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| The Rolling Stones in 1962 |
On Fridays here, we've featured soul music on the Soul Corner in 2011-12, and then throughout 2013, garage rock on Friday Nuggets. For 2014, we are highlighting the "world's greatest rock and roll band". Self-proclaimed? Perhaps, though as Muhammad Ali (and Dizzy Dean before him) said, It ain't bragging if you can back it up.
They don't need much introduction, but The Rolling Stones were formed in London in 1962. They've had personnel changes through the years but three of the original core perform as The Rolling Stones to this day - singer Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards and drummer Charlie Watts. They recorded 24 LPs, numerous singles, live sets, compilations and so forth, the catalogue extensive. The Rolling Stones have reportedly sold more than 1.2 billion records (yes, with a b) in their career.
One of our central thesis points at this feature will be to showcase the spectacular songwriting of Jagger/Richards as they are always credited. Forget the stage props, hype machine, drugs, feuds, supermodels and all the rest of it - The Stones thrived and endured because they wrote a catalogue of absolutely great songs, certainly many of the best rock'n'roll songs of all-time. They have few peers as songwriters.
They were great students of American blues, soul and R&B, and they also covered many songs, particularly in their early years, as was more customary in that era.
We are going to kick off this feature with The Stones first single to make #1 on the charts, a 1964 cover of Bobby and Shirley Womack's great R&B song "It's All Over Now", performed live here on a popular TV show of the day. The British Invasion hysteria was at full throttle. This footage is noteworthy for Stones' historians because it features guitarist Brian Jones with a rare showing on background vocals :
Great video.
ReplyDeleteYou can see that Brian Jones was the musical leader back then. Keith Richards was shy and deep in the background.
Bill Wyman was let into the group because he had his own equipment, including the stand up "dog house" bass. You can see by the way he plays his electrical bass in the upright position that he's used to playing the big upright bass that way.