A recent article on the legacy of Talk Is Cheap seems to think so....
by Brian Ives, Radio.com/November 13, 2013
It was the album that could have ended the Rolling Stones. Instead, it may have given them a new lease on life, albeit through some pretty tough (and harshly worded) love.
By 1988, the Stones' "World War III" was in full effect. After the band decided against touring for 1983's Undercover, frontman Mick Jagger went on to start his solo career, enraging Richards.
But it was on the next Stones album, 1986's Dirty Work, where the seeds of Talk Is Cheap took root. Talk coproducer Steve Jordan was hired to work with the Stones on the Dirty Work sessions in Paris, and that's when he first worked with the legendary guitarist.
As Jordan tells Radio.com, he was in the City Of Lights working with the Duran Duran side project Arcadia at the same time the Stones were there recording their album. "The Duran Duran/Arcadia crew knew the Stones crew, and the crews were gonna hang out," Jordan relates. "I said [to someone from the Stones' crew], 'Tell Charlie [Watts] I said hello.' Charlie invited me down [to their sessions]. So I went over to the studio, and it was the first time I'd ever seen them play live. I felt like I was walking in on a private concert. I was so moved."
But having the entire band in the studio at one time on that album was the exception rather than the rule during that era. "Mick would come in every other night, and then other nights I'd get a call from Ian Stewart to come down," where he'd add percussion and some backing vocals.
In Richards' book
Life, he writes that Jordan "encouraged me; he heard something in my voice." When asked about that quote, Jordan says that when he heard Richards singing Dirty Work's ballad "Sleep Tonight," he knew he wanted to work with him again.
Full article and video clips at: [
wcbsfm.cbslocal.com]
Here also is a link to a 30-year retrospective article on the Undercover album and how it led to "World War III": [
wcbsfm.cbslocal.com]