Here is what I found on Ry Cooder's Into The purple Valley jacket. The album is from 1972 but this is the CD reedition :

" A legendary session musician Ry Cooder played with a wide range of artists, from Randy Newman to Crazy Horse to the Rolling Stones. He made notable contributions on the latter's 1969 release Let It Bleed providing the central riff to the group's smash hit Honky Tonk Women in the process.

Nobody knew about that? Is that true? I always thought that HTW riff was Keith idea !

---

Sorry for my english ; I'm a french little boy (but I like it)

I always thought it was Mick Taylors idea.

On Four Flicks Keith says he was toying around with an old Hank Williams idea. It does sound much more like something Keith could've come up with, than something that Ry Cooder, Brian Jones or Mick Taylor could've come up with.

JumpingKentFlash

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JumpingKentFlash
On Four Flicks Keith says he was toying around with an old Hank Williams idea. It does sound much more like something Keith could've come up with, than something that Ry Cooder, Brian Jones or Mick Taylor could've come up with.

But is Keith referring to the song or the riff?

"I added something to "Honky Tonk Women",but it was more or less completed when I arrived. I played the country kind of influence on the rock licks between the verses."MICK TAYLOR 1979 (pp338 Rolling With The Stones by Bill Wyman)
same page "In the south of America we went to a ranch and wrote HTW because I was into a cowboy thing. The guitar is in open tuning-G-on that. I learned that particular tuning off Ry Cooder" KEITH,Rolling Stone 8-19-71.

Of course it was Keef's idea, everything that worked was Keef's idea. Wasn't it.

I have no idea whose idea it was, It could easily have been Keith's but if you listen to Ry's stuff , it could as easily have been his. who really cares anyway at this stage.

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-09-23 20:51 by parislocksmith.

For Goodness sake. All the classic Blues, Country and Rock riffs ever penned simply use the same four or five notes from a simple scale arranged in slightly different order, with a slightly different feel.
The subtle differences are where all the magic lies.
Isn't it really amazing that so many blues and RnR songs are instantly recognisble, with their own unique vibe and groove...despite all using the same chord structure, very similar riffs ...and half of them in the same key !



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2008-08-15 10:09 by Spud.

is anyone in this thread familiar with the 1967 Stones demo known as Title 15?
it opens with what sounds like a methedrine-driven precursor to the HTW riff.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2008-08-15 11:18 by with sssoul.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-09-23 20:51 by parislocksmith.

>> Yes, you're right. I was thinking of the similarity between the 'licks' in HTW
and Cooder's 'licks' at the beginning of MFT. <<

thanks parislocksmith - my post was a response to Cooder's claim quoted in the first post regarding the central HTW riff.
for me Title 15 puts that notion to rest. i have no theories about the HTW/Memo connection you hear.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2008-08-15 13:37 by with sssoul.

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olorin
Here is what I found on Ry Cooder's Into The purple Valley jacket. The album is from 1972 but this is the CD reedition :

" A legendary session musician Ry Cooder played with a wide range of artists, from Randy Newman to Crazy Horse to the Rolling Stones. He made notable contributions on the latter's 1969 release Let It Bleed providing the central riff to the group's smash hit Honky Tonk Women in the process.

Nobody knew about that? Is that true? I always thought that HTW riff was Keith idea !

What exactly is "the central riff" of "Honky Tonk Women"?

(a) The intro of those two notes combined with that excellent blending and timing? I guess everyone recognizes the song immediately when Keith starts to play those notes (with one hand nowadays).

(b) The little run with which Keith stops the intro and opens the road into verses.

(c) The open G variant (G/C chords, then C/F, A/D, etc.) with which Keith 'responds' to Mick's lines: THE classic and signature Keith Richards guitar riff.

It looks like Ry refers to (c), because (a) is something every guitar player sometimes does consciously or unconciously - no one can claim being robbed by that simple idea (well, maybe John Lee Hooker can?). It is pure genious of Keith Richards to start a song with idea that makes the riff of "Satisfaction" sound like a work of Chopin; (b) is not a riff actually, even tough Keith (and the horns) uses its variants to fill certain steps thorought the song (especially in the end). Also in "Country Honk" the the use of this musical idea can be heard (i.e. the violin).

So if (c), as it looks like, is the actual object of "robbery", it is basically the claim that Keith's signature playing or "riffing" with the chords or their basic notes in open G tuning (I/V) is stolen from Ry Cooder. This is to say that a huge percentage of Rolling Stones tunes ever since are thence based on Ry Cooder's 'invention'. I think that is quite strong claim - or I would say, it is even a ridiculous one: if one teaches you how to play (or if you see or hear one play) the open tuning, and what can be done with this 'trick' in using the chord structures in a new, dramatic way, it does not mean that if you start to use it, and start to create variants and songs out of it, one has been robbered. It is just passing the ideas from one to other. I don't have any documents to to prove, but I am not sure at all that Ry Cooder 'owns' this kind of playing with open G, or that he is 'invented' it, even though he has done beautiful slide work based on it. I have the hypothesis that the true inventors should be found in Delta. Namely, there we can find some nice how the blues scale can be played in an open tuning - and this is everything Ry or Keith basically are doing. To be true, as much I know of Ry Cooder's work (which is brilliant, by the way), I don't actually hear the typical rough and SIGNATURE Keith Richards sound in them - the sound that distinguishes all the great Rolling Stones records, a'la "Honky Tonky", "Brown Sugar", or "Start Me Up". No matter if Ry feels 'robbed', he obviously does not seem to recognize that Keith added something to 'his' ideas, that seem to be out of Ry's grasp and abilities. And it looks like that little (?) KEEF extra factor is the thing that matters and makes millions.

I think these 'robbery' claims needs to be interpreted against the context where all this happened; namely the whole Ry Cooder/Rolling Stones drama in 1968/69 was quite a strange scene, and we maybe do not know everything yet. Ry Cooder once said that he was invited to join the group, but he refused. But for me it looks more like that Ry Cooder thought that he WILL BE asked to join the band, which never happened. Maybe he went there and proudly showed the boys everything he knew; after all, he was doing there what Brian Jones once did. Maybe he thought that he will be rewarded with membership (or maybe that kind of possibility was speculated to make Ry excited, who knows). But since the big offer never came, he felt betrayed or something. Then started this whining of "they stole everything I know, those bloodsuckers, blah blah blah..." Part of the deal with Ry must be the release of JAMMING WITH EDWARD, musically totally irrelevant release in any respect. But Ry got his recognition, and some royalties, and the rest of the world an evidence how lost the Stones is without the direction of Keith Richards. Anyway, nowadays Ry refuses talk at all of his experiences with The Stones, which I find better for him.

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-08-15 12:56 by Doxa.

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parislocksmith
Cf. [www.iorr.org]

We have a fine piece of (circumstantial) evidence in Memo from Turner. Compare the Metamorphosis version with the official version, which features Cooder. It seems unlikely that Cooder was copying Richards on MFT. Perhaps the question should be: by whom was Cooder influenced?

Hmm.. it looks like the way Cooder plays in "Memo From Turner" is the 'riff candidate' (b) in mý listings above. Perhaps there is a similarity in a way of playing, that one can throw licks or colour songs like this, but still the actual resemblance to "Honky Tonk Woman" is not quite obvious - at least the connection cannot be talk in terms of robbery. At least to my ears.

- Doxa

(a) The intro of those two notes combined with that excellent blending and timing? I guess everyone recognizes the song immediately when Keith starts to play those notes (with one hand nowadays).

(b) The little run with which Keith stops the intro and opens the road into verses.

(c) The open G variant (G/C chords, then C/F, A/D, etc.) with which Keith 'responds' to Mick's lines: THE classic and signature Keith Richards guitar riff.


My guess is that Cooder claims that Keith knicked alternative (d) from him. The licks Keith does with his thumb and index finger (on the g and e-strings) right before changing to A.

This is likely imo, since Cooder has this lick in a lot of his songs. Keith didn't do it before HTW. Same type of playing can be found on Downton Suzie, but that's not Keith playing it (on the acoustic guitar).

Just my two cents.

nice analysis, Doxa. i know i'm not the only one who always understood Cooder's claim to be about the intro to HTW -
when the claim is repeated in Stones literature i think most authors make that assumption.
but as you note calling the intro the "central riff" is a bit weird, unless one is using "central" to mean
"distinctive", "immediately recognizable", etc. which i reckon is possible, just as it's possible
that the term "riff" is being used to refer to a part that's not technically a riff.
anyway your take on the claim and the situation sounds right to me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-08-15 13:39 by with sssoul.

In all fairness it must be said that the main body of riffs in HTW seem to be derived from Ry Cooder. Listening to Cooder's slide work with Captain Beefheart and Taj Mahal reveals many of the double stops incorporated in HTW and many classic Keith songs and riffs. Ry Cooder is instrumental in the development of the Stones. In the defense of Keith it must be said that open G tuning is quite limited -if you tune to open G the first 5 riffs you'll play will sound like Cooder/Richards.

Mathijs

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Mathijs
...it must be said that open G tuning is quite limited -if you tune to open G the first 5 riffs you'll play will sound like Cooder/Richards.

Mathijs

Exactly. This and similar tunings are used precisely because they put those notes and chord voicings under your fingers. By being tuned to a chord they suit both slide and easy fingering. they leave the player free to concentrate on timing and dynamics...always Keith's great strength.
...And it's the most funway to play a guitar ever invented ;^)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-08-15 18:53 by Spud.

Mathijs

I've read these type of threads for years on the internet. I mean this was almost 40 years ago, so what is the bottom line? Does Cooder think he deserved a songwriting credit and thus has missed out on a ton of money? I guess I don't understand because don't musicians show each other cool licks, fingering and chording all the time? Does he think open g paved the way for the rest of the Stones' career or something? I don't think he was there from 62-67 was he?

It always make me think about what Keith said on his disc of "Voodoo Brew" when he talks about the origins of "Cocaine". He says when Ramblin Jack Elliot claimed it that he stole it but "He stole it well!". Just a thought.

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Mathijs
Listening to Cooder's slide work with Captain Beefheart and Taj Mahal reveals many of the double stops incorporated in HTW and many classic Keith songs and riffs.

Can you recommend any records?

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with sssoul
is anyone in this thread familiar with the 1967 Stones demo known as Title 15?
it opens with what sounds like a methedrine-driven precursor to the HTW riff.

i'm not familiar with this track, but would like to check it out.
what bootleg can it be found on ?

cheers !

emmett

>> what bootleg can it be found on ? <<

i have it on a very fine 3-disk set called More Stoned Than You'll Ever Be, which is regularly available on ebay.
i'm pretty sure it's also in the 8-disk Satanic Sessions.

(it may also be worth noting that by "the HTW riff" in that post i meant the intro.
as Doxa pointed out shortly after that, it's not all that clear whether that's what Cooder feels was ripped off from him.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-09-03 09:21 by with sssoul.

A small observation - most of Ry Cooder's work on his superb early records was interpretative. He took a wide variety of songs from different sources, and arranged them in new and interesting ways (eg. his best known track 'Little Sister', which is very different from the Elvis Presley original). It's not hard to imagine hime hearing Country Honk, and playing around with it a bit, and saying 'Why don't you play it like this....?

Listen closely to Jamming With Edward. That riff is all over the place. Those sessions took place right before the writing and recording of Honky Tonk Women. This has always seemed very peculiar to me personally.

ahhhhhhhh..the weekly ry cooder got ripped off thread..

nice

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stoned in washington dc
ahhhhhhhh..the weekly ry cooder got ripped off thread..

nice

Rip off? No.
Influence? Maybe.

I agree with Mathijs and knockyourteethout. And I think (b) in Doxa's post is the riff many people refer to - it definately sounds very Cooder-ish to me.

Being derivative is fine and yes everyone borrows form everyone else, but in this case we're talking about quite a distinctive and original riff that characterises a very well known and successful song, so it's worthy of discussion, and I'm not surprised Ry is a bit peeved about the whole issue.

(As for (c), everyone plays this, it's not particularly noteworthy although Keith has made good use of it in many songs as mentioned above.)

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knockyourteethout
Those sessions took place right before the writing and recording of Honky Tonk Women.

Not really. The Jamming with Edward sessions were on april 23th and there are two recorded versions of HTW available from the sessions of the 9th and the 16th of march. If I am correct Ry Cooder came to the studio on march 22nd. (But maybe the department of historical accuracy can shed a light on that.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-09-04 13:00 by marcovandereijk.

Are there any bootlegs of earlier versions of HTW? And anyone willing to post to rapidshare etc?

According to recent posting on IORR (a scan from a book relating to the LIB sessions and the use of Triumph amps) - five versions were recorded, then they went back to version 1 and used only the drums and bass tracks and overdubbed all the other instruments. Would be great to hear the other versions of the song. Hoping they're electric guitar versions, not acoustic Country Honk-style..?