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jbwelda
Again, fail to see what that has to do with the subject at hand.
I went back and reassessed my reaction. Don't hate the song, just sounds half done. Pretty good actually everywhere but the middle section they seem kind of lost, but recover well by the end. The end of the studio version is especially dynamic. So, am on a fence here, like the song but don't really love it. Kind of defines the "strutting" sound of their period between being a pop band and a rock band.
Not that it matters
jb
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Doxa
This one. The 'other' - not the official - Brussels version.... Perfect! The way Taylor backs up the opening riff, giving it a certain roll... (later years they would have called Keith and Taylor's interplay as 'ancient art of weaving'); each element and nuance by each player spot on thru it playing- and arrangement-wise... but especially the whole chorus that is a total triumph: Mick and Keith at their peak voice singing their hearts out and the whole Rolling Stones Dream Team all cylinders on.... The whole performance is just so tense, tight but joyful!
- Doxa
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GasLightStreet
HA HA it's so FAST!
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DandelionPowderman
The LYL-version, with Hyde Park 1969 as a contender.
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LieB
The versions from Australia '73 are pretty cool, especially the two from Sydney on February 27, 1973. It's got a great country rock swagger to it and Mick Taylor plays the best I've ever heard him play on that song. The Perth rendition is great too.
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DoxaQuote
GasLightStreet
HA HA it's so FAST!
Surely it is, but the machine was so well-oiled at the time that pulling some extra gas was not a problem. They were in a top form, and they knew it, so the attitude was 'let's play the shit out of this one'. By contrast, when in 1981/82 they once again pulled some gas to speed-up things that happened by the cost of the tightness, groove and musicality (all those letmegos, starmeups, etc). In 1973 I don't hear them being ever 'busy' like that - then they controlled the speed in a way it sounded natural.
Generally I like the way the band had evolved by the time of 1973 (and I think especially Brussels concerts contain the best individual performances of many of their songs ever, not just "Honk Tonk"). What we hear in 1973 is the sum of experience having been on a road for some years, and the songs having shaped into joyful fiestas full of musical richness and details and improvisation. But at the same the band being more tight than ever, and the songs still being compact pieces. In many songs, the original footprint live versions of 1969 were only a memory any longer (like "Honky Tonk", "JJ Flash", "Rambler"). Those 'original' live versions, played witch such determination and no bullshitting -attitude knowing they had big guns there, were cool as hell too, but I love the way they kept on evolving them into new directions. That was true, natural progression as artists do. Like always discovering new ways to interpret the songs, not repeating themselves. Some of the old greatness and uniqueness of the old versions was lost in the process for sure, but they were always able to offer new, fresh-sounding alternative ones. The songs had potentiality for different, wonderful things.
In a way it did continue in 1975/76, the songs kept on evolving (the lazy, arrogant, raw, even intentionally sloppy version of "Honky Tonk" as a great example!) but I think the band simply lost some of that focus and tightness and pure musicality they had topped in 1973 (although they sounded charming and brilliant, once again, by other means). I would say that the progression started to be more like degeneration or deconstruction - knowing that they cannot any longer top or better themselves, but instead try to find other ways to offer something new and exciting, sometimes like plying against their old versions of the songs (Jagger's vocals, for example, in "Honky" being a good example). In 1978, discovering some new energy after being having kicked the balls by the punks, they made the roughness an art form. A cool, bad-ass version of "Honky Tonk" there as well, as we can see LIVE IN TEXAS.
In 1981/82 they still had that 'punk spirit' but it was watered-down a bit (like said above, played songs faster than their energy-level allowed). They tried to compansate it and their organic but a bit monotoneus sound by song selections and back-up musicians to make the stadium shows more variant and exciting. The result were mixed, but they were such a free-going, non-disciplary jam band, like they never been before, that I think it rightly represents for many fans the last time the Stones taking riskies and thereby being 'dangerous'. However, songs like "Honky Tonk" started to sound like being totally played to death, played more by autopilot than by inspiration, lacking any creative addition, new angle to them any longer. Generally the road versions of classical songs like it, "JJF", "Can't Always Get", "Tumbling Dice", "Brown Sugar", etc. etc. hade became artistically to milked-out end, even sounding like rushy torsos or skeletons of what they once been they played out of loyalty to cheering crowds (which didn't mean that they didn't sounded still great in a hot night; one cannot much ever do bad with the songs and band of that caliber, like HAMPTON version of "Honky Tonk" shows). I understand very well why they dediced in 1989 to go rethink their game and go back to original studio versions of the songs, and start like from the beginning again. But that was a whole new era and a new story (that I am, to be frank, never that into).
But it was such fascinating story as a live band from 1969 to 1982. Just listening different versions of "Honky Tonk Women" along the years alone captures the story nicely.
- Doxa
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noughties
The "Get Your Ya Ya`s Out" version?
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LieB
The versions from Australia '73 are pretty cool, especially the two from Sydney on February 27, 1973. It's got a great country rock swagger to it and Mick Taylor plays the best I've ever heard him play on that song. The Perth rendition is great too.
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Mathijs
All versions without Chuck Leavell are classic.
Mathijs