Keys To Your Love (like it or not) is a latter-day soul tune.

Fool To Cry is inspired by Philly soul.

Again, many thanks for people chipping in. Tom, your third post especially - that's the kind of esoterica that I wouldn't have been able to find easily otherwise. Merry Clayton is a good shout; I've been thinking about horn players, but not really about backing vocalists. But everyone's ideas are helpful, and some of the song suggestions will make me reconsider some songs I've listed to for decades, so thanks.

Some general comments on some of the things raised so far:

1) Heart of Stone - it took years before I recognised this as a soul tune. In fact, it might even have been Mick introducing it as such on stage that made me re-evaluate it (I'd imagine in 2002/3, though I'd have to go through my recordings). It may simply be that he was reimagining it that way, but I think it's possible (and intetesting if so) that they were self-consciously composing soul tunes in the early 60s. I'd love to find out a bit more on what the band, Mick especially, listened to in their late teenage years. Whenever it's mentioned, it's always Keith and cliches about Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry (which I'm sure is true, but I'm also sure there's more!).

2) Mick, and his voice - I can certainly see what you're saying about Mick's voice being too 'thin' for soul, and that might be why some songs/the band are not interpreted as soul (it's a plausible explanation for me and Heart of Stone, for example). However, I do think there are times when he has been more soulful in his singing, specifically 71-76 and, also, plausibly 2012-now. I also think (and this is one of the big points I'm interested in for my paper), that his performing STYLE has been very - perhaps totally - influenced by soul singers. That's one of the reasons I'm searching for connections between Mick and James Brown. If you think about the situation before 1964, there aren't really many role models (suitable ones anyway) for how popular music singers should perform. Chuck, Little Richard, Jerry Lee and Buddy all had instruments to lean on, Sinatra was a different style entirely. The only 'pure singer' role model was Elvis (I know he played guitar, but not always) and, while I see a bit of Elvis in early Mick, I don't see loads. I'm speculating that he was more influenced by soul singers (and female pop stars), but need to do more research on it.

And some comments/questions from me...

3) Someone mentioned Tina Turner. I am aware of the stories about him learning to dance from Tina, but didn't think that she would be categorised under soul. Am I wrong?

4) Goin' Home - going back to Mick's performing style, does anyone else hear the improvised part of GH as soul, or soul influenced? It was recorded at the end of 65, so about a year after the TAMI show (I had thought they were closer together), but it seems to me that the little grunts and vocal improvisations sound like a live soul performance than blues.

5) And one more thing on Mick's performing style. His 'call and response' stage routines ('everybody say "ow!"') and his 'is everybody having a good time?!' stage patter - I associate that performing style almost totally with soul (with rock it came later via bands like the Stones). Is anyone aware of comparable performing styles/performers in Blues/R&B/rock and roll/country before 64?

thanks all

syrel

Keith Richards - Robert Greenfield interview Rolling Stone #89 - 19 August 1971



ROCKMAN

Don't forget the Stones connection to the Ronettes. They toured with them in the early days and Keith had a personal relationship with Ronnie Spector... Here's Keith and Ronnie dueting on It's Gonna Work Out Fine, a song done originally by Ike and Tina Turner...

video: [www.youtube.com]

<1) Heart of Stone - it took years before I recognised this as a soul tune. In fact, it might even have been Mick introducing it as such on stage that made me re-evaluate it (I'd imagine in 2002/3, though I'd have to go through my recordings). >

Mick introduced it as a soul tune on the Aragon in Chicago in 2002.

Whoo hooo! Good one roundnround! NOW we're talkin' soul music:
[www.youtube.com]

tina doin' mick before mick was doin' tina...so to speak

hot hot soul music
[youtu.be]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2017-05-26 09:32 by hopkins.

Quite a few «soulful» tunes on their solo albums as well, in addition to what's already mentioned here.

Ronnie's original I Gotta See is great. The same with Keith's Hate It When You Leave. Mick did some good covers: Use Me and Think spring to mind.

Ronnie's playing style is very inspired by Steve Cropper, one of the definite soul greats, backing up The Stax groups and Otis Redding. He was also a guest in Ronnie's radio show (which eventually wound up becoming a tv show) a few years back.

Some of the soul guitarists used open tuning. Otis Redding's touring guitarist was one of them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-05-26 10:09 by DandelionPowderman.

Micks involvement in the James Brown Biopic Get On Up
and the great Mr Dynamite doco ......



ROCKMAN



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-05-26 10:40 by Rockman.

There is a great collection of The Rolling Stones' musical influences on the "Time Is On Our Side" website including various type of soul music throughout their carreer:

[www.timeisonourside.com]

[www.timeisonourside.com]

[www.timeisonourside.com]

[www.timeisonourside.com]

[www.timeisonourside.com]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2017-05-26 13:11 by 1962.

If we're talking soul influenced solo material, Make No Mistake by Keith Richards, has the Hi Rhythm section, plus Memphis Horns, with production overseen by Willie Mitchell, on Talk Is Cheap. Also Locked Away has Buckwheat Zydeco, a great zydeco musician, who was more than au fait with performing soul, such as Crying In The Streets, his cover of Why Does Love Have to Be So Sad, and also a version of Beast of Burden.

Likewise, Mick Jagger covered Bill Withers' Use Me on the Wandering Spirit album.

Speaking of I Got The Blues; Solomon Burke did a great cover of it from the Make Do With What You Got album. The album isn't that great, coming immediately after the brilliant Don't Give Up On Me.

And there's Lover's Plea of course.

Wasn't "Satisfaction" inspired by Martha and The Vandellas?

Maybe "Dancing In The Streets"? Or was that "Street Fighting Man"? Both?

Summer's here and the time is right .....

Also in Springsteen's "Racing In The Streets".

The soul music I listen to is of the early 1970s variety, particular the smooth, falsetto voiced stylings of people like Russell Thompkins Jr. from The Stylistics. The Stones tried their hand at that kind of soul, too, though with predictably regrettable results, such as "Fool To Cry" and "Emotional Rescue." Mick might have enjoyed listening to that kind of soul, but writing and performing it wasn't really in his "wheelhouse" (to use an American baseball term).

Quote
syrel

2) Mick, and his voice - I can certainly see what you're saying about Mick's voice being too 'thin' for soul, and that might be why some songs/the band are not interpreted as soul (it's a plausible explanation for me and Heart of Stone, for example). However, I do think there are times when he has been more soulful in his singing, specifically 71-76 and, also, plausibly 2012-now. I also think (and this is one of the big points I'm interested in for my paper), that his performing STYLE has been very - perhaps totally - influenced by soul singers. That's one of the reasons I'm searching for connections between Mick and James Brown. If you think about the situation before 1964, there aren't really many role models (suitable ones anyway) for how popular music singers should perform. Chuck, Little Richard, Jerry Lee and Buddy all had instruments to lean on, Sinatra was a different style entirely. The only 'pure singer' role model was Elvis (I know he played guitar, but not always) and, while I see a bit of Elvis in early Mick, I don't see loads. I'm speculating that he was more influenced by soul singers (and female pop stars), but need to do more research on it.

Well, one of the endearing things about Mick is that he's never pretended to be 'authentic'--he's always come across as pretty self-deprecating about his own forays into alternate genres (blues, soul, country, e,g, the famous remark in '68 about why would anyone listen to us do I'm a King Bee when they could listen to Slim Harpo do it).

In terms of performing style, I think you're right. Very much influenced by soul singers, especially female ones. All great performers exhibit at least a bit of androgyny; Mick, perhaps most channeling Little Richard, was the guy who took that to new heights of cross-gender appeal in the 60's. I think he probably really dug the way "girl singers" moved ...

When I went to Detroit for the 2015 show, I went to the Motown museum. The local news did a piece on the relationship between the Stones and Motown you might want to dig up.

From a promo interview around the time the James Brown biopic came out; Mick on James Brown's influencing his style:

Were there any of his stage moves that you, either intentionally or unintentionally, made part of your own persona?

Of course. I copied all his moves. I copied everybody’s moves. I used to do [James’] slide across the stage. I couldn’t do the splits, so I didn’t even bother. Everyone did the microphone trick, where you pushed the microphone, then you put your foot on it and it comes back, and then you catch it. James probably did it best. [Soul singer] Joe Tex did it brilliantly. Prince does it really well. I used to try to do it, but in the end, it hit me in the face too many times and I gave it up. So of course I copied his moves. There was one particular one I used to do a lot, but then I gave up and moved on. You just incorporate everything into your act.

Which was the one you used to do a lot?

When you move laterally from one side of the stage to the other, twisting your foot on one leg. I could do that one. But it’s a kind of attitude, too, not just a body move. It’s a kind of an attitude that he had on stage. You copy it. Little Richard was another contemporaneous performer who appears in this movie, because they’re from the same town. Little Richard also taught me a lot of things. It wasn’t so much moves. It’s about presence on stage in relationship to the audience.

[time.com]

Ronnie Wood and Don Covay together on "Somebody"

video: [www.youtube.com]

Yeah well that's the thing with Don Covay; I think some of Mick's sound, phrasing and recording persona from Covay; certainly someone Mick admires very much; they all do I would suppose.
Taking nothing away from Mick's own signature natural sound, which is like a major spectacular thing I've enjoyed most all my life; remarkable tho some of the similarities.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-05-29 20:08 by hopkins.

Acc to this interview with Mick by his brother Chris Jagger, Mick's onstage moves may owe more than a little to the Caribbean:

"What influenced me more was going to that ska/bluebeat club off Saville Row in Central London, because there, the West Indians moved in an altogether different way and I incorporated some of that into what I was beginning to do on stage with the band".

And of course, James Brown and Little Richard:

"Then we travelled to the USA and caught James Brown at the Apollo Theatre in New York, and that was a huge influence. It wasn't just the moves he made – it was the energy he put into it that was amazing. It didn't seem to be a routine, as such. Everyone had moves. The guy who was most influential to me in many ways was Little Richard, but it was moving more than dancing, gesticulation and interpretation. Dancing is in it, but the big thing is dancing and drums are the total connection, and it's very ancient and primitive, in the best sense of the word. The sound of the drums and stamping of your feet is hundreds of thousands of years old. Drums and dancing, the interpretation of the rhythm, has to be the earliest and most primeval expression of the human spirit – you the dancer and the drummer. James Brown was totally in that. He and the drummer were in total sync. That was obvious when you saw them. In its most expressive you see it in African dancing, Indian dance. I have to be together with Charlie Watts, and he is aware of that. If he's not doing what my feet are, it doesn't work."

"How Mick Jagger Learned to Dance": [www.rollingstone.com]

That's a really great interview link, thanks

I think that "Beast of Burden" is a good musical example among many others of how the rolling stones gently appropriate a musical genre and turn it into something that they own. The chord progression and the beat/syncopation are "soul" but the sweet/agressive lyrics, the sound of the guitars and the voice are Stones-vintage.
Rockandroll,
Mops

-Keith and Ronnie are basically Jimmy Johnson and Eddie Hinton. It’s a tad whimsical but one can imagine ‘I’ll Take You There’ with the former duo on guitars rather than the latter, and, either KR or RW capable of the quirky but memorable Hinton guitar solo.

-A goodly amount of Keith’s most famous riffs -Tumbling Dice/Monkey Man/Beast Of
Burden/Can’t You Hear Me Knocking et al. would be right at home were they Jackson-Love/Isaac Hayes horn lines

-Exile On Main Street is the band’s biggest tip of the hat to Stax-Volt/Fame southern soul. I doubt Price and Keys needed a prompt to reference the Memphis Horns on the EOMS horn charts.

And one last bit of whimsy: Tumbling Dice with horn stabs after each line of verse after the first chorus would've been awesome.

So, I'm sitting here listening to music and Otis Redding doing Dock of Tha Bay comes up. Man, what I cool song for the Stones to cover. It could lead into Beast of Burden. The groove is the same.

For Your Precious Love is Soul I think



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-05-28 12:31 by Monsoon Ragoon.

Emotional Rescue? Disco bassline ok, but that falsetto!

To give something back for the help on this thread, here are a couple of interesting titbits I've found while researching the paper:

1) Elvis Costello on the Stones (2003:
"The Stones are a big band in miniature. They've got this front man who's a cheerleader, not like a singer in the conventional sense; he doesn't hold notes, he's got this presence that you can't help watching... Then you've got Charlie who is actually a swing drummer and Keith is the horn section. Everything he's playing is like a horn part."
full interview here

2) When looking for connections between Mick and James Brown, I found some really interesting quotes from Mick talking about dancing (I found them interesting because you don't often get Mick talking seriously about anything he does). Here is one example:

"It wasn't just the moves he made – it was the energy he put into it that was amazing. It didn't seem to be a routine, as such. ... Dancing is in it, but the big thing is dancing and drums are the total connection, and it's very ancient and primitive, in the best sense of the word.... Drums and dancing, the interpretation of the rhythm, has to be the earliest and most primeval expression of the human spirit – you the dancer and the drummer. James Brown was totally in that. He and the drummer were in total sync. That was obvious when you saw them. In its most expressive you see it in African dancing, Indian dance. I have to be together with Charlie Watts, and he is aware of that. If he's not doing what my feet are, it doesn't work. Obviously other instruments come into it. Performing is all to do with interpreting the song and the beat which is propelling you."

This connection between dance and drums (and, by extension, Mick and Charlie), is something that he has discussed in a few places. It seems that, to Mick, the connection between him and Charlie is as significant as many of us assume the musical connection between Charlie and Keith to be.

I also found a quote from choreographer Toni Basil (who was at the TAMI show), when she explicitly connects Brown's and Jagger's dancing styles in terms of this characteristic:

‘It was fantastic – Mick’s moves. What is this? This kind of paraplegic funky chicken. What is he doing? ... I had never seen such moves in my life... Mick was doing physicalities that no one had ever seen before, in the same way that James Brown was doing physicalities that no one had ever seen before. Elvis Presley, James Brown and Mick Jagger had some similarities regarding dancing. They moved exactly to the beat. They understood the backbeat.... Mick always danced to the beat. Elvis, James and Mick nailed the beat’.

thanks all

syrel

They seem to like the Temptations as well. Just my Imagination, Aint too Proud to beg. Also one could argue that Out of Control is a direct relative to Papa was a Rollin Stone. Let's not forget My Girl.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-06-03 13:19 by Chris Fountain.

Quote
Chris Fountain
Let's not forget My Girl.

Actually, maybe we should

syrel