The Scene

It’s been so long since the last great Stones album. So long that every time they release a new one, people make a big deal over how long it’s been. The point is more that most bands don’t even last this long, let alone continue making albums along the way and at this stage in their career, the Stones can do whatever they bloody well please.

But God it’s good to have them back with the blues again…

The story is they waltzed on into the studio, everybody all chummy enough to write new tunes, but couldn’t get started (if you start me up…), couldn’t get the fire burning. So somebody, apparently Keef, says let’s just cut some old blues and get the juices flowing that way. A few days later the feeling had overtaken them and they had a complete album’s worth of tracks, all covers of old blues numbers, which they figured was better than the album they were otherwise half-arsing anyway. Ka-ching, put it in the bank.

I’m assuming I wasn’t the only one waiting patiently for the Stones to have their Johnny Cash Moment. I’ve gotta imagine it was more like a parallel thought that I somehow tuned into through the wandering ether or whatever. The thing is, I don’t hate their last twenty years’ worth of music – I’m actually way more up on A Bigger Bang and Bridges to Babylon and Steel Wheels than most people are. There are some quality songs in there. Nothing transcendent and not without some filler but a few good songs nonetheless. Worthy enough additions to the latter discography. And I’ll say I honestly consider Voodoo Lounge to be a… wait for it… a *good* album. Obviously lacking a bit of Bill Wyman, so it goes.

Now here we are, the fabled return to the sound that got them started. With a whole lot more polish and, admittedly, a more cohesive band but still, the return to the roots, the closing of the career circle. Well… sort of…

The Songs

1. Just Your Fool – I'm just your fool, can't help myself/I love you baby, and no one else/I ain't crazy, you are my baby/I'm just your fool
2. Commit a Crime – You mixed my drinks/With a can of Red Devil lye/Then you sit back and watch me/Hopin’ that I would die
3. Blue and Lonesome – I’m gonna cast myself off/Down in the deep blue sea/Where the whales and fishes/Have no fuss over me
4. All of Your Love – All your love, baby don't put around/All your love, baby don't put around/Love is one thing baby/You won't find on the ground
5. I Gotta Go – Leavin' in the morning/Baby I know I got to go/Leavin' in the morning/Baby you know I got to go/I've got the blues/And I can't stay here no more
6. Everybody Knows About My Good Thing – Call the plumber darling/There must be a leak in my drain/It seems like everybody/Everybody knows about my good thing
7. Ride ‘Em On Down – Done stop dealing, I believe I’ll ride ‘em on down/Well I done stopped dealing, I believe I’ll ride 'em on down
8. Hate to See You Go – Came home this mornin' about half past four/Found that note lyin' on my floor/Gone away, leave you, you just don't know/Heard some bad talk, somethin' that you said/Somethin’ that you said/Somethin’ that you said
9. Hoo Doo Blues – She takes all my money and spends it all over town/And when I want to love her, man, she can’t be found
10. Little Rain – The little flowers bloomin', little birds keep-a singin' tune/ I would like to love ya baby, underneath the shinin' moon
11. Just Like I Treat You – Some say you will/Some say you won't/Some say you do/Some say you don't/But I know/I know what you will do/You’re gotta treat me baby, just like I treat you
12. I Can’t Quit You Baby – I can't quit you, baby/So I’m gonna put you down for awhile

The Vibe

This is not their Johnny Cash Moment. There’s no starkness here. There’s no weariness or mortal wistfulness. That’s the thing about Johnny Cash’s American Record lot, he sounds so damn old. By the third or fourth one he’s at death’s door and by the last one he was singing from beyond the grave. Those things have become the archetypal late-career resurgence model but the Stones were always ones to do their own things (by way of Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry).

See this album… they don’t sound old at all, mate. Keith Richards turned 73 a couple weeks after B&L was released but the band haven’t sounded this young and energised in flippin’ years. The reason for that is a fellow who just had himself his eighth kid recently – the child actually younger than his great-granddaughter. Mick Jagger, if you haven’t been reading the entertainment section. He’s the star of this show and it’s a wonder to bear aural witness to.

Hey this is a band we’re talking about though, it ain’t a one-man effort. And a superb band too, always one of the better rock and roll bands and years of touring has left them with a near psychic understanding of each other. Like one thing that people often forget is that sure, Ronnie Wood wasn’t an original member like the other three but he’s been in the band for 41 years now – Brian Jones lasted eight and Mick Taylor six, while Bill Wyman himself was only with them for 31. They know how to jam and they’re as tight as they come. Plus these guys have an outstanding taste in the classics and while there are plenty of Chicago Blues tunes I’d also like to hear them strut through, they don’t make a misstep in these selections.

They breeze from track one to track twelve, it’s always a pleasure. Being a covers album there’s obviously not much at stake and with that the album does have a shrugging sense to it. They conjured it up in three days, what did you expect? The arrangements are all standard, nothing out of the box at all, they play them the way the originals played them.

But that’s kind of the appeal of Blue & Lonesome. For a band that once existed fiercely on the edge, their last couple decades have been mostly about prestige. They’ve earned the right to tour the world and make millions, unleashing box set after reissue after box set however to get something so spontaneous from the lads is like a reminder of how great they really are in behind all the artifice. Of course it’s still commercial, any Stones album is commercial. This sucker went straight to the top of the album charts. Yet in a way it’s almost inadvertently commercial, the only reason these recordings exist, the only reason they pressed the big red button in the studio, is the love of the music and the equal love for playing it. That impulsive joy is what pulses through the veins of the record and it’s something we haven’t heard since… Tattoo You? Jokes, no comparisons here. Just love it for what it is.

The Music

The funny thing is, if you’d said a year ago that this album was gonna happen, I’d have thought to myself: ‘Yes, Keith won!’… except the album’s not about him at all. He’s gone all the way back into his rhythm days. There’s no need for crunching riffs to lead the show here so he’s nestled beautifully back within the groove. A groove that’s built by the legend that is Charlie Watts and his impeccably jazz timing with Ronnie Wood doing what he always does – a sly fact is that those late-80s and 90s albums were largely held together by Woody’s guitar, so don’t go claiming he’s not integral. Touring members like Chuck Leavell and Darryl Jones fill out the rest of it, while Eric Clapton pops by for a couple of feature solos. He’d been recording next door so it was all a convenient coincidence. Specifically, Slowhand plays the slide on ‘Everybody Knows About My Good Thing’ and a blistering lead on ‘I Can't Quit You Baby’.

There are some pretty famous songs here and some wonderful forgotten tracks but ICQYB is the most well-known. Otis Rush’s original is incendiary and brilliant, one of the absolute classics of the Chicago cannon while Led Zeppelin cut a version on their debut album too.

Clapton doesn’t exactly stand out though. You might not even know it’s him unless you’re a sucker for liner notes and guitar tone. That’s because of the same thing with Keith, Blue & Lonesome is definitely a pure blues album but it’s the rhythm that thrives. All of which lays the platform for the best Jagger performance since he decided it was a good idea to cut his first solo album.

Ol’ Big Lips is a marvel here. With everyone else fitting in, he’s allowed to stand out. The voice sounds great, whooping and hollering around the place with passion and vigour. Plus he even gets the harmonica out for an extended run, blessedly. Keith Richards is on record as saying Mick’s the greatest blues harpist that England ever produced and why the hell not? The bugger can blow a tune alright. About time he dusted that guy off.

There’s a heavy Little Walter theme to the songs too. A third of them were originally recorded by him, not really a surprise then that Jagger gets to blow some harp. Little Walter, for the ignorant amongst you, was pretty much the greatest blues harpist to come out of Chess Records. There are some legends that preceded him and one or two that followed but in the late 1950s Little Walter was king. The man revolutionised the harmonica. Typical bluesman though, he died in his sleep after getting into one too many fights on the road aged only 37.

There’s a Howlin’ Wolf song in ‘Commit A Crime’, far from the first time they’ve covered the great man – they had a number one UK hit in 1964 with ‘Little Red Rooster’ - but this one’s new for them. Magic Sam also makes an appearance for ‘All of Your Love’ – he died of a heart attack at 32 cutting short a burgeoning career but his two completed albums, ‘West Side Soul’ and ‘Black Magic’ are five star classics of the genre.

Put it this way, there’s not a dud among them.

Revelations

Being the blues in which people lift and borrow elements from song to song, it’s always hard to put an exact authorship on any tune but since they keep arrangements pretty faithful, that makes it easier to do this:

1. Just Your Fool – Little Walter
2. Commit a Crime – Howlin’ Wolf
3. Blue and Lonesome – Little Walter
4. All Your Love – Magic Sam
5. I Gotta Go – Little Walter
6. Everybody Knows About My Good Thing – Little Johnny Taylor
7. Ride ’Em On Down – Eddie Taylor
8. Hate to See You Go – Little Walter
9. Hoo Doo Blues – Lightnin’ Slim
10. Little Rain – Jimmy Reed
11. Just Like I Treat You – Howlin’ Wolf
12. I Can’t Quit You Baby – Otis Rush

The Guardian did a list of them with videos and everything. Here ya go.

Willie Dixon: “Magic Sam had a different guitar sound. Most of the guys were playing the straight 12-bar blues thing, but the harmonies that he carried with the chords was a different thing altogether. This tune "All Your Love", he expressed with such an inspirational feeling with his high voice. You could always tell him, even from his introduction to the music.”

This is the first album since ‘Dirty Work’ in which Jagger doesn’t play guitar and the first since ‘It’s Only Rock and Roll’ where Richards doesn’t sing.

By the way, Blue & Lonesome was recorded almost a year before it was released, so they kept that quiet. Would’ve been a few touch ups to take care of in post-production (even if it doesn’t sound like it) and they’ve gone hard with a very particular promotional campaign too. That can take a bit of time, I guess.

“This album is manifest testament to the purity of their love for making music, and the blues is, for the Stones, the fountainhead of everything they do.” Don Was, Co-Producer of ‘Blue & Lonesome’

Can’t say I’m a huge fan of the album art but I do dig the overall blue theme and the video that they chucked up with Kristen Stewart is magnificent. She’s having a bit of a moment herself, ain’t she?

That’s a 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback, in case you were wondering.

Finale

Ah, I really love this. No grand artistic statements, no personalities getting in the way, no over the top production, no dramas and no worries. Just the blues and lots of it. Specifically the Chicago stuff (with a few like-minded varieties), all the music they were listening to as they formed the band. No Robert Johnson covers either, maybe we’ll get the Mississippi Delta collection next time.

Blue & Lonesome is simple and enjoyable. Good old fashioned songs played by a band as tight as they come, hitting every turnaround with a smile and a wink. When a so-called legacy artist goes out there to perform their greatest hits to a hundred thousand people they’re supposed to sound like themselves. Which is why it’s fun for once to hear the Stones trying to sound like someone else, or at least letting things happen naturally rather than Mick Jagger doing a Mick Jagger impersonation. Mick Jagger doing Howlin’ Wolf meets Magic Sam is way cooler.

You’re probably kidding yourself if you think this is the last great Stones album though. It almost doesn’t feel like a Stones album at all, given what we’re used to. Not that it matters, it’s also their first proper blues album after always trending towards the rock and roll side of things when they were younger. They did their Howlin’ Wolf and their Jimmy Reed (as indeed they do here) but they probably drew more from Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. Nothing at all wrong with that, just saying it as I see it. It’s a return to the blues but it’s also their first opening track to close fully complete blues album.

It’s nice to see a band over 50 years in still trying new things.