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Green Lady



You can't go back. But I'm glad I was there, to listen under the bedclothes on a newly-invented transistor radio to Not Fade Away on a dodgy signal from Radio Luxembourg, watch the black-and-white weekend start HERE with the Stones on Ready Steady Go, and make reel-to-reel tape "illegal downloads" with the microphone up against the TV or radio speaker.

Oh dear - nostalgia ain't what it used to be! But you can imagine just how much I'm enjoying Charlie Is My Darling.

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slew
Jan Richards - Are You Experienced has to be up there as well for a first album.

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runaway
1963-1967 stuff


Its the music I grew up with and it's always nice to turn on the recordplayer and just listen to that great blues stuff.

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Jan Richards
I have 19 copies of the first vinyl LP LK4605 pressed in UK, so I guess I qualify as a person that likes the early stuff

Probably the best ever first album by any band...
Well, The Doors was a pretty good one as well.

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tomcasagranda
Stones 1962 - 1967 has some good material.

Come On isn't too bad as a first single, but then it wasn't a great Chuck tune to begin with.

Stoned is a sub-Green Onions instrumental, with Keith and Brian trying their best Steve Cropper riffs.

Not Fade Away is where the floodgates start opening: it is more than just a cover, as it is an excellent re-write, combining both Buddy Holly and Bo Diddley. Holly's original sounded too clean, but the Stones' version is a savage voodoo blues, as if they were listening to Excello Records and Slim Harpo way back when.

I Wanna Be Your Man is far better than the pale pathetic Ringo version on With The Beatles, and has a real punk energy that probably inspired half the acts on the Lenny Kaye compiled Nuggets.

The first album has some excellent moments, ranging from the Merseybeat-esque Tell Me, I'm A King Bee, Route 66, Can I Get A Witness. 12 X 5 also has some good covers, such as Around & Around, Confessing The Blues, but the misfires began to kick in with the soul covers.

With the exception of That's How Strong My Love Is, and later Ain't Too Proud To Beg, Just My Imagination, and Harlem Shuffle, soul was not something the Stones could cope with. Don Covay, Wilson Pickett, and Marvin Gaye were best left to the originals. You Better Move On is also an exception to the rule, as it is an excellent cover, and introduced many to Arthur Alexander.

What happened, up to Aftermath, was that the Stones albums consisted of the hit singles, and a couple of fillers. By and large, the singles were excellent from Little Red Rooster onwards. The Last Time, Satisfaction, Get Off Of My Cloud, 19th Nervous Breakdown, were amazing soul/blues based singles, without a trace of Merseybeat.

Post Aftermath, and the Stones started to follow what they were hearing around them. The Blues was briefly returned to with Who's Driving Your Plane, the bside to Have You Seen Your Mother, but, for the most part, it was a case of The Beatles and The Byrds doing raga-rock, so we'd better do likewise: granted the likewise of Paint It, Black was amazingly excellent. Vaudavilian English rock a la Kinks, mid 60s Beatles, Small Faces ! Ok, let's do Cool, Calm, Collected, My Obsession, Something Happened to Me Yesterday. Likewise, Dylan's word-play, and they come up with Who's Been Sleeping Here. In some ways, individualism was being lost to what they heard around them.

1967 was, basically, a bad year, but the psychedelic Stones were underrated. She's A Rainbow may be peace and love, but 2,000 Man, 2,000 Light Years From Home, and We Love You all reek of alienation, pre-dating Roger Waters and David Bowie's Major Tom. Though, however, the Stones did return to psychedelia with Child Of The Moon.

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Blue
Yes! My favorite era, maybe because this occurred during my early teen years when a person is so influenced and impacted by the music of these formidable years...but their version of pop music and of their blues covers, seemed to have that raw edge that not many other groups portrayed at the time (The Animals come to mind) yet mixed with awesome melodies, I mean just listen to Not Fade Away, Mona, Paint It Black, Citadel, etc...That said, so much appreciate, especially as time goes on, Beggars Banquet to Goat's Head Soup period, so many masterpieces...lastly, kind of liking Some Girls, especially the reissue lately.

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RobertJohnson
I'm a great fan of their blues-rooted 62-65 stuff until "Out of our Heads". After that the band turns into a pop band what accounts for their weakest period at all in my opinion. "Between the Buttons" and "Their Majesties Request" are no Rolling Stones albums but the desperate attempt of a misled product placement - the Stones as lolli-pop band.