50 Licks Page 27

  CHUCK LEAVELL: I’m from Alabama. I was born in Birmingham and wound up—we settled in Tuscaloosa when I was probably in the fourth or fifth grade. That’s where I got my musical start. Hey, roll Tide!

  The Stones play the Super Bowl at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, on February 5, 2006

  Chuck was not the only guy on tour who was a sports fan.

  CHUCK LEAVELL: The guys are all interested in sports. Of course, it tends to be more about soccer for them. Mick and Charlie in particular love cricket and watch the cricket matches all the time when we’re on tour. One of the things that fascinated me was, you got a lot of technical challenges to roll out this stage, throw it together, get all the equipment hooked up, be right on time for the television, do those songs to a particular time requirement, then break it apart and get the game back going. It was absolutely fascinating to do the rehearsals and see the precision all the people had to work with to make it come off right. It was a tremendous honor and so much fun being up there.

  DARRYL JONES: That was pure joy, pure terror. Somebody said to me, “I heard a billion people are going to be watching.” It was really special. I was hoping we got a good one and we did.

  And here’s an eyewitness account from a lucky Stones fan.

  KURT SCHWARZ: The NFL championship game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks was played in front of sixty-five thousand rabid American football fans and was reportedly televised to over one hundred million people worldwide. I was there, not for the game, but FOR THE STONES!

  First, a little background. A call went out about a month before the game for two thousand volunteers to “act” as an audience for the Don Mischer–produced extravaganza. Are you kidding me? My brother and I jumped at the opportunity to see the Stones for free in our hometown. The commitment was a serious one. We were subjected to a ton of downtime and waiting during over fourteen hours of rehearsal time spread out over two days. Believe me, it was worth it.

  During the dress rehearsal in Ford Field, Friday night before the game, we got the Rolling Stones, live, for a sound check and complete run-through including lighting, cameras, and pyro. How cool. They worked effortlessly through “Start Me Up,” “Rough Justice,” and “Satisfaction” three times. Twice in front of all of us and once with us sequestered in the tunnel leading to the field. What an amazing vibe with two thousand people waiting in the wings all rocking and bouncing to a sing-along of “Satisfaction.” Between takes, my brother and I got to meet a few of the very cool Stones crew (Thanks Shep!) and even got an autograph from Chuck Leavell.

  Now, on with the show! On a tongue-shaped stage designed exclusively for this event, the Stones ripped through their set. We watched the show from the lower right side of the lips, not our designated mandatory prerehearsed show position. But hey, after all, I’m a fan not a prop. No surprises, no special guests. Just pure rock ’n’ roll. Just the way it should be.

  THE STONES’ MUSIC POST TATTOO YOU

  Rolling Stones fan Matt Blankman has an annual ritual: to listen to all of the Stones’ albums in chronological order. We asked Matt to provide his perspective on the Stones’ recordings post 1981. Take it away, Matt!

  Tattoo You, the Stones’ 1981 album release, was largely a hodgepodge of outtakes, leftovers, and neglected tracks from previous album sessions. Associate producer Chris Kimsey dug into can after can of tapes, some of which dated all the way back to the Mick Taylor era and Goats Head Soup sessions of late 1972, and compiled the worthy tracks. Mick Jagger did the bulk of the work bringing them into the present, writing lyrics and melodies, recording vocals, and helping Kimsey shape the unruly stew into a unified album that sounded up to date. The result was a huge financial and critical success. Tattoo You is fully in a classic Rolling Stones vein and yet was ready for 1980s radio. The last Stones album to hit number one on the Billboard album chart, it’s also what is now generally thought of by critics and Stones fans alike as the last great Rolling Stones album.

  In the years since Tattoo You, Rolling Stones albums have all met a similar fate: lots of hype and attention at release, followed by reviews that breathlessly suggest that either a) it’s their best work since Some Girls or Exile on Main St. or b) it’s an embarrassment and they need to retire. For most fans, after running out the day of release to purchase any new Stones album, the initial excitement wears off within a few weeks, and albums such as Steel Wheels and Bridges to Babylon wind up gathering dust on the shelf while Sticky Fingers and Aftermath never leave the stereo for very long. Their album output in the three decades since Tattoo You may not live up to the brilliant standard they had created in the ’60s and ’70s, but these records all have their moments where the genius of the Rolling Stones fully shines through.

  The Stones would release two more albums without touring, Undercover (1983) and Dirty Work (1986). However neither has aged particularly well and very few of the tracks ever made their way to the band’s live sets or classic rock radio. The lead single from Undercover, the politically charged “Undercover of the Night,” stands out as one of their more successful attempts at updating their sound for the ’80s, as does Mick’s oddball “Too Much Blood.” There’s no new ground broken on the back-to-basics horny-schoolboy rock ’n ’roll romp “She Was Hot,” but that doesn’t stop it from working.

  Dirty Work saw the Mick and Keith feud of the 1980s at its zenith—Mick was absent from most of the album sessions. Made with then-hot producer of the moment Steve Lillywhite, the record suffers greatly from a dearth of good new Jagger/Richards songs. Ronnie Wood coaxed fellow British guitar hero Jimmy Page into playing lead on “One Hit (to the Body),” the only track that sounds remotely like a classic Stones single, but the production sounds terribly dated, with its 1980s “big drums” and female background vocalists. “Had It with You” is a lively, nasty rocker (and seemingly echoes Mick and Keith’s ongoing hostilities), but the lone track that truly transcends the album is Keith’s haunting, piano-driven ballad “Sleep Tonight,” with a guest appearance by Keith’s friend and sometime collaborator Tom Waits.

  Détente was in the air a few years later as Mick and Keith got back together, wrote a few dozen new songs, and the Stones reemerged in the summer of 1989 with Steel Wheels. Steel Wheels saw a little nostalgia in the mix, as “Blinded by Love” was an acoustic-based song that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a 1966 Stones platter. As for the singles from the album, “Mixed Emotions” (or as Keith reportedly called it, “Mick’s Emotions”) was an effective call to arms, the strident “Rock and a Hard Place” less so, but both seemed like a Rolling Stones simulation rather than the real thing. Far better was the lost love song “Almost Hear You Sigh,” originally written by Richards and Steve Jordan for the former’s solo debut album Talk Is Cheap, retooled slightly by Jagger for the Stones. However, the album’s most memorable track may be the sublime and delicate Richards-sung ballad that closes the album, “Slipping Away.” The band seems to agree, as it’s been in the concert repertoire ever since and was re-recorded for the partly live Stripped album in 1995.

  Bill Wyman decided to call it quits in 1993. But later that year they were back in the studio with producer Don Was working on Voodoo Lounge. The whiffs of nostalgia on Steel Wheels grew stronger on Voodoo Lounge, as Was tamped down Jagger’s desires to sound current in favor of a more classic Stones sound.

  Jagger groused about it afterward, but Was’s instincts were in sync with Stones fans. The lead single, “Love Is Strong,” seemingly owed a lot to Richards’s work with his X-Pensive Winos, but Jagger delivered a slinky, sexy vocal and strong harmonica work. Despite several slashing guitar workouts, once again, they were at their best with the quieter songs. “New Faces” was a surprising delight—a harpsichord-driven acoustic song about jealousy of a young rival suitor that could have come from Aftermath or Between the Buttons. Ronnie Wood broke out his pedal steel guitar for “The Worst,” featuring Keith’s gravelly, lived-in lead vocal and a gentle Celtic-country-ro
ck lilt. “Blinded by Rainbows” is a moving tale of a lost soul amid political and religious violence and strife made haunting by one of Jagger’s best vocal performances in years. Keith scored again with his second lead vocal of the album, the spooky, gritty “Thru and Thru,” seen by some as a message to the missing Wyman rather than to an errant lover. (Years later, the track was used on the seminal TV series The Sopranos, and the song quickly found its way back into the set list.) Voodoo Lounge lacks only a truly great rocker to join the pantheon of classic Stones albums.

  Jagger would get his wish to let the Stones experiment with more contemporary sounds a few years later with Bridges to Babylon. Don Was returned, but Jagger brought in the Dust Brothers (riding high after working with Beck on his breakthrough album Odelay) to give some tracks a more current sheen. The resulting album is a bit scattershot, despite some strong material. Jagger’s attempts to incorporate hip hop and electronic elements to the blues workouts and ballads he and Keith had written seem gimmicky and have not aged as well as the more straightforward tracks. The lead single “Anybody Seen My Baby?” cringe inducing fifteen years later, with the sample of rapper Biz Markie sticking out like a sore thumb.

  Nevertheless, the Stones still knew how to construct and execute a great track, as the terrific “Already Over Me” illustrates, featuring an expressive, sensitive vocal by Mick and beautiful guitar textures from Keith. “Flip the Switch” rocked at an absurdly fast clip and “Too Tight” was an unjustly neglected, driving barn burner buried near the end of the album. Other strong material, like “Saint of Me” and “Might as Well Get Juiced,” sound gummed up from the Dust Brothers overactive production. Keith protested that the more traditional takes of the bluesy “Juiced” blew the doors off the album version, and perhaps to reward his acceptance of Mick’s experiments, he was given three lead vocals on the album: including the gorgeous jazz ballad “How Can I Stop,” featuring jazz legend Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone.

  The band got back together in 2002 to record some new tracks for a greatest hits collection (Forty Licks) and tour. The tour was excellent, the new songs adequate but forgettable. (Quick—when was the last time you heard “Don’t Stop”?) It took until 2005 to get a new full-length studio album out of the Stones, and it was worth the wait. A Bigger Bang was the most natural, least forced album the band had made in decades. Critics were again quick to suggest it was the best Stones record since Tattoo You but this time they were probably right. It neither sounded like the Stones pretending to replay their glory years or aping current pop trends, it simply sounded like the Rolling Stones. “Rough Justice” and “Oh No, Not You Again” were strong, driving rock ’n’ roll tunes that showcased classic Stones swagger and “Back of My Hand” the best bit of pure blues they’d recorded in eons. “Biggest Mistake” is an enjoyable and darkly funny sadsack tale of lost love. “Let Me Down Slow” showed they could still write an exemplary pop song and “Streets of Love” was a lovely, shimmering ballad. Perhaps they were inspired by their friend Bob Dylan’s late-career comeback, but A Bigger Bang found the Rolling Stones at peace with being the Rolling Stones, simply making strong music together, without pretense or affectation.

  CHAPTER 50

  SHINE A LIGHT

  IN 2006, MARTIN SCORSESE and the Stones collaborated on the film Shine a Light. It was filmed at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.

  KEITH RICHARDS: The Beacon Theatre is special for some reason anyway. Especially if you can play there for more than one night. The room sort of wraps its arms around you and every night gets warmer. It’s a great-feeling room. And also, this band, it didn’t start off in stadiums.

  MICK JAGGER: Keith was saying how it’s good to play there more than one night and I agree with him. Because the first night we played was more like a rehearsal for us in a way and by the time the second night came round we got more adjusted to playing in the small theater. We’d played a lot of small theaters in the past but we hadn’t done it on this tour, so this was like quite different. By the second night, we knew this was going to be the night with all these people there, so I felt really good about that.

  Why was Scorsese chosen to be the director?

  MICK JAGGER: He’s the best one around. And he’s very painstaking on the editing to produce the movie that you see. It’s not all in the shooting, it’s obviously in the editing too.

  MARTIN SCORSESE: For me, each song was like a narrative, a dramatic story. The whole sound of the band is like a character, one character for each song. And so, with the grace of these wonderful cinematographers, they were able to know exactly when to move that camera, like poets at times, to pick up when someone else was going down. We shot this in thirty-five millimeter, not video, so we were working with ten-minute loads, and cameras were going down all the time, running out of film. That’s why there were so many cameras, to pick up the slack when one ran out of film. The key was to find the moments between the members of the band as they played together, how they work together; they work it like a machine, in a way, an engine in each song.

  Promotional picture of the Stones with Martin Scorsese for Shine a Light

  One of the special musical guests was Buddy Guy.

  MICK JAGGER: We’ve done quite a few shows with Buddy Guy in the past. He’s one of those continually wonderful blues performers that you admire. I think the thing that Marty captured in the duet thing we did was really one of the high points of the movie for me. The other guests [ Jack White, Christina Aguilera] all in their own slightly different ways, all add to the movie and I like all the duets because they all really work. And they don’t always work those duets.

  BUDDY GUY: They called and invited me to mostly play. And I think Mick wanted me to not sing a whole verse. And we rehearsed it and come into record tonight and he looks at me and says, “I lost my voice. You got to do a whole verse.”

  I asked Keith for a guitar to go on the wall of my club. Every time I see him he said, “You don’t have it?” I said, “Man, you know you haven’t given me no guitar.” He handed me a guitar right there. I didn’t even know they was filming that.

  There was a special guest on the other side of the camera as well.

  ALBERT MAYSLES: I got a call from Martin the day before they started shooting and he said, “I’ve got eighteen thirty-five-millimeter cameras and I’d love to have you come with your video camera. Besides, both Mick and Keith have asked you to come.”

  “TRENDY, SEXY, AND HIP”

  If there was ever a scintilla of doubt about whether or not the Stones will continue to attract newer and newer generations of rock ’n’ roll fans, check out this piece written by my current twenty-something WFUV Mixed Bag engineer Jeremy Rainer. He cajoled his way into the filming of Shine a Light and offered up this once-in-a-lifetime eyewitness account.

  My brother and I were hired as extras for the second Beacon concert. At five thirty P.M. on November 1, 2006, Alex and I reported to a school on West Seventieth Street, dressed “trendy, sexy, and hip” as we were instructed. We’d received an e-mail with instructions on how to dress, what to bring, and how to act. A special note at the bottom of the page said this:

  You guys will be in the very front of the stage and will be the only people on camera for the documentary. We really need high energy. Dance, sing along, cheer on the band. They need your energy to play a really amazing show.

  We checked in at the school, received wristbands and a debriefing, and waited. Everybody was really pumped, and was reminiscing about past shows they’d been to. I was extremely excited; the last four times I’d seen the Stones, I’d been sitting in the nosebleed seats at stadiums and arenas—nothing had prepared me for seeing them up close.

  We were initially placed near the exit door on the side of the stage. Scorsese and his entourage walked past us; he was dressed in a long wool coat and scarf down to the floor. Keith’s model daughters were standing a few feet in front of us. This definitely had the air of a movie shoot. There were film cam
eras on balconies, film cameras on dollies, film cameras on cranes: Scorsese and his team were ready to catch all angles of this performance. After a terrific opening set from Buddy Guy, my brother and I weighed the merits of sneaking down into the pit, which is where they’d said we’d be. Finally, Alex said, “C’mon. Let’s take a walk.” We walked through the crowd, past Alec Baldwin and Bruce Willis, flashed our wristbands, and entered the pit. Right away, a production guy yelled, “Hey YOU!” . . . I was certain we’d get kicked out . . . “I want you to stand right there,” he said. “Right there” was ten feet away from the stage.

  The houselights finally went down after what seemed like an hour, and the crowd erupted as Keith hit the opening chords of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” Even though this show was technically part of the Bigger Bang tour, the band didn’t perform any songs from that album. Instead we were treated to a fantastic blend of big hits and rarely performed songs, like “She Was Hot,” “All Down the Line,” “Some Girls,” and “I’m Free.” There were special guests too: Jack White sang on “Loving Cup,” and Christina Aguilera sang on “Live With Me.” Buddy Guy joined the band for a blistering version of Muddy Waters’s “Champagne and Reefer” . . . I remember Keith being so impressed that he gave Buddy his guitar after the song!

  But the most exciting moment for me came during “Sympathy for the Devil.” Thirty seconds or so after the drum loop started, Mick entered from the back of the hall through a backlit doorway, which made for a spectacular visual display. During the song, he was working the runways as only Mick can, and he was moving and dancing like a man possessed.

  Screen capture shining a light on our friend Jeremy Rainer