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WeLoveYou
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..?

Just wait for the LIB deluxe.

Don Was talks about the different takes of Honky
Tonk Woman in the bonus section of Stones In Exile DVD...

Bonus Features then Exile Fans ...... at around the 32.15 mark ....



ROCKMAN

The licks on Memo, actually a part on Boudoir, Downtown Suzie has those licks. Ry recorded them way before Keith recorded HTW.

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Redhotcarpet
The licks on Memo, actually a part on Boudoir, Downtown Suzie has those licks. Ry recorded them way before Keith recorded HTW.

They're not quite the same, though. And if you dig deep, you'll find both Robert Johnson and Leadbelly doing those licks as well

My humble opinion about this:

Double stops, all these descending and ascending harmonic riffs and slides involving 6th and 5th strings or 6th and 4th strings, are all over the place..from T-Bone Walker down to Berry, down to the Stones playing Route 66, Spider and the fly etc. etc.Ry Cooder has played a central role in this, as he played along with the Stones in the studio or whatever, but Keith didn't solely play those well-known riffs, he structured whole songs out of them. Open tuning and the way someone can go about it fitted so well to his approach (or the evolution thereof) about what it should look like when someone plays electric guitar, i.e. not to play all the time, to make 'statements', to leave room.

Thats my point, he used Cooder heavily though and behind his back, sucked him dry. But, Keith and Mick used Cooder in pop songs. That's the way they worked. They wrote stuff, used others licks, chord patterns etc and released everything as Jagger/Richards - the Rolling Stones. This goes for Hokins, Jones, Wyman, Taylor and Preston. It didnt change until Wood joined and the trading of credits and the co crediting started.

Cooder was a guest session guitarist on various recording sessions with the Rolling Stones in 1968 and 1969, and his contributions appear on the Stones' Let It Bleed (mandolin on "Love in Vain"), and Sticky Fingers, on which he contributed the slide guitar on "Sister Morphine". During this period Cooder joined with Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and longtime Rolling Stones sideman Nicky Hopkins to record "Jamming with Edward". Shortly after the sessions, Cooder accused Keith Richards of musical plagiarism, but has since refused to comment on his accusations. Cooder also played slide guitar for the 1970 movie Performance, which contained Mick Jagger's first solo single, "Memo from Turner". The 1975 Rolling Stones compilation album Metamorphosis features an uncredited Cooder on Bill Wyman's "Downtown Suzie", which is also the first Rolling Stones song played and recorded in the open G tuning.

[www.guitarmasterclass.net]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-05 22:35 by Redhotcarpet.

Ry dates



427. DOWNTOWN SUZIE (Wyman) 3.53
AKA: Downtown Lucy, Lisle Street Lucie
23-25 February, 15 March - 23 April 1969: Place: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England.
Rolling Stones with Ry Cooder, Jimmy Miller.
Producer: Jimmy Miller.
Engineer: Glyn Johns.
UK Compilation LP METAMORPHOSIS: 6 June 1975: No. 45 - 1 week
USA Compilation LP METAMORPHOSIS: 6 June 1975: No. 8 - 8 weeks

The good fortune of having his composition included on the SATANIC MAJESTIES album made Bill Wyman determined to write further songs. He knew the musical quality had to be maintained and he admitted that Downtown Suzie did not warrant inclusion on LET IT BLEED or earlier on BEGGARS BANQUET. How did the street working girl Lucy mentioned in the lyrics become Suzie in the song title?

Brian Jones did not respond quite so objectively to the Jagger/Richard dominance. Keith Richards indicates that Brian never actually came up with a finished product and, therefore, this part of his insecurity was mostly self-inflicted. The music on Suzie is good-time boogie with a portion of acoustic blues and open tuned slide guitar by Ry Cooder. The humorous lyrics pertain to the original working title - “Have you ever been had? Got a dose from Lisle Street Lucy.” Also, “I heard the ringing of the bell. It’s Lucy with the clientele” and “Oh Lucy kicked me in the hall - yeah yeah yeah. A tennis worth of aching balls.” Lisle Street is in Chinatown, Soho, in London and was well-known for “walk-ups”.

An out-take is available on bootleg which has the same vocal style but less instrumentation (* a - 3.45), the original being overdubbed in April 1969 and eventually
appearing on the mid-70s Decca compilation, METAMORPHOSIS, making it only the second Wyman composition to feature on a Rolling Stones’ album.

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Redhotcarpet
“Oh Lucy kicked me in the hall - yeah yeah yeah. A tennis worth of aching balls.”

"Tenner's."

£10.00



ROCKMAN

Ry Cooder is a master craftsman. He has been an insider for a long time. He knows how to play the game. With the help of Warner Records in the late 60's he began to accumulate a lot of power. He was on lots of WEA stuff. He clashed often with others in the studio. Didnt play fair and was very political. Check out the little heated exchange he had with James Burton durring the recording of "My Creole Belle" on Arlo Guthrie WEA/Reprise album. He was often pared up with Clarence White of the Byrds in the studio for Warners. Now Ry tried to be Clarence all the time. Ry pinced alot of Clarence on that Stones stuff. Not the slide stuff ...the country stuff. Ry as an artist had learned his craft from lots of other musicians who never saw a penny for their work. Ry on the other hand got every cent and more.

Nothing much to the Cooder/Keith thing.

Maybe Cooder and Keith didn't get along, anyway Ry was over it all by the 90s and basically said it was just a John Lee Hooker tuning.

Honky Tonk Women or Country Honk or whatever, are different arrangements of the same thing and it was written in Brazil, nowhere near Ry Cooder.

A guitar tuning and licks are not a song.

A commercial song is a different thing and HTW wasn't even a commercial song, it was a Hank Williams joke song and it was just luck that it turned out as the Honky Tonk Women version.

There is no evidence that I've seen to take Wyman and Jones seriously as songwriters, arrangers and riffs yes, but not songs, but Wyman has a few average ones.

Whether riff writers get a songwriting credit is a grey area, maybe depending on if the song came first or the riff that produced the song came first.

If someone writes a song and then someone else adds a intro or a riff, has the song changed?

Can the song exist by it's self without the intro or the riff?

[www.ryland-cooder.com]

"Although fairly famous, he is nothing like as famous as he should have been. In 1969, Cooder, a guest slide-guitarist on the Sticky Fingers (Let It Bleed) album, was tipped to replace Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones. He was further credited with having made up the guitar riff to Honky Tonk Women. That he now insists: "Oh man, it wasn't my tuning or chord progression -- I got it from John Lee Hooker" says as much about his deep respect for tradition as it does about his self-promotional acumen."










Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-06 10:15 by howled.

Ry Cooder was a serious input in the studio in 1968 and 1969. Country Honk is not HTW. I have ears and I play the guitar.
It was Keith who stormed out from the studio when Ry was there recording with Mick. It was Keith who said he took Ry for all he got and it was Keith who recorded Ry Cooder behind his back.

Keith used this in a fantastic creative way together with Mick. They produced rock songs, pop songs.

What's the difference between Country Honk and Honky Tonk Women, except for some rearranging?

The opening riff of Honk Tonk Women is a John Lee Hooker thing that might be influenced by some of Cooder's playing, but so what.

Doesn't mean that Cooder had anything directly to do with it and even if he did, it's just a small intro riff and not the song.

As Cooder says, he got it off John Lee Hooker, so maybe John Lee Hooker should be given a Honky Tonk Women songwriting credit and then it just gets more and more ridiculous.

Maybe Keith should give Chuck Berry a songwriting credit for the "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" intro.

The rest of Keith's playing on Honky Tonk Women is a mixture of Chuck Berry and Country more than anything else.

John Lee Hooker influenced opening and then also a mixture of Chuck Berry and Country licks.

None of this has anything to do with the core of the song.

All of the above is just arranging.

If Cooder wanted a songwriting credit for showing Keith some John Lee Hooker riffs, then why should he be given a songwriting credit.


Keith only HTW guitar.





Country Honk





Honky Tonk Women with Taylor's added guitar







Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-06 12:38 by howled.

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Redhotcarpet
Ry Cooder was a serious input in the studio in 1968 and 1969. Country Honk is not HTW. I have ears and I play the guitar.

Only in spring 1969, he was not in studio at actual Rolling Stones sessions before or after that time.

He recorded with Mick in 1968

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howled

Theres nothing to debate really, I get Keith and Mick and their way of doing records and creating their brand. Nothing wrong in their ways, there a lots of people who felt screwed after working with them and thats part of the business. I get that. What I dont get is why it's so difficult for many Stones fans to accept that not just Mick but also Keith, when active, really used people around him , be it riffs, licks, melodies, rhythm, technique or ideas.

I think it's because to Keith's image, the idea of him being a natural element who just somehow just spits out riffs and licks, is essential.

He says himself he used Ry Cooder. I hear it in the music. It's there. He did however change that style and the Berry style and really came up with his own in 1971/1972 and he was totally unique live in 1972-1982. Cant your hear me knockin is also an example of Keith doing what only he did.

In the 70s I hear the real Keith, someone who breaths a groovy rock n roll and blues. Thats when a song like HTW evloves from a showcase to an original Keith Richards (live 1975/1976). That laid back groove of his.

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Redhotcarpet
He recorded with Mick in 1968

At one session for Marianne's single.

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howled



Keith only HTW guitar.

This has been @#$%& about with by a fan, intro parts getting looped/repeated.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-06 20:55 by His Majesty.

I think your right about the little differences in Keith's playing that makes millions and other guitarists jeolusy about this. Chuck Berry, Ry Cooder and even Mick Taylor are probably all better players than Keith ever was. He had that certain something extra however that made all the difference with the record buying public or concert going public anyway and Keith made a ton while the other "better players" didn't. I'd be pissed too!

Some of it could very well be about envy and jealousy and ego and money and fame and reputation.

Looking at it from Cooder's angle, he might think, I showed Keith and Mick these open G licks (even though a lot of them are John Lee Hooker based etc) and then they were having big hits with Honky Tonk Women and Brown Sugar, where is my cut?

The problem with that is that Cooder didn't write Honky Tonk Women and Brown Sugar and he's not the Stones sound and delivery.

All he did was show them some stuff in open G while he was playing with them for a short while.

If Keith and Mick pick up on some things that Parsons and Cooder knew about, then it's still up to Keith and Mick on how to use them.

Keith picked up loads of things from Chuck Berry records and films where he could see what Chuck's hands were doing and the same goes for Keith and Brian and Blues records, but it's still up to the Stones on how and when to use these things especially when they start writing songs and not doing straight covers.

If Chuck is a bit pissed at that, then Chuck did the same thing with Louis Jordan and T-Bone Walker and Country song/Jump Blues lyrics.

Bill get's pissed at the Stones probably because he might feel that he's more than just an add on bass player (and other things), so he claims the JJF main riff, which to me is a get back at Mick and Keith that they aren't really that great when they got the riff from the bass player and maybe he also wanted some royalties, who knows.

Who knows what really happened as it's just Wyman's version and I have no doubt there are other versions on how the JJF riff came about, especially versions concerning open tunings.

Anyway, Keith especially seems to get these pissed off dudes coming back at him after experimenting with things that they were doing, and to me it's all BS because knowing about something basically means nothing unless you can do something with it and Keith does do things in his own way using things he's picked up which is how it goes for all musicians and songwriters.

How many players and bands have taken things from Keith and Mick?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-07 09:47 by howled.

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Redhotcarpet
The licks on Memo, actually a part on Boudoir, Downtown Suzie has those licks. Ry recorded them way before Keith recorded HTW.

Memo was recorded AFTER HTW.

If you listen to Cooder's work with Beafheart and Taj Mahal the riffs are there though. But then again, if you listen to any decent banjo player from the 1930's, or any Hawaiian slide lap slide player from the 1900's the riffs are there.

And let's not forget -Richards picked it up after he saw Cooder play around with it, but also Jagger picked up on it. For Jagger it was a great way of getting around his lack of guitar playing skills. He came up with Brown Sugar, Sway and Moonlight Mile, all due to open G.

Mathijs

Open G is not the only thing, it's the technique, notes, licks etc. Evident in standardtuned songs as well like Monkey man and Midnight Rambler.

Memo was recorded in 1968.

I dont think people were pissed with Keith because they were jelous. Keith seems to be envious. Storming out of a studio because of Ry Cooder, recording him behind his back and using his licks/riffs. I'm sure Ry Cooder was promised a lot more and got pissed - once - in one interview when he was, what 23?.

Seemingly, many people think that Ry Cooder is the musician Keith picked up the most from. That is not the case, of course.

Berry is an obvious inspiration. For more mellow soul tunes, Keith has also picked up licks from JJ Cale, Curtis Mayfield and other artists.

And he has certainly picked up way more John Lee Hooker-licks than that of Ry Cooder.

The trade mark open G-riffs are not Cooder-inspired. A little break in HTW and some elements in the LIB slide songs are all I hear of inspiration. And that's what it is: inspiration, which he never have denied himself.

Did Keith pick up and absorb licks & influences from Ry Cooder ?

Of course he did... in the time honoured fashion of any musician developing their style & technique.

Would any body ever confuse Keith's playing with Ry's ... orRy with Keith ?

Not in a million years.

...so I just don't understand the almost obsessive interest some folks ahve with this subject.

What Ry Cooder is talking about when he says he got it from John Lee Hooker, is (I presume) the stop start stutter open tuning thang that John Lee Hooker does and it's also the "Honky Tonk Women" guitar intro.

ZZ Top have the John Lee Hooker stop start stutter thing in La Grange and so does a song on Exile that I can't remember at the moment ( turns out to be Shake Your Hips).

Slow down some of John Lee Hooker's riffs in things like Boogie Chillen (below) and they will end up close to the "Honky Tonk Women" guitar intro.

Cooder might have shown Keith this sort of thing, and by Cooder's comments, it looks like he did, but Keith has to fit it into the "Country Honk" song, so it's just picking up things IMO.

"He was further credited with having made up the guitar riff to Honky Tonk Women. That he now insists: "Oh man, it wasn't my tuning or chord progression -- I got it from John Lee Hooker"















Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-07 13:16 by howled.

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Redhotcarpet
Open G is not the only thing, it's the technique, notes, licks etc. Evident in standardtuned songs as well like Monkey man and Midnight Rambler.

Memo was recorded in 1968.

The version with Ry was recorded in Los Angeles in early 1970.

The Traffic version was recorded first. Then came the Stones' version, which was recorded in November 1968.

Anyone can do what they want with John Lee Hooker type rhythms as it seems like they are public domain (at least in some cases).

[www.copyrightwebsite.com]

[en.wikipedia.org])

The initial groove of the song (La_Grange) is based on a traditional boogie blues rhythm used by John Lee Hooker in his "Boogie Chillen" and Slim Harpo's "Shake Your Hips". A failed suit by the copyright holder of Boogie Chillen resulted in the court ruling that the rhythm was in the public domain.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-07 13:39 by howled.

It wasn't really that rhythm (or its variations) that was discussed here, regarding Cooder, was it? It's the licks in between - also found on Downtown Suzie.