Re: Question for Brits about Jagger's singing American
Date: January 4, 2010 12:41
This is actually really interesting to me for a few different reasons. Firstly, I come from London, born and brought up here. Secondly, I feel that the ever-increasing cultural influence of America means that its culture (and all that goes with it - film, vocabulary, dialect, accent etc.) is becoming the dominant one, certainly throughout the English-speaking world and possibly beyond. Thirdly, because I'm such a huge Stones fan and am proud that they originally came from London, I do look for signs that they do still have a link to their roots and origins after a life of becoming truly international people, and with their empire run to such a great extent from America and Canada. This obviously broadens the discussion from simply singing, out into a wider cultural context, but is relevant nonetheless.
What I would say is that those signs are still very much there. Charlie is the obvious one - accent-wise, he still sounds like a man who's never left London. It's certainly not a Cockney accent (whatever that might be) - it's more what would be considered that of a middle-class educated man of his age, with the odd diversion into dropped 'H's and the like.
Ronnie occasionally has something of a mid-Atlantic twang and inflection, but I've noticed that's usually when he's in Rolling Stones PR mode and is having to talk about how exciting and groovy everything is in Stones-land, and particularly when he's being interviewed by an American reporter. Otherwise, his working class London-boy roots are obvious from his accent.
Mick is an interesting one. We all know about his range of different accents, his "y'all havin' a good taaame?" from the stage, and his forays, like Ronnie, into Americanisms when he's over there, but generally, he does sound English. Now, as has been debated on here - which English accent does he have? I would say that he generally speaks with a well-spoken London or home-counties accent, at times similar to Charlie's, but there are times when I've heard him sound like he's come straight out of the East-end (Cockney, if you like), even nowadays, which I don't think is put on. You have to remember that this man spent the first twenty years of his life, and an awful lot of his time since, in and around London (and if you want to go into even more detail, his accent was formed on the Kent/Essex border where, whatever his middle-class family background might have been, the accent is a lot closer to what would be considered Cockney).
Keith, meanwhile, is so wrapped up in his own myth and spends so much time attempting to cement it by being in 'Keef' mode with his various figures-of-speech, quotes-in-waiting, mumbles and the like, that it's difficult to find a consistent accent there. But, as with the rest of the band, his roots definitely come through frequently. Listen to the Tip Of The Tongue documentary from Four Flicks, when the band exit the airship in New York and Keith, referring to Charlie, says "ee's awright, ee's awright", or the rehearsals of Learning The Game from the Bigger Bang DVD when the mic is too high for Keith and his instinctive reaction is delivered in a none-more-London accent.