Wow. I just listened to the I'm Free Taylor soloing and it's awful. Regardless of the boot or the GYYYO! version.


Keith's comment on Mick's playing on Sway is hilarious. What an idiot. A lot of people have no idea that it's Jagger and not Richards playing rhythm on that track.

Keith has come off as a jealous bitch over the years about very certain things Jagger does. While I a think most of what he's complained about has been on par with reality, his degrading talk of Jagger's guitar playing capabilities and ability over the years is below the belt and gives him full-on @#$%& status. Especially seeing that Jagger said absolutely nothing about writing the Brown Sugar riff until 1995...

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pmk251
The "I'm Free" solo I talked about is here at the 4:50 mark. I think it is new ground for the band in terms of musical beauty, touch, tone, elegance, sophistication...whatever. I suggest it inspired Jagger and led to ML Mile, Winter, TWFNO and that was a new direction musical and lyrically.

[www.youtube.com]

Interesting to hear the first I'm Free performance of the 1969 tour in Fort Collins (first gig of the 1969 tour). Indeed new ground for the band.

Seemed to be Taylor's I'm free trademark riff at that time, playing 2 B minor arpeggios over an A major chord, YaYa's version, and 2 C# minor arpeggios over the B major chord, Fort Collins, something common in fusion.

Very tasty, but I've never heard him doing it again.

I prefer the slow FC version, sheer beauty, the entire band. Let't sway:

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GasLightStreet

Keith's comment on Mick's playing on Sway is hilarious. What an idiot. A lot of people have no idea that it's Jagger and not Richards playing rhythm on that track.

Keith has come off as a jealous bitch over the years about very certain things Jagger does. While I a think most of what he's complained about has been on par with reality, his degrading talk of Jagger's guitar playing capabilities and ability over the years is below the belt and gives him full-on @#$%& status. Especially seeing that Jagger said absolutely nothing about writing the Brown Sugar riff until 1995...

indeed.

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LuxuryStones
Seemed to be Taylor's I'm free trademark riff at that time, playing 2 B minor arpeggios over an A major chord, YaYa's version, and 2 C# minor arpeggios over the B major chord, Fort Collins, something common in fusion.

Very tasty, but I've never heard him doing it again.

I prefer the slow FC version, sheer beauty, the entire band.

Did you check out the little compilation I made? He did it more or less on every song. On different places in the song, though. He also alternated between longer major scale or minor scale runs, before and after. The Ya Yas version was the only one where he only did the fusion stuff toward the ending and only very briefly. Was it edited?

No I didn't, but The Yaya's and Collins (2:38) "fusion riffs" are melodically exactly the same, albeit in different keys.

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LuxuryStones
No I didn't, but The Yaya's and Collins "fusion" riffs are melodically exactly the same, albeit in different keys.

Check it out above.

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DandelionPowderman

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LuxuryStones
No I didn't, but The Yaya's and Collins "fusion" riffs are melodically exactly the same, albeit in different keys.

Check it out above.

Huh, the version in A Major has gone?

AH, here it is: at 5:53 .





and 2:38:







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-01-08 01:06 by LuxuryStones.

So he's playing B, D, and F# over an A? The 2nd, 4th, and major 6th. The D is the only note not in an A major pentatonic so it isn't all that crazy, but stressing those notes does give it that floating, suspended feel. I dig!

Sway is a dark masterpiece that predates grunge by 20 years and it also foreshadows the tone of Exile. I tend to think the song's detractors are Richardites that can't believe Jagger could make an epic Stones song without him.

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TravelinMan
So he's playing B, D, and F# over an A? The 2nd, 4th, and major 6th. The D is the only note not in an A major pentatonic so it isn't all that crazy, but stressing those notes does give it that floating, suspended feel. I dig!

Yes, it's two inversions in a row. Short but very melodic.

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TravelinMan
So he's playing B, D, and F# over an A? The 2nd, 4th, and major 6th. The D is the only note not in an A major pentatonic so it isn't all that crazy, but stressing those notes does give it that floating, suspended feel. I dig!

Sway is a dark masterpiece that predates grunge by 20 years and it also foreshadows the tone of Exile. I tend to think the song's detractors are Richardites that can't believe Jagger could make an epic Stones song without him.

very true.

Sway was always one of my favorites, went to see them on my 40th birthday in Columbus OH and couldn't believe when they broke that tune out for the first time ever!

We've been talking about Taylor's contribution much here, and the evolution of ideas of which "Sway" is a beautiful result. And I need to say I have enjoyed a lot listening to people's comments and different versions of "I'm Free". Maybe it was not any "breakthrough" in a great scheme of things, but in the microcosmos of the Stones reforming themselves, or at least doing something they hadn't before, all I can say that it was a fascinating period.

However, I'd like turn the attention to another 'guitar hero' in "Sway", that of the guitarist who didn't contribute the song (probably thanks to his extra-curriculum activities at the time) describes "have no any sense of electric", but of whom Mick Taylor said of "He's a great rhythm player. My theory is he has a natural feel and that's also why he's such a great dancer."

Taylor's words of 'natural feel' hit me hard home. That's something put into words that I have always somehow sketched in my mind. The guy simply has a great intuition and sense of rhythm. Jagger's technical abilities are really not something which comes from spending endless hours with a guitar, and trying to discover the secret, sophisticated nuances the instrument have. Especially this might be true trying to get sense of the important dualism of the electric guitar with an amp, which pretty much consitutes the realm of sound. No, Jagger's approach sounds to be much more pragmatic - 'give me the axe and let's see what I can do with it'. He surely had good mentors in the band to follow and get hints - and there is surely a truth in Keith's claim that of him learning Mick to play. There is so much 'Keith' in Mick's playing.

But that's one more trait of Jagger which makes him a rather odd figure in rock music (and escaping generalations). There weren't those endless hours 'wasted' as a teenager to get to learn the instrument before forming a group and to do a career. No, as far as I know Mick didn't want to play any instrument during those Little Boy Blue and the Blues Boys days. His taking guitar 'seriously' - if he ever had that attitude - seemingly took place after the Stones made a breakthrough. I would locate that to the times when he started composing songs by himself, independent of Keith - around the time of making BETWEEN THE BUTTONS. He probably needed an instrument to do that. Or probably by then he had strummed enough that he didn't need any longer other person to do that part in composing - to hit the chords. The crucial days in his development was those of when the Stones didn't tour. So alongside Keith learning new tunings, and new ways to make riff-based songs out of those new tunings, Jagger had his own guitar study project. We probably would not be too wrong to say that during those 67/68 years Jagger learned to play the instrument. (Funnily, as far as I know Jagger's 'training' has never been documented or even referered in literature - it almost came out of blue). The first time he would play the instrument in public (in released form) is, as far as I know, the Robert Johnson stuff he does in PERFORMANCE (which, by the way, is stunning by its own primitive terms).

Anyway, to go back to Taylor's remark of Jagger's "natural feel", I think the following out-take from 1968 speaks volumes. I couldn't believe when I fisrt heard that it is actually Jagger there. It is rough and primitive, but goddamn strong and effective - really 'no hostages' stuff. Reminds me of some Stooges stuff of the later years, and many punk guitarist from the latter part of the 70's would die to sound so edgy. His hands might not always follow the orders but his sense of rhythm is incredible. And in the end, all the stuff is just to serve a song - the pragmatism of his. I have alway admired Richards for that attitude - all the point in playing the guitar is to serve the needs of a song, and not being an aim of itself - but with Jagger this goes even further.





What this track actually asks is a Taylor type of lead guitar - just imagine what that would do for it! Well, in "Sway" we got that....

- Doxa

P.S. I was thinking of doing 'Jagger as a guitarist' thread of its own, but then I thought that probably this thread - which is about Jagger's first released electric guitar contribution - is apt enough. You know, to get some context for "Sway"...



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 2015-01-08 10:39 by Doxa.

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kleermaker

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pmk251
The "I'm Free" solo I talked about is here at the 4:50 mark. I think it is new ground for the band in terms of musical beauty, touch, tone, elegance, sophistication...whatever. I suggest it inspired Jagger and led to ML Mile, Winter, TWFNO and that was a new direction musical and lyrically.

[www.youtube.com]

Interesting to hear the first I'm Free performance of the 1969 tour in Fort Collins (first gig of the 1969 tour). Indeed new ground for the band.

This solo is lightyears better than the Ya Yas-version.

I bet Taylor had heard Eight Miles High, and knew what he was doing - unlike Roger Mc Guinn, who got some of the same effect trying to imitate parts of Coltrane in 1966







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-01-08 10:29 by DandelionPowderman.

MT's solo at Fort Collins has a bit of Hyde Park in there.
Stinging vibrato!!
No piss break there either

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Doxa
We've been talking about Taylor's contribution much here, and the evolution of ideas of which "Sway" is a beautiful result. And I need to say I have enjoyed a lot listening to people's comments and different versions of "I'm Free". Maybe it was not any "breakthrough" in a great scheme of things, but in the microcosmos of the Stones reforming themselves, or at least doing something they hadn't before, all I can say that it was a fascinating period.

However, I'd like turn the attention to another 'guitar hero' in "Sway", that of the guitarist who didn't contribute the song (probably thanks to his extra-curriculum activities at the time) describes "have no any sense of electric", but of whom Mick Taylor said of "He's a great rhythm player. My theory is he has a natural feel and that's also why he's such a great dancer."

Taylor's words of 'natural feel' hit me hard home. That's something put into words that I have always somehow sketched in my mind. The guy simply has a great intuition and sense of rhythm. Jagger's technical abilities are really not something which comes from spending endless hours with a guitar, and trying to discover the secret, sophisticated nuances the instrument have. Especially this might be true trying to get sense of the important dualism of the electric guitar with an amp, which pretty much consitutes the realm of sound. No, Jagger's approach sounds to be much more pragmatic - 'give me the axe and let's see what I can do with it'. He surely had good mentors in the band to follow and get hints - and there is surely a truth in Keith's claim that of him learning Mick to play. There is so much 'Keith' in Mick's playing.

But that's one more trait of Jagger which makes him a rather odd figure in rock music (and escaping generalations). There weren't those endless hours 'wasted' as a teenager to get to learn the instrument before forming a group and to do a career. No, as far as I know Mick didn't want to play any instrument during those Little Boy Blue and the Blues Boys days. His taking guitar 'seriously' - if he ever had that attitude - seemingly took place after the Stones made a breakthrough. I would locate that to the times when he started composing songs by himself, independent of Keith - around the time of making BETWEEN THE BUTTONS. He probably needed an instrument to do that. Or probably by then he had strummed enough that he didn't need any longer other person to do that part in composing - to hit the chords. The crucial days in his development was those of when the Stones didn't tour. So alongside Keith learning new tunings, and new ways to make riff-based songs out of those new tunings, Jagger had his own guitar study project. We probably would not be too wrong to say that during those 67/68 years Jagger learned to play the instrument. (Funnily, as far as I know Jagger's 'training' has never been documented or even referered in literature - it almost came out of blue). The first time he would play the instrument in public (in released form) is, as far as I know, the Robert Johnson stuff he does in PERFORMANCE (which, by the way, is stunning by its own primitive terms).

Anyway, to go back to Taylor's remark of Jagger's "natural feel", I think the following out-take from 1968 speaks volumes. I couldn't believe when I fisrt heard that it is actually Jagger there. It is rough and primitive, but goddamn strong and effective - really 'no hostages' stuff. Reminds me of some Stooges stuff of the later years, and many punk guitarist from the latter part of the 70's would die to sound so edgy. His hands might not always follow the orders but his sense of rhythm is incredible. And in the end, all the stuff is just to serve a song - the pragmatism of his. I have alway admired Richards for that attitude - all the point in playing the guitar is to serve the needs of a song, and not being an aim of itself - but with Jagger this goes even further.





What this track actually asks is a Taylor type of lead guitar - just imagine what that would do for it! Well, in "Sway" we got that....

- Doxa

P.S. I was thinking of doing 'Jagger as a guitarist' thread of its own, but then I thought that probably this thread - which is about Jagger's first released electric guitar contribution - is apt enough. You know, to get some context for "Sway"...

This deserves to be a thread on its own Doxa. I think it's wasted here. Why not start a thread about Jagger's guitar playing. I don't recall ever having seen one on IORR.

There's a "zombie thread" HERE



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-01-08 17:46 by DandelionPowderman.

A little detail that I love about the sound of Sway is Taylor's chords during the verses. Don't know how they are called, sus something (i.e. the F chord has a G in place of the A - the chord has the shape of an E minor, only one string up)

C

Jagger is also playing acoustic guitar on the Jean Luc Godard film documenting the Stones in studio for the recording of the song 'Sympathy for the Devil,' a song MJ was primarily responsible for writing. That's mid-1968?

Ironic, as Jagger is seen playing the chords of the song for the benefit of Brian Jones...Keith joins a little later in the film, adding to it.

So I tend to agree with Doxa on the timeframe and Jagger's 'natural' feel on guitar. I admire Jagger's philosophy about it and making it look easy.

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Naturalust

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MisterO
My interpretation.....The guilt and shame of heavy drug abuse both there's and my own. Which is why it is actually painful for me to listen to it. The wasted time, the wasted money. The sad empty lives that are brought together to try and escape their reality and numb their pain.

I always thought that "Some who broke me up with the coyrner of her smile" was a young child who woke at her regular time and wandered into her parents drug den naively not knowing what they are doing and smiling at them and the parents deep shame and regret of their lifestyle choice.

I remember when Jerry Garcia died. The American writer William Buckly wrote 'Don't feel bad for him, he took plenty of people with him". That quote stuck a nerve on me because it reminded me of Sticky Fingers and in particular Sway.

Bottom line.....I loved it years ago. I grew out of it and moved on. Its why I like Emotional more than Sticky. Think I'll go listen to 'Send it me" now....

Wow that's pretty heavy and probably pretty spot on. Unfortunately, Keith has probably taken down many more than Jerry Garcia. Of course ones decisions to take dangerous drugs are personal and many say can't be blamed on others, but Keith's influence in that department was uncommonly large.

peace

Nowadays I censorship when it comes to the Stones so to speak. I do not think in their private lifes at all. I just confine myself in their music. It is better...

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DandelionPowderman

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Silver Dagger

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DandelionPowderman

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Eleanor Rigby

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DandelionPowderman

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Doxa

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PhillyFAN

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DandelionPowderman
Santana did some of that stuff the year before, Mike. I'm sure there were others as well - mixing in some latin and jazz in their rock solos, like Taylor did here.

Good stuff, but nothing groundbreaking or earth-shattering about it, imo. But indeed a taste of what to come on SF and IORR.

Amen to that. Santana was already blazing those trails and introduced Latino flavor to Rock n Roll. I think it was somewhat different and refreshing hearing it from an English rock and blues band - the Stones.

Damn it looks it is tough for you guys to give Taylor some credit...

- Doxa

I thought "good stuff" was a positive remark?

positive when it comes from Dandie...

MT's solo(s) makes the song...

Taylor didn't play on the original song we discussed above (I'm Free) - hence he's not making the song, although he added some good stuff to it live as I wrote.

Actually, I'm just listening to this solo again and there's nothing Santarish/Latin about it at all. It's just a normal solo with some nice vibrato on it. In the great scheme of Stones things it's not that earth shattering.

It's true that the Ya Yas-solo is one of the least jazz/latin-influenced of his I'm Free-solos. But let me show you what I mean, Mike. Here's a bunch of I'm Free Taylor-solos. The last one is from Ya Yas (and, yes, I found a part there, too )

Just got round to listening to this Dandy. Yes, I see what you mean. I hear the Santana influence.

Sway is the greatest thing redorded by anyone in the history of the world

Yes agreed - Fortunately I saw it live circa 2010 Surise, FL To be honest and maybe because of age -anytime I think of Sway - I Got the Blues" Rings

Taylor deserves a grew deal of credit. While he did not originate that form of music he incorporated it into the Stones music while he was in the band. They were expanding their sound, and it was refreshing.

Seriously, despite my hyperbolic comment, I do believe this is THE quintessential Stones track, even more than Satisfaction or JJF. It has all the great elements of the Stones: Powerful guitars (ironically without Keith), some of Jagger's best world-weary lyrics, passionate singing, fantastic rhythm support, and even has some country influence. It just doesn't get any better. Maybe not their best song, but among their very best recordings, in my opinion.

It's not even among the five best songs on SF. But it's a good performance by Mick and Taylor.

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DandelionPowderman
It's not even among the five best songs on SF. But it's a good performance by Mick and Taylor.

And those would have to be:

Brown Sugar
Can't You Hear Me Knocking?
Dead Flowers
Wild Horses
Moonlight Mile

at the moment the best live version with Mick Taylor.




I think it's fantastic they must play Sway in the 2015 tour.

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Silver Dagger

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DandelionPowderman
It's not even among the five best songs on SF. But it's a good performance by Mick and Taylor.

And those would have to be:

Brown Sugar
Can't You Hear Me Knocking?
Dead Flowers
Wild Horses
Moonlight Mile

It breaks my heart not to include IGTB, Bitch or YGM in there...

Swap DF for IGTB.