Stop Breaking Down

Exile on Main St.
Side Four, Track Two
"Stop Breaking Down" (Robert Johnson) – 4:34



[Download link]

I read Greil Marcus's Mystery Train at an impressionable age. You all know the book, I won't recap it for you. One of the things Marcus did was turn me off blues music performed by white people. He didn't do this intentionally—much of Mystery Train discusses how Randy Newman, The Band, and especially Elvis incorporated blues into their best work. But by doing so he highlighted the fact that the best work by these artist incorporated blues, changed it, used it to create something entirely new.

I've talked here about the many limp Stones attempts at blues. I've mostly framed my comments within the "what is gained by having the Stones perform 'I Can't Be Satisfied' when I can just as easily hear Muddy Waters play it?" argument. Typing this up, I was going to address the "cultural theft" issue, but it's not even necessary—there is simply no value-added by a Stones blues shuffle when so many performances by authentic blues giants are easily available. It's like hearing about a new John Mellencamp album—do we really need this?

It seems that by Let It Bleed the Stones started thinking the same way. Or at least that's how it appears. They started taking fewer passes at traditional-style blues and more attempts at incorporating the blues to create something new: they did blues-as-rock, blues-as-country, and blues-as-opera. On "Stop Breaking Down", they reach back to some real deep blues roots—it doesn't get much deeper than Robert Johnson—and just rock the shit out of it. In spite of what I said in my last post, this song truly captures the sprawl, the reach, the ambition of Exile.

I'll leave the last word for Greil Marcus, who ruined so many Led Zeppelin songs for me, placing "Stop Breaking Down" at the number one spot in his top 5 Robert Johnson songs performed by rock artists.

This was the fifth straight LP on which the Stones included a country blues, but the first album on which they approached country blues as rock 'n' roll—perhaps because in sound and spirit the rest of the album approached rock 'n' roll as country blues. Exile was a nice tour of morgues, courthouses, sinking ships, claustrophobic rooms, deserted highways; the whole album was a breakdown, one long night of fear. Johnson's hottest bragging song gave the Stones a chance to blow the fear away. With Mick squeaking his harp, calling for chorus after chorus, this stands as one of the Stones' best.

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It occurred to me that I hadn't listed to Robert Johnson's original in some time. Here it is. Stuff I got'll bust your brains out, baby, it'll make you lose your mind. That's some good bragging music right there.

Ventilator Blues

Exile on Main St.
Side Three, Track Three
"Ventilator Blues" (Jagger, Richards, Mick Taylor) – 3:24




[Download link]

Hey, Mick Taylor gets a writing credit! Bet he was happy about that, eh?

Wikipedia:

"Ventilator Blues" marks the first and only time guitarist Mick Taylor would be given credit alongside regular Stones scribes Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. While his exact amount of input is unknown, Taylor's contribution of the song's opening slide riff is considered the main reason he was given the credit, as it drives the song.

"Lumbering" is I guess the word you'd use to describe the song. The jerky rhythm always sounded like one of Tom Waits's existential blues recordings from Bone Machine.

There really isn't anything notable about the song apart from Jagger, who is in full Mick Jagger mode, double-tracked for even more Jaggery goodness.

Shake Your Hips

Exile on Main St.
Side One, Track Three
"Shake Your Hips" (Slim Harpo) – 2:59




[Save link]

Kind of a proto-ZZ Top shuffle via John Lee Hooker on the one. The Stones attack the blues from many different directions on Exile, but on "Hips" they meet the blues head on – something they haven't done in a while (maybe since "Parachute Woman"). I was never a big fan of this track, but now I'm starting to hear some things that escaped me before: Charlie's clickity clackity percussion work; Mick's echo-drenched vocal; Keith's chugging open-G rhythm work.

"Shake Your Hips" is a song closely associated with its composer, Slim Harpo (né James Moore). Swear to god, until this moment, I thought the songs was one of those ancient delta blues songs, but it turns out that Harpo first performed it in 1966, only three years before the Stones recorded it using his arrangement. Take a listen:

You Gotta Move

Sticky Fingers
Track 5
"You Gotta Move" (Fred McDowell/Rev. Gary Davis) – 2:34



This is the old blues number "You Got to Move", recorded by any number of artists over the years and on YouTube, but associated primarily with its "composer" Mississippi Fred McDowell. Composer in quotes – it's hard to know if anyone actually composed any particular blues song, since so many of the melodies and lyrics were floating around in the public domain and had a habit of turning up over and over again in different songs. Anyway, the Stones took a crack at it for some reason, with Mick Taylor on the 12-string playing slide and Mick Jagger singing in blackface.

Anyway, enough about the Stones. Back in high school, their version led me indirectly to the version by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, a gospel group whose career stretches back to the depression, who spent a lot of time on my turntable over the last two decades. This is the second time Blogging the Stones has come across the group (previously on "The Last Time"), and I've got two songs lined up for you today. Here they are singing "You Got To Move" (click title to download).



Here they are singing one of my favourite gospel compositions, "Here Am I":

Midnight Rambler

Let It Bleed
Track 6
"Midnight Rambler" – 6:57





The Stones little "blues opera", as Keith called it. This is of course the studio version, over time less familiar than the live version from Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! that is featured on every Stones compilation. Listening to it today, I was struck by how much smaller it sounded than the live version, how timid the band sounds. Not to say it is a bad track – it is probably the best example of the Stones playing straight blues in the studio. But it is yet another example of a song that was maybe recorded too quickly, and would have benefited from the experience of live performances to really get to know the strengths of the song.

Love in Vain

Let It Bleed
Track 2
"Love in Vain" (Robert Johnson) – 4:22




Not the first time the Stones perform a blues as if it was a country song. This would prove to be fertile creative territory not just for them, but dozens of other artists who were perhaps uneasy at the thought of appropriating another culture.



The folkie-influenced "authenticity" movement had its day, but now some artists were tired of performing blues in blackface, and wanted to put their own creative spin on the art form. It was an interesting twist, and several artists, from Van Morrison to Gram Parsons to Lyle Lovett, produced some of their greatest music by exploring the territory. As George Carlin reminds us, it was a losing proposition overall, and in general white people were content to stand on stage and mimic their blues heroes without any artistic ambitions beyond homage. That is no way for a genre as powerful as the blues to end up. A fucking sacrilege indeed.

I have always given credit to Mick and Keith and the rest of the guys for breathing new life into the body of this dying art form. It was a brave move. While Cream and Zeppelin and all the other bands of the era were content to tread water, the Stones continued to search for ways to honour their heroes appropriately.

BB King - You're Losin' Me (nonstones)

BB King
Completely Well
"You're Losin' Me"




Download here.

1969 saw the release of BB King's last great collection of songs, Completely Well. The idea behind the album was to combine BB King's straight blues singing and guitar playing with contemporary soul and funk arrangements. Unlike many of these types of experiments, it worked out great. The most well known track on the album, "The Thrill Is Gone", mixed King's slashing single-string work and his impassioned vocals with a low-key soul backing, including some Motown-like strings.

My favourite track however was "You're Losin' Me", which re-imagines a typical BB King cheatin' blues as a funk song. The standout is some nimble bass work by session player Jerry Jemmott, who has played with virtually every important soul and R&B artist in the 60s and 70s, but is in my Bassist Hall of Fame simply for playing on "Memphis Soul Stew".

Factory Girl

Beggars Banquet
Track 9
"Factory Girl" – 2:12



A terrific melody that must have sounded classic the moment it came off Keith's guitar. A neat, old timey arrangement with minimal percussion (including the return of Rocky Dijon!), some mandolin courtesy of Dave Mason, and viola care of Rick Grech.

So the question that keeps popping up in my head: why do these tunes sound so good, while the band's previous attempts at blues sound so bad? Part of the answer must be that I am partial to the more traditional arrangements they used on this album over the Chicago style the Stones used on their first few albums. Another part of the answer is surely Mick, who sounded so tentative on those early tracks and so self-assured on these. Compare his slurring delivery on "Factory Girl" with his earlier "Little Red Rooster":



The band also sounds more confident. But I think it's Mick that really gives authority to these songs on this album.

Parachute Woman

Beggars Banquet
Track 4
"Parachute Woman" – 2:23



Excuse the video.

The Stones go back to the traditional blues for this one, something they haven't done for a while. The instrumentation is stripped down: an acoustic, standup bass, some harp. The Stones recorded the track directly onto a two-track cassette deck, which resulted in the murky mix. (They later added some overdubs in the studio – there appears to be another bass that drops in and out, along with another harp.) I read that the murkiness was more or less a conscious decision, part of their new "getting back to their roots" philosophy, and while it produced great music on the rest of the album, the results are a little less exciting here.

I guess it's the "parachute woman" theme that's bothering me. The Stones were setting out to deliberately re-create the atmosphere of those old depression-era blues recordings they loved, and to my ears they mostly succeeded. But "parachute woman" rings false to me – I just can't imagine Charlie Patton or John Hurt singing those words.

However, that is a minor complaint. Like I said, the song was a mostly successful recreation of a traditional blues, and there's no shame in that.

Doncha Bother Me

Aftermath (USA version)
Side 1, Track 5
"Doncha Bother Me" – 2:41



Yet another blues shuffle, this time featuring a supremely annoying slide figure that repeats just often enough to make me reach for the fast forward button.

Yes, that is an anachronism.

I have to get this out of the way: a friend challenged my objectivity, claiming that I liked maybe four or five of the 91 Stones songs I have gone through. It has to be more than that – I've liked every chuck Berry number, and the Stones have at least five of those alone, right? But more to the point, I would like a lot more of the Stones' material if they avoided these pointless blues exercises. I suppose a case could be made that they served a higher purpose once – i.e. bringing the music of rural black American musicians to jaded white hipsters – but blues music today (certainly blues music performed by white British musicians) is merely a cliche, and I am not inclined to cut these people any slack, even retroactively.

Now edited for grammer and spleling. Note to self: CTRL-P = Post, CTRL-D = Draft.

Little Red Rooster

The Rolling Stones, Now!
Side 2, Track 5
"Little Red Rooster" (Willie Dixon) – 3:05




I'll just say it: Mick is the worst blues singer that ever lived. Okay? Got it? Can we move on to something better now, please?

God damn it, I thought I was done with these.

I Can't Be Satisfied

The Rolling Stones No.2
Side 2, Track 3
"I Can't Be Satisfied" (McKinley Morganfield) – 3:26

A note-for-not duplicate of Muddy Waters' original. Compare the two versions:






Now, tell me: was there anything to be gained by recording this song? Did the Stones add anything, either to the song or to the world in general?

So, not only did the Rolling Stones take their name from Muddy Waters, not only did they take one of his best songs from him, but they also used that song as the basis for their biggest hit.[*]

[* Okay, a stretch. I can't be satisfied? I can't get no satisfaction? Big difference.]



Image courtesy of Micah Lopez.

Grown Up Wrong (again)

The Rolling Stones No.2
Side 1, Track 6
"Grown Up Wrong" (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards) – 1:50





A wonderfully evocative blues shuffle, capturing the full depth of emotion inherent in the form. But the spiritual profundity should not overshadow the technical precision displayed by the musicians, which reveals a whole new layer of meaning.... All right, that's enough. It's April Fools Days, which apparently means that everyone has to write a terrible joke post of some kind. I think I fulfilled my duty.

I think this recording of "Grown Up Wrong" is the same version as the one released on 12 x 5. I don't have much more to add to my previous post except to note once again how sloppy the Stones' blues recordings are, especially the background vocals which never come in on time and the slide guitar which only occasionally hits the note it wants to.

There are some people out there who would claim that sloppiness is a virtue when it comes to the blues, and to those people I only have two words to say, one of which rhymes with "fuck" and the other with "you". There's a big difference between the claim that technical proficiency is irrelevant in the blues, and the claim that sloppiness is something to be desired. I think a lot of people are mistaking sloppiness for authenticity – but that is a rant for another post.

UPDATE: It was bugging me that this song reminded me of another song, and I finally placed it:

Okay, I guess they aren't all that similar.


Image courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The Rolling Stones with DJ Stan Rofe, Palais Theatre, St Kilda, February 1965.
Caption reads

Following in the wake of The Beatles, the Rolling Stones first performed in Australia in 1965. Publicist Andrew Loog Oldham moulded the band's image, selling them as the rebellious alternative to the clean-cut Beatles.

What a Shame

The Rolling Stones No.2
Side 1, Track 5
"What a Shame" (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards) – 3:03





Another blues shuffle. At some point they stopped doing these, right? I mean, I'm not going to have to listen to 27 more albums of this stuff, am I?


Image courtesy of this forum, and dates to the time of this album's release. The caption reads:

The Stones' performance at the ABC Theatre in Belfast on January 6, 1965. It was all smiles backstage, but when the curtain went up, the group were bombarded with dangerous objects as the crowd's enthusiasm threatened to get out of control.

Grown Up Wrong

12 x 5
Side 2, Track 4
"Grown Up Wrong" (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards) – 2:05





Another blues shuffle, but this one with a moderately interesting chorus. This site claims that the song has never been performed live, so it's safe to assume that "Grown Up Wrong" grew out of a studio jam, recorded merely to pad the album out to LP length.

Like most of the other Stones songs at this stage of their career, "Grown Up Wrong" features those sloppy background vocals that never come in on time. I can't help but compare these guys to the Beatles, who, by the time of their second album, not only produced more sophisticated compositions, but also recorded filler that was much more interesting than the likes of "Grown Up Wrong", and additionally took pride in their precise background vocal parts. Compare the Stones' song above to, say, "All I've Got To Do", which served a similar purpose on the Beatles' second album. Note how even on an obvious filler track, the Beatles took care to come up with a relatively intricate arrangement.

Good Times, Bad Times

12 x 5
Side 1, Track 5
"Good Times, Bad Times" (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards) – 2:30




Another 8-bar blues, this one with minimal instrumentation -- Keith on a 12-string acoustic, Brian Jones with some harmonica support, and someone slapping a drum (or a cardboard box). It's a very low-key outing, with Mick singing the melody very softly, and although Keith's guitar work is very busy it isn't ostentatious. I'm guessing he was going for a Leadbelly feel, and now that I think of it, the whole thing sounds like a Leadbelly-style blues.

Confessin' the Blues

12 x 5
Side 1, Track 2
"Confessin' the Blues" (Jay McShann/Walter Brown) – 2:47




This is the old Jay McShann blues song that everybody on earth has taken a stab at, and even here you can see why: the lyrics are pretty good and it has an interesting melody. Like most of the blues songs they've covered, the Stones are unable to do anything interesting with "Confessin'", although they are able to avoid embarrassing themselves (except for the harp player – why is he in the band again?).

Okay, I have to say it: white musicians should probably avoid playing blues music, and this is exhibit A as to why. There is nothing particularly offensive about the Stones' performance – this isn't just a case of one culture ripping off another. But as this track proves, white musicians are simply unable to do anything interesting with the blues, and thereby commit the worst sin for a performer: they are boring.

You Can Make It if You Try

England’s Newest Hitmakers

Side 2, Track 5

"You Can Make It If You Try" (Ted Jarrett) – 2:01



A much more convincing display of the Stones early R&B abilities, taking on this obscure (to me, anyway) 8-bar blues. Mick sounds more at home here than he did on "Honest I Do", and although the out-of-time percussion distracted me, the absence of the annoying harp solos which marred many of the other blues numbers on this album make up for that.

I'm a King Bee

England’s Newest Hitmakers

Side 2, Track 1

"I'm a King Bee" (James Moore) – 2:35

You know, I totally forgot about the near endless parade of mundane blues shuffles that typified the Stones early career. MAKE IT STOP! At least these recordings have the virtue of being short, unlike the Jimmy Page marathons that we'd all have to put up with later in the decade – by which time, the Stones had moved on to more productive applications of their talent.

(Or had they? I don't remember much straight blues on the Let It Bleed/Exile heyday – but then again, I didn't remember this much blues on the debut album, which was once a favourite of mine.)

The most important part about this track is the ludicrous slidey bass part, which at least adds a comedy element.

Little by Little

England’s Newest Hitmakers

Side 1, Track 6

"Little by Little" (Nanker Phelge, Phil Spector) – 2:39

Another generic blues workout. Maybe I'm jaded now, but I can't hear this song as anything but filler – the Nanker Phelge/Phil Spector co-writing credit gives a little support to the idea that nobody is taking this too seriously. Keith throws in a respectable solo (his guitar sounds great here) and Brian Jones throws in another dull harp break. I can't believe I used to love this album – how did I forget about the near-endless boring blues/rock tunes?

I know it's unfair to compare anyone to the Beatles, but at this stage in their devlopement, they had filler a million times more interesting than stuff like "Little by Little" – their first album had great covers of "Anna", "Boys", and "A Taste of Honey". I'm only at the end of side 1, but I sure hope this album gets a lot more attenion-grabbing than "Little by Little".

A thought struck me: Keith takes his solo after the first chorus – is there any good song that has done that, ever? The only one I can think of now is The Sonics' "Have Love Will Travel".