicking. The

rhythms are really really interesting.

And you can just listen to them

interplay on both those tracks.

I find find them inexhaustible.

I thought Black and Blue at the time and

still now as a great Stones record. In

fact, probably

their best '70s record after Exile and

Sticky Fingers. Um

John Peel actually at the time played it

in its entirety and he said this is

quite probably the best Stones album

ever, which people forget. Um it it was

dealt harshly by the critics, I think,

at the time.

When the Stones had their backs against

the wall, you know, they didn't have a

guitarist, it was just four of them,

there's that element of sort of fight

there. And I think time has borne out

that it actually is a pretty successful

record.

Black and Blue was not without

controversy, however. A billboard poster

advertising the album in Los Angeles

inflamed certain groups. Featuring a

bound and bruised woman under the quote,

"I'm black and blue from the Rolling

Stones and I love it." The ad secured

the band valuable publicity. Yet in a

decade when attitudes and sensibilities

were changing, it also made the Rolling

Stones seem outdated. The infamous ads

for Black and Blue, you know,

the woman, whatever her name was, on the

Sunset Strip billboard, you know,

and I liked it or whatever. I mean,

I for me it's less about sort of shock

tactics and outraging

the feminist movement. It really does

show how out of touch they were, you

know, how

how much they were part of the problem,

really. I mean, there was a certain

level of English rock musician that just

sort of

epitomized some kind of misogyny,

sexism, just so sort of unenlightened,

so out of touch with any idea that women

could be equals. I mean, that's the

world they lived in. They just lived in

a world where a woman was, you know, was

either a kind of [ __ ] or a groupie or a

or a

6'2"

Texan model on your arm or just just you

know, arm candy, just not no real kind

of idea that

that women deserved respect. And that

billboard just to me

is so egregious. It just it goes way

beyond uh it's just absolutely

inexcusable.

And the band's continued struggle to

keep up with the times was brought into

sharp focus when they returned to the UK

to promote the album in May.

Where their use of funk rhythms may have

seemed current to American audiences, in

England a musical revolution was in

progress and a new scene was emerging

that was actively disassociating itself

from the bloated excesses of millionaire

rock stars.

Punk was looking to rebuild popular

music and it wanted nothing to do with

the Stones.

The stage props that had worked to

entertain the masses on their US tour in

1975, including a giant inflatable penis

and Jagger swinging on a trapeze above

the audience, would be viewed back in

their homeland as laughable examples of

how ridiculous this once vital act had

become.

How did somebody as smart as Mick Jagger

say, "Oh, yeah, sure, that's a great

idea. We'll have a a big blow-up penis

on stage." You know, it

it just is something that so easily

lends itself to parody and is so

unnecessary. You know, it was part of

what was happening in rock and roll as,

you know, the halls got bigger and

bigger and the audiences, you know, got

kind of less and less connected to the

band. You know, by the time you're in

arenas and certainly in stadiums, you

know, it's not your necessarily only

your truest, deepest, you know, most

ardent fans who are there. It's kind of

everybody who's looking for something to

do on Thursday night is there. And you

have to you know, I think you could feel

like you have to entertain them and not

just with your music and that's where

the inflatable penis comes in and it's a

big problem.

I remember

uh being in Earl's Court for the giant

inflatable penis.

And I just don't know

I mean,

it was just one of those things where

you you did want to hide your head in

your hands. Um

and it shot out confetti and the whole

and the the whole thing. I mean, nothing

left to

the imagination here.

And you thought, "Why?"

For those people who were not loyal to

the Stones to begin with,

this was alienating.

So, they were not the role models

anymore.

It's quite amazing how punk comes along

and even though you would have thought

these guys are are rebels. The Stones in

late '60s were rebels. There's got to be

some affinity here. There was no

reference. There was no backwards

reference. I saw them in '76 and I went

with my sister. As we were going to

Earl's Court, we bumped into some punks

and it was a very very early days of

punks. They'd they'd been in the press

for a couple of months or so. Years

later I interviewed Captain Sensible and

I also did a book on Sid Vicious and I

found out that they were at Earl's

Court.

Captain remembers it and when I did the

Vicious stuff

and Vicious was there as well. They'd

gone to laugh at the old hippies who

were going to see the Stones.

Having, you know, Jagger swinging from a

rope. I think at one point he said, "Oh,

it's the best part of the show, that is,

swinging off this rope, you know." And

then he had on this giant penis and um

the lotus-shaped stage and which he

designed with Peter Rudge. I mean,

Jagger saw himself as an art director,

you know. He By this time he was the

head of a corporation and films and, you

know, he wanted more than just rock.

Rock wasn't really enough for him.

But for a disaffected young generation

who'd come through and seen the wild

Bolan and Bowie, they wanted something

different from their rock stars, I

think, and the Stones just didn't speak

to that uh generation at all.

As punk grew into a major musical and

cultural phenomenon in the UK, the only

Stone to escape with his reputation

intact was Keith Richards. Where the

stage props and the superficiality was

seen to stem from Jagger, Richards

remained a more credible figure, less

interested in celebrity posturing and

sticking to his ragged blues roots. Yet

he was also an icon for the wrong

reasons. By 1976, the guitarist once

crowned the world's most elegantly

wasted man was in reality an addict,

ailing both physically and mentally.

It's very interesting, you know, the

emergence of Keith Richards, which I

always trace to the 1969 Rolling Stones

tour. You know, where Keith had, you

know, the kind of haystack hairdo, you

know, he became Keith.

You know, and he emerged out of Jagger's

shadow and really became a kind of

second front man in the band. Suddenly

there were long interviews with Keith

Richards and, you know, in Rolling Stone

and in other magazines and he became a

counter-focus, you know, alongside Mick

Jagger. And part of that was, you know,

Keith as outlaw, Keith scoffing at drug

laws and all this other kind of stuff.

And it was fun and it was exciting and

of course Keith is great and a great

player, but then it really became, "Wait

a second, this guy's a junkie and really

is in trouble here. Like it's not just a

photograph anymore." You can only be

elegantly wasted for so long

before hard drugs

robs you of your soul and your

creativity and um your your muse. It

will it will destroy you in the end, you

know. Hard drugs becomes a be-all and

end-all in itself. It's just you are

using in order to use. You're not using

in order to sort of fuel the fire of

creativity anymore. You are just using

in order to somehow stay functioning and

normal. Um and so, you know, by '76,

Keith is is like a ghost, really,

creatively.

Yet in 1977, these problems would spiral

out of control.

Having already been charged with

possession of cocaine in the UK and

having lost his infant son, Tara, to

respiratory failure at the end of the

previous year, in February Richards made

world headlines. Arrested in Toronto

with large quantities of cocaine and

heroin, his passport was detained by the

Canadian court and his movements

restricted over the following 8 months.

With the very real threat that such a

key component in their band may be

jailed for years, the Stones were

apparently stranded.

I had to wake me up to

formally arrest you.

And that took him about 2 hours to drag

me in a paper bag.

So, I had my rosy cheeks and uh

he's awake. You are under arrest.

Oh, great, yeah. I looked at the old

lady and said, "I'll see you in about 7

years, babe."

The implications of the Toronto bust

were just enormous. First off, it threw

into question the whole future of the

band. I mean, the initial charges were

not for possession, they were for

trafficking, which as I understand it at

the time, carried a mandatory prison

sentence in Canada. So, the likelihood

was that he was going to go down.

Even if the charges were reduced to

possession, would they be able to tour

America, which was obviously the most

lucrative market. So, it's huge. The

whole future of the band is is in

question. But, also, you know,

the questions it raises about Keith's

state, and was he actually in any fit

condition to to continue in the band. As

it happens,

um he gets partially cleaned up

because of the bust. And uh in a

paradoxical kind of way,

uh the bust that threatens the

disintegration of the Stones may

actually be the thing that enabled them

to keep going. Apart from anything else,

I think in it was really the bust and

the

events in the wake of the bust that

led to him and Anita Pallenberg breaking

up. And

I think it's highly probable that if

Keith and Anita had stayed together,

neither of them would still be alive.

Happily, they both pulled through

separately. Together, it might have been

a very different story. With Keith

unavailable during the majority of '77,

the Stones were inactive save for the

release of their third live album, Love

You Live, in September. Yet, 3 months

later, the band were able to begin

sessions for a new album. And after

years of recording in the UK and the US,

work on this new material took place in

EMI's Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris.

Unlike their previous albums, the band

called in few guest musicians to add to

their sound.

One exception was a young, relatively

unknown harmonica player named Sugar

Blue. I had been playing at a club

called Le Vieil Gris and doing a lot of

busking uh in the metros and on the

streets of Paris. There was a friend of

theirs that I believe was working with

Cubby Broccoli on a new Bond movie

at the time. And he came to a party

where I was playing at. He heard us

jamming. And he gave me a mixed number

and said, "Call." Okay, so I thought

that friends of mine were pulling my

leg, right? What have I got to lose? So,

I call I called the number. And uh I

know Jagger's voice. I mean, you know,

from from interviews and things like

that.

And I hear this really heavy Cockney

accent on the other side. And I'm going,

"Okay, somebody's pulling my leg. This

is a joke. And uh

what the heck, you know?" So, I just go

along with it. He says, "Well, why don't

you show up at uh

um

a studio, Studio Pathé Marconi in in the

Bois de Boulogne, right outside of

Paris."

And I go, "Well,

okay, what the heck, you know? I figure,

you know, they I'm going to I'm the butt

end of a joke, but it's okay. I'll go

for it." And I get out there, and um

lo and behold, it was Jagger. And he

puts on this accent to sort of try and

be uh under the radar, you know, cuz he

doesn't want a lot of people to

recognize him. Keith says, "Choose an

amp, any amp." There were like

50 of them.

And he says, "That one over there, that

one's that one's mine."

I said,

"Okay, maybe that's got the right mojo.

I'll try that one." And I did, actually.

And and it sounded great. And we um we

started playing. I mean, you know, we I

mean, we jumped right into it. It was

And uh

and uh I mean, I we started playing, and

I think we stopped playing about a good

2 or 3 hours later, you know? It was

like it was 1 2 3, hit it hit it hit it,

play, jam, have fun, you know?

I had been playing constantly for maybe

and I mean like constantly for like 12

18 hours a day for a year or more.

Um I had been practicing like a man

possessed.

And

um I was in I had just come to Europe

and uh landed in uh France.

And I had something to prove.

And it was very important to me that

the power and the dedication and the and

and the belief in the music that I was

playing should come through every note

every time I hit.

And I think that I was so impassioned in

my delivery, I think that maybe they

heard that, you know? Because I wanted

to play in the tradition, but I wanted

to

add to the tradition, you know? Like uh

like Willie Dixon used to say, "The most

important thing that you can do

as a bluesman is to add to the is to add

to the canon of the blues." And I was

working very very hard on that. And I

think that they heard my passion. As the

Paris sessions spread into 1978, despite

the strain of Richard's continued court

proceedings, the Stones were going

through a purple patch. With Jagger at

the helm, penning a wealth of new

material, the band recorded enough

tracks to fill two or three albums. And

after years of struggle, they'd

seemingly rediscovered their passion and

creative energy in the studio. I think

Woody had a lot to do with bringing them

back to that to that raw and vital feel,

you know? Because Woody is very

incendiary. I mean, he has a kind of

personality that just glows, and

everything around him

catches fire.

There is something vital in his

personality that

is and and about the way he plays that

goes beyond technique, if you would.

There is that which makes Ronnie Ronnie,

his personality,

imbues the Stones with a vitality that

they had been missing for a long time. I

mean, uh of course

uh the Glimmer Twins uh Nick and Keith

are very, but you know, they've been

together, they know each other. It's

uh it's like an old marriage, you know?

And uh so fine it was kind of like, you

know,

one of the guests at the wedding 30

years ago

came and reminded them how much they

loved each other.

You know? And that brought the music and

the magic together.

If Wood was key in revitalizing the band

in the studio, it was Jagger who

provided the album's creative drive.

Like John Lennon before him, he had made

New York his home base in 1976, and had

been soaking up the city's extremes of

squalor and decadence, and its many

flourishing artistic movements. New

music in particular was thriving.

Emanating from the seismic influence of

Andy Warhol in the mid to late '60s, in

the Lower East Side, the city had

developed its own punk movement, which

both predated and inspired its British

counterpart. Whereas further north in

Manhattan, Studio 54 had opened its

doors in '77 to a heady mix of disco,

celebrity, and cocaine.

The album Some Girls may have been

recorded in Europe, but at its heart

were the distinctive sounds and stories

of New York City, all filtered through

the mind of Mick Jagger.

In the mid-'70s, New York essentially

was going bankrupt. And the city seemed

out of control, you know? The suddenly

the whole graffiti thing was happening.

So, every time a train rolled into the

station, it was just covered in

graffiti. And there just seemed to be a

sense of

you know, this town is turning into um

you know, kind of jungle in a way, you

know? There was a a sense of uh the

streets being very raw, you know, every

single union in the city went on strike

for months for one reason or another.

And you know, finally there was uh you

know, this the economic problems that

the city was having, you know? There was

a famous New York Daily News cover about

uh President Gerald Ford saying, you

know, "Ford to city, drop dead." You

know, it's just like, "We're not going

to rescue New York." And there was a

sense of New York um

you know, in its own way kind of

teetering on the brink of uh real

collapse. As often happens, I mean, as

New York was in that kind of danger, it

kind of was going through a strange

artistic flourishing. I mean, punk rock

was happening, disco was happening, you

know, the early stirrings of hip-hop

were happening. The energy of the city

is coming from its kind of artistic

community. And all all of that is

reflected

in Some Girls, you know? Walking Central

Park, creeping after dark, people think

I'm crazy, you know? That sense of, you

know, the danger of what New York is.

And that's, you know, the great sort of

thing about Jagger. I mean, as much as

people say, you know, well, he's a

socialite, you know, he's removed.

When the Stones announced their 1975

tour, you know, they did it on a flatbed

truck that went up Fifth Avenue. It got

a lot again a lot of attention to New

York City. And if you look at Mick

Jagger's outfit, he's wearing these

jeans and his left pant leg is rolled

up.

That was a that's a bike messenger

fashion, you know, so that your the so

that your pant leg didn't get caught in

the chain of your bike. And you know,

people were picking up on that like on

the street and there's Mick Jagger like

picking up on it. It was not, you know,

it wasn't something that people were

doing at Studio 54. But it was just such

a cool kind of gesture. That's the kind

of New York I think that that Jagger

presents. I think Some Girls in many

ways is primarily Mick Jagger's record

and that's the vision of New York, you

know, on the one hand, you know, am I

hard enough, am I tough enough, am I

rich enough, you know, in Beast of

Burden and at the same time, you know,

the guy who's destroyed and walking

through Central Park in the middle of

the night um in Miss You,

you know, you're getting both sides of

of of what New York City is cuz Jagger I

think felt comfortable moving in both

those worlds. Do you ever go and see all

the bands? Oh, yeah. About who? Who'd

you like? Uh I mean, mostly in New York,

I go around sort of clubbing, you know,

a lot of nights of the week, Thursdays

and Fridays mostly.

I mean, I just see every new band there

is. I mean, this and this and this. Some

of them are not very good. Some of them

are not.

Released in June 1978, Some Girls

provided the shot in the arm that the

Stones career so desperately needed.

Hailed by the music press as the band's

strongest work since Exile on Main

Street, it became their biggest selling

studio album to date. After years of

criticism for his lifestyle and

questions over his to music, Mick Jagger

and his New York odyssey made the Stones

relevant again. I see New York on the

cover of Some Girls to start with.

There's a sort of Warholian iconoclasm

taking some of those faces of

celebrities and then doing something,

you know, rather punkish with them. So,

straight away

that felt much more New York than

London. There's this

image, stereotypical image of Mick who

loves expensive cuisine, expensive

girls. But I remember a quote from Ian

Stewart who basically said that Mick

just organizes everything. You know,

Keith was out there crashed out under

the sofa quite a lot of the time. Mick

really held it together and he

particularly held it together through

Some Girls. This was a vital period

when, you know, Keith had had his bust

as well and he really had his work cut

out. I mean, to the point of getting

Ronnie to teach him bits on the guitar

as well. I mean, he actually it was real

hands-on kind of stuff. So, I think that

Jagger does have to take enormous

credit for that throughout the whole the

band's whole career actually, but

particularly this period where they were

potentially quite vulnerable.

And with Jagger at the helm, the first

single from the album displayed a brazen

disregard for the band's vulnerability

and plunged them headfirst into disco.

An underground musical phenomenon that

had been seeping into the mainstream

since the mid-70s, Jagger had been

sampling the scene firsthand at Studio

54 where his wife Bianca had become the

unofficial queen of the club. Although

it had been dismissed out of hand as a

musical fad by certain parts of the rock

community, in 1977 the film Saturday

Night Fever had become a nationwide

sensation.

A major part of its appeal were the hit

songs contributed to the soundtrack by

the Bee Gees which marked the first

successful fusion of disco and rock and

the Rolling Stones released Miss You hot

on the heels of these developments.

The single became their first US number

one since 1973's Angie. I remember when

the bassline went disco, I was like,

"Hmm,

that's different, especially for the

Stones." I'm like,

"They're going to play disco? Okay,

that'll work."

And

um

when we hit the groove, I understood

that um they were trying to incorporate

uh the tradition

with a new tradition, introducing blues

harmonica

into um a disco groove. And hey, I think

it was a great idea, you know, because I

mean, I've I've always been a fan of

disco and I'm definitely a bluesman.

Well, hey, it's it's it's evident, you

know, um

in hindsight that it was

genius, you know, because it became the

hit of '78. I mean, you know, you

couldn't you couldn't go anywhere and

not hear that song.

Miss You is, thank heaven for them, an

excellent fusion of rock and disco.

Disco was the first time since the twist

when every leading artist felt compelled

or was compelled to record a song in

that style.

And so, just as you had Frank Sinatra

sing Everybody's Twistin', which is

ridiculous, of course,

he survived. People moved on and went

back to their regular lines of work.

But

everybody hit the reefs on disco. Elton

John put out a disco 12-in flop. Aretha

Franklin disco record, nobody needed it.

Uh

but the Stones put out Miss You. Part of

the reason they got away with it is cuz

Mick was always into the R&B rhythms and

dance steps. And in that song, Miss You,

he very cleverly used falsetto

that Barry Gibb had popularized.

Jagger

learned, I'm sure, from the Bee Gees.

It's It's incredible to think of Mick

Jagger learning from the Bee Gees, but

he saw how popular those records were.

And uh and Miss You, he's great with his

falsetto.

Jagger with Miss You has two things

which are from the first period of

disco.

One of which is

song structure. Miss You is a coherent

song. It's about something.

And that's important.

Um

he could take with him a lot of people

who weren't dance fans just because it's

a coherent song.

And secondly is he has this

uh androgynous

character,

which he'd always had,

but is particularly appropriate

for disco

the late '70s.

Disco really did spring out of the gay

and Puerto Rican clubs and it was a a

flamboyant music. Being a dance-based

movement, it

it favored people who looked good and

could move well.

Well, this is something that

Jagger had already done. He proved he

could do this in the '60s.

And he could be

gay without

scaring

straight people.

And the reason he could be gay without

scaring straight people was

because he was so sexualized,

he covered more of the prism

than your average person. And so, he

would naturally incorporate elements of

this

into his artistry and um

and sound convincing doing it, which is

very important cuz you don't want to

think he's a tourist.

Uh but even though he's sounding

convincing,

he's not at all disturbing.

When I left Europe, I remember going

back to

uh New York

and my little brother, who's like, you

know, hardcore

Harlemite kid, you know,

from the hood, in the hood, all about

the hood.

And he was saying,

"Jimmy, cuz that's the name my mom

called me uh gave me when I WAS BORN.

SAID, 'MAN, you got to hear this record

by the Rolling Stones, man.'

He said, 'Man, THEY GOT SOME BAD

HARMONICA PLAY ON THERE, MAN. YOU GOT TO

hear this, man. You're going to love

this.'

I was like,

"Yeah, he's pretty good."

And and you know,

but when he told me this story, after I

finished laughing and telling him it was

me,

it dawned on me how powerful

a tune that this song was, that it even

made inroads into the heart of the black

community.

I don't know how anyone can not like

miss you. It's just one of the most

incredibly vibrant

pop singles of the '70s. Miss You was

the first Stones masterpiece for a long

time in the singles market, I think.

Especially the 12-in pink vinyl version,

which just went on and on. And often

those 12-in would just awful, but this

one the riff was so good. That beautiful

texture of the sugar blues harmonica,

the guy they found in

the streets of Paris.

Jagger's vocals and Mick and

Bill and Charlie right up front with the

rhythm section. It was just such a

warm, up-tempo, live. This is the Stones

not trying to be punk, keeping up with

the punks. It was doing something

different and actually it won them more

fans by doing that than trying to

out-punk the punk bands, which would

have been a bit silly, really.

It was It was a masterstroke.

Yet there was a punk influence on Some

Girls, albeit not from those British

bands that had been laughing at the

Stones excesses 2 years beforehand.

The New York punk scene, which was

inspired by a more conceptual approach

to art and music, had as its forebears

Andy Warhol and the band he helped

launch, the Velvet Underground.

Having developed in the early '70s

through acts such as the New York Dolls

and Suicide, it emerged as a

recognizable movement in 1974 when young

bands began to appear at the Lower East

Side club CBGB. By '77, figureheads

Patti Smith, Television, the Ramones,

and Blondie had all become underground

celebrities poised for mainstream

success.

And it was this raw and streetwise world

that Jagger and the Stones managed to

channel with Some Girls.

In America,

much more so than in England, punk was

an aesthetic movement. It wasn't

particularly a political movement. And

in America, it also was a kind of

neoclassical movement. You know, I heard

Richard Hell and the Voidoids cover

"Ventilator Blues" by the Rolling

Stones, for example. You know, Patti

Smith worshipped the Rolling Stones. You

know, looked like Keith Richards. So

that sense of the Rolling Stones being

the enemy was much more an English

thing. It wasn't what was going on in

New York. The Stones still had a kind of

currency here. So they could tap into

punk and they could tap into disco. You

on a track like "Shattered", they could

even tap into a little bit of hip-hop,

you know, and Jagger sort of you know,

semi-rapping on the track. And you know,

all of that was kind of credible and all

of that was, you know, part of the

Stones world.

In so far as Jagger was inspired by New

York, what he was inspired was by

upper-crust New York. Did Mick ever go

to CBGB? Is there any Is there any

record of his going to CBGB? I never

heard about it. I think I would have.

Now, that doesn't mean that Some Girls

doesn't in some kind of way reflect the

punk.

But he But it could have reflected it

anywhere.

I mean, all you had to do is listen to

the records, read the stories, and say,

"Hey, maybe I should

do this. Now, maybe I should get a

little rootsy again." or whatever he

said to himself. Uh rootsy would not

have been the word. But uh uh

get raw, right? Become more raw. And I

think in that respect, Some Girls

which ha- has its disco song, also has

its punk feel.

But I don't think that living in New

York, in my opinion,

was at all essential for that to happen.

It was aesthetic, NOT CULTURAL.

IT HASN'T GOT THE

awkwardness of British punk.

You know, it hasn't got the Subway Sect,

the sort of almost hopping element of of

punk. But it's got this trad rock punk,

which is more in keeping, I think, with

what you heard in

CBGB's and Max's Kansas City.

Um

and it's got the energy. I mean, the

wonderful raw kind of energy on most of

the tracks on there.

But it's a rock and rolling punk album

as opposed to a sort of wooden

peg-legged punk album that we would have

got from from London.

Um and the closest thing

to it in Britain, I think, was the

Clash's Give 'Em Enough Rope, which was

trying to be American

with Sandy Pearlman producing it. They

were almost two of a kind and the Clash

were going one way,

traitors to the punk cause, I think. And

then you've got the Stones who are

trying to meeting it in the middle, but,

you know, by far the more acceptable

album, I I would say.

The album's final track, "Shattered",

which there's no blue notes in there. I

mean, that's the Stones really embracing

not necessarily punk, but new wave,

Talking Heads, and bands like that which

are coming out of the of the New York

clubs with a slightly different twist on

things. You know, this isn't uh Johnny

Thunders. This is something

with a bit more of an interesting sheen

going on. So

glossy. There's a glossiness as well as,

you know, as well back to basics with

the raw guitars up front. Um there was

this new wave sheen there that was very

much flavor of a ti- of the time and

also what was

going to happen over the next couple of

years.

For the most part, you know, punk and

all of those New York bands, you know,

the Patti Smith group and Television and

Richard Hell and the Voidoids and the

Ramones even, you know, that was a kind

of critical phenomenon in the United

States. Those records really did not

make much of a commercial impact till a

little bit later.

Even as they were chronicling a certain

aspect of what New York was, that was

appealing to people in New York, you

know, who were moving in kind of those

circles and going to CBGB and going to

the Mud Club. People in Iowa,

you know, that was not registering. But,

you know, with the Rolling Stones,

you know, they were on the radio. You

know, they were doing a big tour. You

know, Some Girls was a big record. So

their story of what was happening in New

York got out there.

And uh and it helped New York, by the

way. You know, that really it certainly

bolstered spirits here.

And uh and you know, it made New York

seem really hip.

And in keeping with this mutual love

affair between Jagger and the city, at

the close of 1978, the Stones were

invited onto the fourth season of New

York's hit comedy show Saturday Night

Live.

Not only did they perform two tracks,

but Mick also appeared alongside Dan

Aykroyd in a parody of the Tom Snyder

show.

My guest tonight is a man who is

familiar to anybody who owns a hi-fi

set.

He's a member of a pop group, the

Rolling Stones, and his name is Mr. MICK

JAGGER.

I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT WHEN YOU WHEN

THEY TOLD ME THAT YOU were doing the

show, I was frankly quite apprehensive.

You know, I've heard you were a little

bit of a cutup, a kind of a hellion. I

don't know what kind of high jinks to

expect from guys like you, but here you

are, you're a well-behaved young man,

and frankly, sir, I am surprised.

Well, Tom, thanks. You are really That's

nice of you. You know, before I came

here, I heard a few things about you and

I heard you were slow and a bit thick. I

you know, I I kind of a dim bulb.

But now I met you, you know, I I I don't

I know you can't help it.

Well, thank you very much, sir. You're

welcome back anytime. I got one Excuse

me, Tom. One one thing, you know, before

we finish up this Anything at all, sir.

Is it

Through this entire interview, one thing

has fascinated me. It's the

extraordinary variety of colors in your

hair.

There must be at least 12. I mean,

there's gray and black and blue and a

little green. You must be aware of that.

Green? I didn't know about the spot of

green, to be quite honest with you.

Join us tomorrow on tomorrow when we'll

be talking with a group of beef farmers

who claim that Elvis Presley's ghost is

responsible for a mysterious series of

aerial cattle mutilations in the

Midwest. Good night, everybody.

With a hit record behind them and a

major US tour underway, the band's

return to relevance continued apace with

the signing of reggae artist Peter Tosh

to Rolling Stones Records.

This label had never made any real

effort to support or nourish other

talent and instead served only the

Stones and their side projects. Yet,

with Tosh, they made an exception.

Previously a member of the legendary

Wailers, he'd been instrumental in

introducing ex-bandmate Bob Marley to

music. Yet, was a far more controversial

figure.

Released shortly after Some Girls,

Tosh's first album for the label Bush

Doctor featured contributions from

Jagger and Richards, who were both keen

to align themselves with such an edgy

musical artist. I thought it was great

when the Stones signed Peter Tosh to

their label. All of these monster bands

at the time were starting their their

own labels and and

my recollection is by and large they

played pretty safe. I mean, Led Zeppelin

started Swan Song and who did they sign?

The Pretty Things and Bad Company. You

know, so the Stones are kind of not

exactly going out on a limb, but they're

being a lot more adventurous in signing

someone like Peter Tosh and

just the very fact of kind of raising

their sights beyond the Anglo-American

rock and roll tradition, I thought was

great.

Tosh gave the Rolling Stones label a bit

of age because

you know, I mean, Bob Marley was was was

the middle-of-the-road moderate compared

to Tosh. I mean, I think I think

when they signed him, Jagger and

Richards flew out to Jamaica to see him

perform. I think it was probably the

famous

you know, peace concert with Manley and

Seaga, the two Jamaican politicians.

You know, and there's Tosh on stage

taunting the police and and the

politicians with a big spliff in his

hand and

you know, I mean, he he was almost the

you know, the the gangster figure in the

The Harder They Come.

Keith we know had

still has a genuine love for Jamaica,

its people and its music. I think Mick

enjoyed the music and

also

saw its kind of hip cachet as well. He

then, of course, sang on the single from

the first Tosh album on Rolling Stones

Records. Um

Temptations number

Keep on walking, don't look back. Well,

I mean, it's a great choice of song

because

um

in actual fact, the the Wailers as a

vocal trio in the '60s had kind of

started out as a Jamaican copy of

American soul vocal groups like the

Temptations. I think Tosh may even have

recorded or at least sung the song, you

know, a decade earlier.

It sounded like a good record. I mean, I

thought Jagger did a pretty okay job on

that bearing in mind that only 2 years

earlier Cherry Oh Baby

you know, it was a bit of a

stub toe into the reggae water.

It's strange. In '72, they went down

winter '72, they went down to Byron

Lee's studio, Dynamic Sound Studios, for

Goat Head Soup. And it's weird because

they came back from Kingston, Jamaica

without a great deal of reggae on that

record. You know, they threw themselves

right in the middle of it

and there wasn't really much but slowly

it did seep its way through. Luxury on

It's Only Rock 'n' Roll. Jagger doing

his patois start star vocal as well.

Cherry Oh Baby and then Mick coming up

with Tosh in '78 who was, you know, one

of the great Wailers and hope just about

holding his own on the record, I think.

While Jagger was stepping out on

Saturday Night Live to appear with Tosh,

by the end of the year both Keith

Richards and Ronnie Wood were

concentrating on side projects. In

December '78, Richards' first solo

single, the Chuck Berry cover Run

Rudolph Run, was issued.

Evidence that the recovering guitarist

was trying to focus on music to distract

himself from the lure of heroin. It also

showed that despite the Stones' recent

attempts to modernize their sound,

Richards' heart still lay in the blues

and classic rock and roll.

The following year, Ronnie Wood's solo

LP Gimme Some Neck was released and he

formed the touring band The New

Barbarians to support the album.

As a result of the final judgment passed

in Canada on Keith Richards, the

guitarist was ordered to play a benefit

concert for the National Institute for

the Blind and he joined The New

Barbarians not only at that concert, but

also on their US tour in late April '79

and at the Knebworth Fair in August.

I was just wondering what I was going to

do. What can I What do I do best? I

know, I play guitar in a rock and roll

band, you know. So, where's the nearest

one? Ronnie's.

And Ronnie's always there when you need

him,

quite usually inadvertently, but it's

it's that usual mystical timing, you

know.

He had this thing going and I said, "Oh,

sure, man. I can

So, just did it.

Keith in many ways is a kind of

traditional musician who likes to be out

there playing. And this thing with the

Stones, you know, maybe we'll go out in

3 years, you know, maybe we'll go out in

5 years. You know, I think that was

really beginning to take its toll on

him. He wasn't doing very well, by the

way, with those long periods of

inactivity. And so, I think, you know,

latching onto Ron Wood and pulling the

New Barbarians together and and getting

out on the road, you know, was one way

to try to deal with that.

Um but in many ways, it it's suggestive

uh it was suggestive of of some of the

issues that were going on within the

band itself.

I would assume

that by the late '70s

Mick's being in Manhattan with Bianca at

Studio 54

was troubling to Keith.

I think it didn't make him like this guy

anymore and

you know, mates like that, they

often have their problems. I mean, the

fact that they've been able to stay

together in any form

is remarkable. And it's We're not

talking about Sam and Dave or the Everly

Brothers here. You know, it's not like

they they're at each other's throats and

just completely faking it when they get

on the stage. It's that they have their

differences and their distance, but

they're still bandmates and happy to do

that.

Uh and so

I would assume that Keith very much is

feeling the need for all kinds of

outlets. I mean, there is also the fact,

of course, that he's a junkie and Mick

isn't and junkies actually like to hang

out with other addicts. Addicts really

like other addicts. So, that would

probably be another thing and not so

kind to Keith in that particular case.

Yeah, to a certain Keith is never Keith

has always been amazingly unpretentious.

I give him that every time.

And his solo albums are actually

somewhat better than Mick's, albeit not

quite as good as his

fans say they are.

But,

uh

he

definitely

had to have

some

serious misgivings about Mick's

lifestyle. It just is not the way he

wanted to live.

And so, sure,

he sought outlets. Always has.

Been doing it for a long time.

And those outlets were able to distract

Richards from the tensions at the heart

of his relationship with Jagger.

Unable to contribute strongly to the

Stones direction over the previous few

years, in 1979, a recovering Richards

was looking to become a more active

participant in the production of their

latest offering, Emotional Rescue.

Yet, he found he was out of kilter with

Jagger's pursuit of the latest trends,

and their strained partnership was

evident on the resultant album.

Released in June 1980, it was a

commercial success, yet disappointed

many listeners.

I don't think that there was any

question that when, you know, Keith

really began, certainly with his arrest

in in Toronto and the prospect of his

possibly going to jail,

you know, his his drug problems, you

know, being a drug addict,

I think there's no question that Mick

Jagger decided, you know, either I take

the reins here or this band falls apart.

I think that's what a lot of what people

uh forget in terms of, you know, seeing

Jagger, oh, he's a control freak or

whatever. It's like, if this band was

going to get from Monday to Tuesday to

Wednesday to Thursday, somebody had to

be behind the wheel.

And, you know, Jagger just decided, all

right, I'll get behind the wheel. Around

the time of Emotional Rescue, Keith is

trying to, well, okay, I'm back, you

know, I'm relatively clean. Let's get

moving. It's like, well, you know, where

have you been for the last 6 years?

But, if you listen to it now, I mean,

Emotional Rescue, you know, you could

find things that are kind of interesting

about it.

It's it in many ways so forgettable.

You know, there's an element of um

I mean, not even going through the

motions.

It just doesn't quite rise to the level

of going through the motions. You know,

it is

kind of

you know, you just sense of an complete

absence of ideas.

You know, it's like, you're the Rolling

Stones. Step up a little bit here.

After Miss You, which had just roared

out of the speakers and onto the dance

floor,

Emotional Rescue was

just a much more muted,

you know, dance floor song, and it just

didn't have that sense of occasion or

element of surprise, even.

They were treading water, I think,

already by this stage.

Emotional Rescue is a real amber warning

light because

it is forgettable.

Outside of the title song,

which is a huge hit,

it's not really worth talking about

because everything that's done well is

something they've already done well. It

sounds like a a mess, you know, it was

Some Girls part two, but but weaker in

almost every way. There's a track called

Summer Romance, which was almost like a

parody of Respect or bad version of

Respectable. There was Where the Boys

Go, which was like a

a poor man's Members, which really isn't

saying too much.

It was

all over the place. It was a bit odds

and sods. Right, even the cover was

lukewarm. Everything about it was

lukewarm.

Um and after Some Girls, it was really

disappointing. Interestingly enough,

when they promoted that album,

Jagger said something like, there's no

future left in rock and roll. And, you

know, when you're listening to that

record, you think, he's got that one

right.

By Emotional Rescue, the Stones really

are struggling. I mean, the material is

weak. She's So Cold is possibly the most

tepid single they've ever released. I

mean, my recollection when when the

album came out, in fact, throughout this

this sort of period of the Stones is

that uh

people fell into two camps, really.

There were those who were willing the

Stones to make another great album, and

so were overeager

with every new release to to claim uh

some kind of return to form.

And there were those who'd already

written the Stones off and uh just used

each new release as further evidence to

their argument, belief that that the

band were already a busted flush.

Truth probably lies somewhere in the

middle.

You know, after Some Girls, Emotional

Rescue just sort of feels so just like

half-assed and unconvincing. It doesn't

feel

like Keith was fully present for the

record. I mean, he has said that All

About You was sort of

the only thing that he could really put

his name to or lay credit to, that he

did that separately. Mick was not

involved with it. It's the only really

decent song on the record for me. It's

the beginning of those

great Keith songs that often finish

Stones albums. There's a sort of run of

them, and they're

I just think they're great.

It is the soulful Keith Richards. It's

the Keith who still feels music in a way

that Mick apparently doesn't anymore.

You know, Mick just tosses things off in

a really glib way, whether he's doing a

kind of hard rocker, whether he's doing

the cod reggae thing on Send It to Me,

whether he's um

singing Where the Boys Go, or whether

he's doing the kind of funk thing. It

just feels like Mick putting on this hat

now, and then he'll put on that hat, and

it's just so insincere. Last the band

said that Black and Blue was the first

Stones album that was officially

meaningless, but I don't think it is

meaningless compared to this. This is

the first record where you just feel it

is pure contractual obligation,

with the exception of All About You.

After the return to

form of Some Girls and the revitalizing

of the band's energy through Ron Wood,

while holding sessions for another

album, a number of band meetings took

place across May and June in New York

City regarding their future. Richards,

on holiday with his new partner, Patti

Hansen, failed to show up at the

majority of these. And midway through

discussions, Charlie Watts declared that

the band was finished. At the heart of

the issue were the conflicting interests

of Mick and Keith, and these would

eventually engulf the entire band. The

great feud between Jagger and Richards

ought to be something that

only they can tell you what went on.

However,

it was fought out in public in almost

every interview from the time, so we can

draw some pretty accurate

conclusions about about what was

happening. I mean, it seems that Jagger

has some difficulty dealing with with a

functional Keith again. Allegedly,

Jagger at one point turns around and

says to somebody, I wish he'd just go

back to being a junkie again because he

was much less trouble then.

So, that's the roots of it.

Um

It then gets exac- exacerbated by a

whole number of of issues, both musical,

personal, and and

social as as as as well, really.

Musically, Keith has this

view, which I have some sympathy for,

that Jagger is by this point chasing

trends, and he believes that the Stones

always set trends, and if they're no

longer setting trends, they should just

at least continue

in the trend that they they set way back

when, rather than, you know, chasing

every kind of ephemeral ephemeral fad of

of pop fashion.

Socially,

he's pretty much out of sympathy with

the world that Jagger is now moving in.

At this point, there are two worlds.

There's the Stones world and there's

Mick's world and and he feels very

alienated from that

kind of high society thing. Mick

To try to be fair to him and see it from

his point of view, he's running the

Rolling Stones as this multi-million

pound corporation with this vast number

of employees and so on and so forth. And

Keith's turning up to meetings and sort

of sitting there flicking his ratchet

knife and as I say the bottle of vodka

in the other hand. So So you've got this

partnership that has endured so well and

made the Rolling Stones what it is and

it's reached the point where one half of

the partnership is sitting there with

its sort of appointments diary in one

hand and its calculator in the other.

And the other one's got a bottle of

vodka and a

switchblade.

Yet amidst this breakdown, the band

managed to bounce back from the

disappointment of Emotional Rescue. Back

in September 1980, producer Chris Kimsey

had delved into the archives to listen

to rejected or half-completed songs from

Goat's Head Soup onwards and it showed

his discoveries to the band. With a US

tour planned for late 1981, the band and

Jagger in particular had spent time

adding elements to these tracks and

formed an original album to promote

their live shows.

On its release in 1981, Tattoo You's

mixture of styles and sounds attracted

glowing reviews and strong sales.

Its lead single, a track originally

recorded as a reggae number with a

crucial take done in the band's

inimitable late '60s style, was key to

the album's success, Start Me Up. When

Start Me Up came out, there was general

rejoicing.

This is the Rolling Stones.

It was the first classic Keith intro in

years.

I mean, you want to hear that intro

again and again and again.

Start Me Up is

top five, top 10 in their entire output.

And not as well as, of course, the theme

song of what they have been for 30

years. It And it's I mean, it's such a

great song. To me, that's the difference

between Mick and Keith.

Mick is actually the person with the

conceptual grasp. You want to know how

smart he is? He was smart enough to

decide that they should do a classic

Stones track and it should say this at

this time. And that there was a reason

it didn't work as a reggae track. I

think we're very lucky they didn't

obviously very lucky they didn't do it

as a reggae track. Uh Yeah, because then

it's just a song about sex or something.

Now it's a song about their lives. Uh

and and and uh

And that's typical

of what Mick is like at his best. Is he

always at his best? No, of course not.

Nobody's always at their best. But right

there, that's that's why Mick is a great

rock and roll artist.

There's a lot of terrific things about,

you know, Tattoo You. I mean, I think

that Chris Kimsey went and found all

this stuff, you know, but kind of the

Stones still worked on those tracks. I

mean, Mick Jagger has said, "Look, you

know, yeah, there were things that we'd

worked on. The reason they didn't get on

records is a lot of them weren't

finished. You know, I had to write

melodies, I had to write lyrics, you

know, had to do new vocals, you know,

obviously um these things were not just

uh things that were, you know, pulled

wholly formed from the vaults. Tattoo

You had to be put together pretty

quickly. You know, the Stones had

decided they were going to go on tour.

Having things that they'd worked on like

sort of presented to them precluded the

process of them trying too hard. Again,

which I always think is the thing that

sinks them when they sink. It's not too

fancy and it's not trying too hard and

it's not just kind of looking around and

figuring out, you know, gee, what's

happening this minute and let's try to

emulate it.

It's as if, you know, you were kind of

skimming the top off the period. I mean,

even as, you know, the '70s, you know,

was not necessarily the Stones' high

point. You know, if you skim the two or

three best tracks on all those records,

uh you know, you have a pretty good

collection of stuff. And, you know, in a

certain way, that's what Tattoo You

became.

Waiting for a friend, uh

very easy to interpret it in the light

of the Jagger-Richards feud and I think

um

they actually play upon that in the

video for it, which I think Michael

Lindsay-Hogg shot. Um

I mean, the song itself goes all the way

back to uh Goat's Head Soup. I don't

know

what portion or to what extent the

lyrics date back to that album, but the

the the music certainly does. But I

mean, it you know, it's clear from the

video that that Mick and Keith were

aware of the implications that could be

read into into this song and, you know,

sure that gives it an extra frisson.

It's strange. This is an album made up

of old tracks.

And then I think Jagger writes some new

lyrics and obviously does the vocals and

so on and so forth. Um

But the end result is a superior album

to those for which

this material was originally written. If

the Stones album was widely praised,

their mammoth US tour and the 1982

European tour divided audiences. For

some, these record-breaking shows were

the group's best in years, playing

colossal arenas and confirming their

position as the world's greatest rock

and roll band. For others, it was the

end point of the Stones' move from

musicians to entertainers, the

culmination of every shallow and

questionable aspect of the group that

the punks had criticized only 5 years

beforehand. There was a sense of the

band having more confidence on stage. I

mean, it was not as good, I don't think,

uh show as they would later do.

I mean, and you know, Keith, when he was

battling with Mick later, you know, very

famously said, you know, "We don't need

the lemon yellow tights and we don't

need the cherry picker."

You know, talking about the Rolling

Stones, you know, Jagger going up on

this cherry picker and wearing this kind

of

odd football outfit, American football,

you know, with these lemon yellow tights

and a and a kind of jersey with a number

on it. That said, I mean, I think the

Stones sounded better.

You know, and I think they had gotten

used to now being in on these large

stages. I think Ron Wood was a more

integrated part of the band on stage,

you know, for those shows. They would

not go out on the road again for 8

years, by the way. I mean, and you know,

so

I mean, the issues that were just in the

horizon for them

uh

were, you know, were they were just kind

of looming. But, you know, at that

point, I think everybody was excited to

have them out there and they were doing

a pretty good job of it.

No one see the Stones

in '82, you know, they did the American

tour in '81 and then '82 I saw them in

Wembley. It was just the most wretched

thing, you know, it was just musically

horrible. And it was just all about

Jagger wearing these utterly bizarre and

grotesque sorts of

like sports leotards with with kind of

elbow pads and God knows what he was

thinking, but running up and down these

endless runways. I mean, Charlie Watts

said that you know,

that something that he wouldn't see

Jagger for 5 minutes. How can you play

like you couldn't even see his lead

singer?

It really was so depressing and the band

was so un-together and

everything was played slightly too fast

and just nothing had any coherence to it

and

so

even though I thought Start Me Up was

okay, and Waiting on a Friend was okay,

you know, I I just really gave up on the

Stones at that point. I really did. Just

gave up on them. The band's final show

of the European tour in July 1982 would

be their last bona fide concert for 7

years.

Just as some of fans were now tiring of

the Stones metamorphosis into a

corporate machine, internally tensions

had continued to grow.

Yet despite their differences, in

November they did return to Paris to

begin work on new material.

Almost a year later, the first single

from these sessions emerged, Undercover

of the Night. Often still accused of

working on autopilot, Jagger again

proved that he was taking music

seriously and provided his first

political lyrics since the late '60s.

This time focusing on the US-backed

right-wing regimes and death squads in

Central and South America.

Yet despite the controversial subject

matter, it was only a moderate success.

It's not so much a return to

Jagger writing about politics cuz he

hardly ever wrote about politics. You

know, the the Street Fighting Man

stands out and and and Sympathy for the

Devil perhaps to a lesser extent. Um but

it's it's it's virtually new territory

for him. He's clearly

aroused by what is going on in Central

and Southern America and how it's become

a new theater for the Cold War to be

played out and in particular for the

the kind of duplicity and hypocrisy of

of of of what the Americans are are

doing there.

Uh and I think it's a tremendously

brave track.

He had to scream the center farther too.

Loud enough to bust her brains out.

The fish's tongue is cut in two.

Keep off the street cuz you're in

danger.

One of the things that Jagger is doing

on this album is telling stories, I mean

there's another song about this

horrendous story

from Paris about this Japanese guy who

who kills and and eats his girlfriend.

Uh and that is

you know, this this kind of newspaper

story style of writing, but on on the

track Undercover, he's he's clearly

doing something else, you know. Uh

it's not a newspaper report of what's

going on. He's taking sides in there and

you know, there are lines there about

these dirty little GI Joes and so on and

so forth. Um

So yeah, it was a brave song to write.

Undercover of the Night is fabulous.

And it certainly

keeps Keith fans happy.

Some great work by Keith on that.

But also Mick wrote a very serious song.

So certainly at that time

uh Ronald Reagan's support for some of

the right-wing death squads

in Latin America was controversial.

And Jagger talks about it.

It it was a high-quality song, but it

wasn't

remotely

lyrically commercial.

Who wants to

hear

about

a controversial part of a popular

president's foreign policy?

It's the first time the Stones have

really felt

not just older, but old. And and they

it's unfortunate it should have happened

to them

on a good record.

But

that was the year when all of these

groups of the second British invasion

happened at the same time. Wham with

George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley,

Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Culture

Club with Boy George.

Uh and and they

And so suddenly uh

the Rolling Stones are clearly for

adults, not for young people.

Released in November 1983 into this new

marketplace dominated by a fresh

generation of mainstream acts, the album

Undercover failed to ignite the charts.

Reaching only number four in the US, it

broke a streak of eight consecutive

number one studio albums. And even in

that less progressive marketplace, the

band finally seemed to be losing their

commercial hold.

In the modern musical climate the Stones

seemed decidedly old hat. Later Rolling

Stones records like Undercover, I mean

the issue finally becomes production.

Some of the production trends of the

1980s in particular are very

identifiable. You know, to this day. I

mean if you listen to a Hall & Oates

record from back then, you know, Hall &

Oates made a lot of great songs. But you

know, to hear them now

you know, you're just kind of going you

know,

it bothers you, you know, it's just

you're trying too hard. You know, there

was a concern about getting on the

radio. There was a sense of you know,

MTV coming along and and altering the

landscape in that way and you know, how

are we relevant now to this new

generation and

you know, the Stones are at their best I

think when they trust themselves and

don't worry about that stuff too much,

you know, and um I think you can hear

them

uh on Undercover on that album in

particular worrying about that stuff.

Undercover was a mixing desk album. It

wasn't a Mick and Keith album. It was a

mixing desk album. It really did seem

like old people playing with young

people's toys and

they were clueless. I don't think they

particularly like the new music, but

they felt this is all they can do. They

were all

the Bowies, the Jaggers, the Neil

Youngs, the Dylans.

They couldn't really do much else. They

had to keep

relevant in some ways. Um

and you can sense that they don't really

like what they're doing, I don't think.

And I just get the sense that

they're not in the studio. They're just

handing it over to a bank of engineers

who will then do

we'll make it modern for you. It was

really that. It felt that cynical. It

sounded that cynical and I'm pretty sure

it was that cynical.

Still trying to compete with modern

acts, in this case artists like Michael

Jackson and Prince, with the singles for

this album, the Stones bravely entered

the new world of MTV.

Yet their appeal to a younger audience

was limited and the follow-up to

Undercover of the Night, She Was Hot,

failed to hit the top 40 on either side

of the Atlantic.

So She Was Hot becomes the first single

not to make

the top 40.

Which I suspect caused Jagger some

soul-searching.

The Stones are now moving away from that

youth market.

It's very difficult for

teenagers to

the singles-buying public to relate to

these guys who are now, you know, what,

40 years old? Um

in the same way that when the Stones and

the Beatles appeared in

the early '60s

um

the people who bought their records

weren't listening to Elvis Presley and

Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry. Uh I

mean, I know, I remember as a kid in the

1960s and and I thought people like

Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis were you

know, as old as my grandparents.

They weren't of course, you know, you

look back and you realize they were only

in their mid-30s probably.

So very hard for a kind of single buying

teenage market to

to relate to these these old guys in

their in their 40s.

Jagger of course still wants to relate

to all these young girls on the dance

floor and that's probably why he moves

off in the direction of the solo career

and she's the boss and he's trying to

reinvent the young Lothario figure and

possibly he realizes he's not going to

be able to make that reinvention at this

point in the context of the band. Yet

that reinvention would be impossible in

any context.

Despite signing a four-album deal with

CBS in 1983 for a record $28 million.

Like many of the other iconic acts of

the 1960s, for the Stones the 1980s was

a nightmare decade.

With the internal battles between Jagger

and Richards escalating, the greatest

rock and roll band in the world fell

apart at the seams.

It's catastrophic. Mick tries to

reinvent himself as a solo artist and

shed the baggage of the Stones which of

course he can't do.

Keith's problems are very well

documented.

Bill Wyman goes completely off the rails

chasing a 13-year-old girl who he ends

up marrying. I think she's probably 16

by the time of the nuptials but it all

started when she was 13 and he's you

know, 45 or whatever. And dear old

Charlie Watts who has

never had anything to do with the the

drug side of the Rolling Stones suddenly

in middle age decides to become a heroin

addict. So just a horrible period for

them. Ronnie Wood is in and out of

rehab.

And it really couldn't couldn't have

been couldn't have been worse.

Fortunately they survive it and uh

come out the other side.

Probably no longer able to make great

records and that's where they reinvent

themselves as the greatest live rock and

roll band in the world

just playing the old hits.

Actually, there was life after

Undercover. It It was not the end. It

was not the end. There were there were

there were things that lay up ahead um

that um that were

that showed that there was still

something if they could be if they when

they were bothered to sit down and work

hard and

and uh

re-reestablish contact with their muse

that they could still pull something out

of a hat.

Yet the period of activity between 1975

and 1983 remains their last significant

era as a recording act.

Despite criticisms that they were both

chasing trends and treading water, they

nevertheless experimented, found fresh

sources of inspiration, and succeeded in

producing lasting music that will

continue to be discovered by new

generations of fans. I think in terms of

how good the music is they were dealing

with impossibly inflated expectations

that nobody could have fulfilled.

And that in retrospect their craft

um

got them through as did

their willingness to experiment which

happens even on Black and Blue even if

the experiment was forced on them. The

level of craft means that they produce a

more than respectable body

of songs and enduring music.

So I think that this

that this output dismissed though it is

is a pretty impressive

testament to

how good they are.

I think it's fair to say that you know,

Some Girls and Tattoo You were probably

the last two Rolling Stones albums that

really kind of you know, fully addressed

the moment, you know, are important

records that are about that time and

also you know, find the Rolling Stones

kind of driving some of the things that

are going on rather than sort of chasing

them. Past that point it seems as almost

as if the Rolling Stones kind of live in

their own universe. You know, they make

a record you know, whatever every three

or five years. You know, there's almost

always good things on those records. Are

those records that shape that time,

define it? Not really.

But you know, are they quality

listenable albums? For the most part

they are. You know, the Stones as a live

band to me still are terrifically

exciting. In a funny way that is a kind

of relevance.

But you know, as far as you know, the

songs

you know, track like Start Me Up or

track like Miss You that really seems to

both be timeless and so much of its

time. You know, the Stones have not been

able to do that really since then.