Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Rolling Stones, The
Label: Polydor Records
Release: 2016
Length: 42:36
Rating: 4/5
Sure, a year has come full circle, and it’s been almost exactly a year since this album came out on December 2, 2016, but there’s no way we’re not putting it under the microscope, because the one and only The Rolling Stones are behind it. »Blue And Lonesome« is really a salute to the heroes of postwar Chicago blues – a tribute to the torchbearers of Chicago blues.
It’s worth stressing right off the bat that this time The Rolling Stones don’t come across as great lords with a seemingly untouchable personality cult, who can pretty much afford anything as individuals. Instead of the feeling that each of them can jet around the world in their own plane (and given the band’s myth by now, nobody would blink if you said a spaceship through the galaxy), »Blue And Lonesome« feels like it was recorded by a quintet with great camaraderie, a family of five musicians who are just starting out in their careers and want to prove themselves with all their heart. The playing they’ve pulled off in the studio this time is simply outstanding. The chemistry is rock solid and the album crackles with nostalgic sentiment; it really expresses the huge respect the band members have for their blues »deities.« The album has caught all the sonic color of organic juiciness, the tight, focused (performance) communication of the five, who complement each other in everything they do, and they pull it off throughout with incredible freshness and sensuality. Simple as that. The Rolling Stones haven’t had to prove themselves for a long time, so when they went into the studio they told themselves: »Let’s give ourselves over to pure enjoyment and »feeling«!« That’s it. That’s when things work best and pay off with the most conviction. The key is genuineness in what you do and authenticity in everything you take on. Eleven years after »A Bigger Bang« came out, the only honest thing to do is to deliver an album full of heart and authenticity. In the Stones’ case, not just toward themselves but also toward their forever unsatisfied hordes of fans, who had to wait a hell of a long time for this release.
The »always loose« guitars, that »wrecked« guitar sound, have been replaced, in the case of The Rolling Stoines, by incredibly precise concentration and focus in laying down the guitar phrases and all the other transitional finesse and solo flourishes. Jagger bursts with potent punch, full of unbridled emotion and passion, and Charlie Watts’ drums sound like they were lifted from some smoky nightclub on a Chicago street in 1930. In short: flawless. They sold their soul to the blues! Jagger’s harmonica is all over the album! Two guitar solos on the record were contributed by the venerable »Slowhand« Eric Clapton, who happened to be in the same studio as The Rolling Stones while they were recording this one in December 2015, working on his own material. The guys made very smart use of his services.
The Rolling Stomes took on a project this time that’s an imprint of their burning fire and huge enthusiasm, the kind that fatefully drives every young musician to become a musician. Somehow they woke the kid inside themselves again and got everything done in the studio with great heart and dedication. An album full of relaxed playing and an unbridled outpouring of big fun and studio pleasures. An album the band was surely hungry and thirsty for. According to the band, »Blue And Lonesome« is a warm-up for the upcoming new studio album, which will (finally) be full of new original material and whose release the band has been putting off for quite a while. This interim studio pit stop, a tribute to the blues legends, is surely a hugely welcome move, because it woke up feelings of fire and genuine emotion in the quintet. This is really the material the guys listened to in their tender years, older than they are themselves, or at least as old as the valiant seventy-somethings themselves. Once the essence of the blues giants’ legacy seeped into the veins and hearts of the quintet, they wrote a big chunk of rock’n’roll history, because with a platform like that they carried their rock’n’roll into many fields of their artistry. That became our everyday and something we can no longer imagine the word rock’n’roll without. Its essential, if not downright integral, element.
The Rolling Stones – Ride ‘Em On Down (official video):
Lineup
Mick Jagger – vocals, harmonica
Keith Richards – guitar
Ronnie Wood – guitar
Charlie Watts – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Eric Clapton – guitar on tracks 6 and 12
Darryl Jones – bass guitar
Chuck Laevell – keyboards
Matt Clifford – keyboards
Jim Keltner – percussion on track 9
Production
Don Was & The Glimmer Twins
Tracklist
1. Just Your Fool (orig. Buddy Johnson)
2. Commit a Crime (orig. Howlin’ Wolf)
3. Blue and Lonesome (orig. Little Walter)
4. All of Your Love (orig. Magic Sam)
5. I Gotta Go (orig. Little Walter)
6. Everybody Knows About My Good Thing (orig. Miles Grayson – Lermon Horton)
7. Ride ‘Em On Down (orig. Eddie Taylor)
8. Hate to See You Go (orig Little Walter)
9. Hoo Doo Blues (orig. Otis Hicks – Jerry West)
10. Little Rain (orig. Ewart G. Abner Jr. – Jimmy Reed)
11. Just Like I Treat You (orig. Willie Dixon)
12. I Can’t Quit You Baby (orig. Willie Dixon)
