Shine a Light

Exile on Main St.
Side Four, Track Three
"Shine a Light" – 4:14



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I've always heard "Shine a Light" as a fairly typical example of a soul-inflected ballad, no more musically interesting than, say, "Let It Be" or "Take It to the Limit". I never really understood the amount of attention the song attracted—compared to most of the tracks on Exile or any of the ballads on Sticky Fingers, "Shine a Light" is unremarkable.

There is a lot of confusion over who played what on this track. I was going to do some research to clear that up, but it's just not worth it for this vanilla track. I can say that Billy Preston is the man on the B3 (moonlighting from his gig at the time over at Abbey Road Studios), and who was perhaps asked to use his extensive gospel background to help arrange the song.

I Got the Blues

Sticky Fingers
Track 7
"I Got the Blues" – 3:54



I'd forgotten that Sticky Fingers was such a ballad oriented album – "Sway", "Wild Horses", and now "I Got the Blues".

I'd also forgotten what a great song this is – a letter-perfect ripoff of an Otis Redding soul balled, complete with a Steve Cropper arpeggio into, B3 solo (by Billy Preston, moonlighting from his gig over at Abbey Road Studios), and Otis horns (by the previously dissed – regretfully, may I add – Bobby Keys and Jim Price). In an earlier entry I wrote that there comes a point when commitment turns into caricature, when homage turns into parody. It's easy to understand how someone could think that "I Got the Blues" maybe crossed the line, but I'm inclined to give the Stones a break here. Unlike some of their other attempts to mimic their heroes and influences, this track is notable for how well it is executed – not only did they manage to write a song Otis could have sung, they played it pretty much exactly the way he would have recorded it.

Here they are performing the song live at the Marquee Club in London on March 26, 1971. Otis had been dead for three years.

That's Life/Out Of Space (live)

Rolling Stones & Billy Preston
"That's Life/Out Of Space" (live)
LA Forum, July 11, 1975





A friend sent me this clip. I am literally speechless. Make sure you watch the dance-off at the 6 minute mark.