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Rockman
Carol .... Mona ( I Need Ya Baby ) ... Prodigal Son
For Your Precious Love .... Hoo Doo Blues ....its just endless
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Rockman
Carol .... Mona ( I Need Ya Baby ) ... Prodigal Son
For Your Precious Love .... Hoo Doo Blues ....its just endless
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HairballQuote
treaclefingersQuote
Hairball
whats the point of it when the original and/or earlier versions by other artists are all better than the Stones covers.
Don't think I can agree with that, when you look at songs like It's All Over Now, Time Is On My Side, Little Red Rooster, Not Fade Away, Stop Breaking Down, Drift Away, and even stuff Motown stuff like Just My Imagination and Ain't Too Proud to Beg, where they made it completely their own...or even "The Last Time" interpretation.
They have too many amazing covers, some that rival or even beat the original...that is the point.
To clarify, I was paraphrasing Mick (not sure why you edited that part out), and if you read my post again I was referring to the covers on Blue and Lonesome - not every single cover they've ever done.
But now that you mention all those covers, aside from maybe Time Is On My Side, I'd say all that you mention arenn't quite as good as the originals and/or earlier versions by other artists IMO. Good maybe, but not better.
Feel free to disagree all you want though. After 17 years and counting with no new album of originals, there's not much left to discuss in this thread which has seemingly hit a wall more times than the Stones ever have.
We're now at 537 pages and counting, and guarantee Blue and Lonesome has already been discussed to death here in the past six years. It's just a matter of time before the title is changed again ...
"New Stones album for 2023"?
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HairballQuote
retired_dogQuote
Hairball
Regarding the Stones notoriously hitting the wall resulting in Blue and Lonesome - from Don Was:
"Around day three we just hit a wall... and Keith suggested that, to cleanse the creative palette, we played Blue and Lonesome, the Little Walter song.
Fortunately we ran the tape and it was just awesome. The whole mood of the room changed dramatically in those three-and-a-half minutes.
So we said, 'let's do another one', and 'let's do another one'. They just called songs off that they knew and loved. It was very spontaneous. And by the end of the day we had six"
Sounds like a plausible explanation to me, and can't see any reason to doubt Don Was who was producing the sessions.
It just sounds too good to be true for me - "Hey, they hit a wall with their original stuff, but it's the Stones, you know, they can hammer out a full album of blues covers in a couple of hours/days without further warning, no problem!"
Typical promo bullshit imo, and let's not forget, Don as their producer was part of the machinery.
If anyone believes that the Stones enter a recording studio without any agreement beforehand on the material they're going to record must also believe in fairytales. If any "hitting the wall" ever happened, it's far more likely that it was well before they entered the studio, at a time when they were exchanging their ideas/home demos, couldn't find an agreement and decided to record a blues cover album instead.
Not sure why Don Was would invent the "hitting the wall" story which has a negative tone to it, when he could have just said "we took a detour with some old blues covers",
or "we took a break and loosened up by playing some blues covers". Or something similar to what Ronnie mentions below with " we got on a blues streak".
Speaking of which, while Ronnie, Charlie, Keith, and Mick do not mention hitting the wall (why would they?), they all seem to be on the same page regarding the spontaneity and natural evolution of Blue and Lonesome.
It doesn't sound like it was prearranged, preplanned, or predetermined beforehand if you believe the quotes from the band members themselves.
"We went in to cut some new songs, which we did. But we got on a blues streak. We cut 11 blues in two days.
They are extremely great cover versions of Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter, among other blues people" - Ron Wood, 2016
"Don Was said to me, Can you go home tonight and make a list of what we're going to do? If we're going to do more blues, you'd better make a list...
I just went into my computer and went into the blues songs I had in there... and I made a list of what I thought we'd do that day and wrote it down
and went into the studio and I just shouted out Let's do this". - Mick, 2016
"It’s bloody hard to write songs. Here, instead of grinding out just one song, you’d do three or four.
And the next day you do another three. Nobody bothered with retakes – it wasn’t conceived as an album" - Charlie Watts, 2016
"It was only at the end, when we’d got 12 tracks and Don Was and I were talking together,
and Mick was there and he was saying, This is an album. You can’t chop this up". - Keith, 2016
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retired_dogQuote
HairballQuote
retired_dogQuote
Hairball
Regarding the Stones notoriously hitting the wall resulting in Blue and Lonesome - from Don Was:
"Around day three we just hit a wall... and Keith suggested that, to cleanse the creative palette, we played Blue and Lonesome, the Little Walter song.
Fortunately we ran the tape and it was just awesome. The whole mood of the room changed dramatically in those three-and-a-half minutes.
So we said, 'let's do another one', and 'let's do another one'. They just called songs off that they knew and loved. It was very spontaneous. And by the end of the day we had six"
Sounds like a plausible explanation to me, and can't see any reason to doubt Don Was who was producing the sessions.
It just sounds too good to be true for me - "Hey, they hit a wall with their original stuff, but it's the Stones, you know, they can hammer out a full album of blues covers in a couple of hours/days without further warning, no problem!"
Typical promo bullshit imo, and let's not forget, Don as their producer was part of the machinery.
If anyone believes that the Stones enter a recording studio without any agreement beforehand on the material they're going to record must also believe in fairytales. If any "hitting the wall" ever happened, it's far more likely that it was well before they entered the studio, at a time when they were exchanging their ideas/home demos, couldn't find an agreement and decided to record a blues cover album instead.
Not sure why Don Was would invent the "hitting the wall" story which has a negative tone to it, when he could have just said "we took a detour with some old blues covers",
or "we took a break and loosened up by playing some blues covers". Or something similar to what Ronnie mentions below with " we got on a blues streak".
Speaking of which, while Ronnie, Charlie, Keith, and Mick do not mention hitting the wall (why would they?), they all seem to be on the same page regarding the spontaneity and natural evolution of Blue and Lonesome.
It doesn't sound like it was prearranged, preplanned, or predetermined beforehand if you believe the quotes from the band members themselves.
"We went in to cut some new songs, which we did. But we got on a blues streak. We cut 11 blues in two days.
They are extremely great cover versions of Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter, among other blues people" - Ron Wood, 2016
"Don Was said to me, Can you go home tonight and make a list of what we're going to do? If we're going to do more blues, you'd better make a list...
I just went into my computer and went into the blues songs I had in there... and I made a list of what I thought we'd do that day and wrote it down
and went into the studio and I just shouted out Let's do this". - Mick, 2016
"It’s bloody hard to write songs. Here, instead of grinding out just one song, you’d do three or four.
And the next day you do another three. Nobody bothered with retakes – it wasn’t conceived as an album" - Charlie Watts, 2016
"It was only at the end, when we’d got 12 tracks and Don Was and I were talking together,
and Mick was there and he was saying, This is an album. You can’t chop this up". - Keith, 2016
Because "we took a detour with some old blues covers" or "we took a break and loosened up by playing some blues covers" may be factual, but sounds, well, boring, unexciting, while "hitting a wall" adds some drama to the story, and some Stones fans simply love some drama, see the ever popular "clash" between Mick and Keith...
It probably was as simple as Ronnie stated:
"We went in to cut some new songs, which we did. But we got on a blues streak. We cut 11 blues in two days.
No mention of "hitting the wall" by him (and not by any other member either, btw.), just: "We went in to cut some new songs, which we did. But we got on a blues streak. We cut 11 blues in two days."
Could very well be that the recording of a handful of blues covers was planned in advance for the album and/or possible b-sides and that this simply lead to a "blues streak" that turned into a full blues covers album - without any dramatic "hitting the wall" turn of events.
Oh, and, of course, purely coincidentally Eric Clapton happened to be there to record some solos... As I've said, all to good to be true.
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retired_dog
Could very well be that the recording of a handful of blues covers was planned in advance for the album and/or possible b-sides and that this simply lead to a "blues streak" that turned into a full blues covers album - without any dramatic "hitting the wall" turn of events.
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Hairball
I bet if you were to ask Mick or Keith today, they would humbly say their cover versions - every single one of them - don't quite live up to the quality of the original and/or earlier versions by other artists.
Like most of us, I'm sure they like some of their own versions, and even love some of them, but they would see their covers more as loving tributes to their original heroes and sources of inspiration.
Can't imagine Keith ever thinking or saying "our version of I Can't Quit You Baby is far superior to Otis Rush's" or Mick saying "our version of Commit a Crime is far superior to Howlin Wolf's".
In fact they would probably bow down to their record collection in awe of what came before them, and which has inspired them throughout their career.
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bitusa2012
Zzzzzzzzzzzz
“Anyway, I just make records…”
WHERE? WHEN? Just get them out. Stop “figuring” it out. You used to be able to RELEASE stuff. What so hard now? 17 years of figuring it out, good grief.
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Rockman
Have no idea what so ever how they personally
think about the cover versions theyve recorded ....
But I reckon its fair to say that they can stand
proud of almost every one of their cover versions ...
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ProfessorWolfQuote
Rockman
Have no idea what so ever how they personally
think about the cover versions theyve recorded ....
But I reckon its fair to say that they can stand
proud of almost every one of their cover versions ...
true except maybe come on
i think that might be the real reason chuck punched him
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GasLightStreet
As far as the Stones hitting a wall, a lot of people here have taken that like Keith falling from a coconut tree.
Faux News galore.
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Rockman
Yeah Come On ... early garage R&B ..... ...
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Hairball
"I Just Make Records" - Might be a nice title for a solo album, and the cover art could depict Keith breaking free from the wall...
To Keith's credit, he did release Crossyed Heart back in 2015, so his statement isn't too farfetched, but now...7 years and counting since then....
And 17 years and counting since A Bigger Bang................
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---------------KEITH RICHARDS--I JUST MAKE RECORDS