Keith Richards dedicates in his extensive memoirs (Life, 504 pages) just 20 lines from the 1976 Rolling Stones album black and blue. And in that small space the focus is, more than on the content of the album, on how traumatic guitarist Mick Taylor’s exit from the group was, shortly before starting to record the album, and on his addiction to heroin. This is how he described the atmosphere of the recording of that work: “To hell with everything. It’s the sandwich, Uncle. But I apologized to the Stones. Hey, warm up, start pumping sound, give me another 24 hours. I will not appear until I am in the conditions.”
When the guitarist received the material, the recording session could really begin. The scathing music critic Lester Bangs condemned the group in his review of the album: “It’s all over with the Rolling Stones.” The specialist of NME was no longer benevolent: “A disappointment of gigantic proportions.” For a long time, black and blue It has been called “the Rolling Stones’ worst album”. After this period, opinions have changed and many stoned They perceive undoubted strengths. They even praise him, perhaps for the mistreatment he suffered. The group also wanted to highlight it since they have just reissued it with unreleased material.
Rubén Pozo, who just released the album 50city and was part of Pereza, has a doctorate in the Rolling Stones. He knows everything about the English band. “I never understood where those lists were black and blue This sounds like their worst album. I think it’s unfair. It’s a strange job, yes, but over time the stoned We were able to valorise it and we also ended up loving it. They were going through a turbulent time. In reality it was not known what would happen to them. Richards was heavily addicted to heroin, with whom Jagger flirted jet set and were eliminated anyway by the departure of Mick Taylor. Same album title, black and bluebruises, it’s strange,” says the musician.
At Christmas 1974, Mick Taylor announced he was leaving. Richards’ partner in building the sound of the group’s most glorious albums (Sticky fingers, Exile on Main St.), got off the pirate ship. Taylor did not clearly explain the reasons to the bosses, but in subsequent interviews he let it slip: the frustration caused by the fact that Jagger and Richards did not indicate him as the author of some songs in which he contributed, and his intention to disengage, an issue that he did not see as plausible in an ecosystem in which drugs were rampant.
But the Stones couldn’t stop. They needed to get money into their bank account: they were still being hounded by the British Treasury and were enraged by the accounting tricks of their former representative, Allen Klein. They had been on the run for years, especially during that time with Richards surrounded by the police, eager to lock him up as a degenerate drug addict. “We had discovered police officers with binoculars in the trees. They were constantly watching us, we were surrounded,” says the guitarist in Life about him and his partner at the time, Anita Pallenberg.
The bar to replace Taylor was high. They spoke to Steve Marriott (Small Faces), Peter Frampton, Jeff Beck, Rory Gallagher and even Eric Clapton. Neither wanted to give up their solo ambitions. Ronnie Wood fit in perfectly, because in addition to being a good guitarist he brought with him a scrupulous character. stony twinning with Richards. He was just another privateer and also escaped the leading man role embodied by Clapton or Beck, which guaranteed submission to Jagger and Richards. But Wood didn’t want to leave his group, the Faces, which he led with singer Rod Stewart.
They chose a studio in Munich (Germany) to give shape black and blue and they called several guitarists: Harvey Mandel, of Canned Heat; Wayne Perkins and Ronnie Wood, regulars at the Muscle Shoals studio. Everyone brought their own skill, but no one could claim to be one the substitute. Things got worse after recording. Wood toured with the Stones, Rod Stewart decided to pursue a solo career, the Faces broke up and Ronnie was free. They made his signature official and he appeared in the album photos. Also important were the contributions on piano and organ by Billy Preston and Nicky Hopkins.
Mariano Muniesa, author of several books on the Rolling Stones (the latest It wasn’t in my Rolling Stones book) analyzes the album for this report: “The main strength of the album is that, although it may not seem like it, it is a very typical Stones work, because it is varied. They have always been careful, especially Jagger, not to always do the same thing, to show that they can move in many musical fields, and on this album they practice it very well: they have disco and funk music (Hot stuff, hey bold), guitar rock (Crazy mom, hand of fate)dance (Memory Motel, The Fool to Cry), a jazz experiment with Billy Preston (Melody) and reggae (Cherry, oh darling). The weakness of black and blue it’s that he had to pay the price of being in the middle of two very great albumsIt’s just rock and roll AND Some girls. And also because it is the album of a band in transition, without a second guitar.”
“For me the theme of the album is Memory motel“, a long (seven minutes), beautiful ballad, which has the particularity that Jagger and Richards sing it”, says Rubén Pozo. Muniesa agrees: “I think it’s among the Stones’ best ballads, superior to “Angie.” In fact, some songs by black and blue They almost seem like the product of improvisations rather than an elaborate plan. But far from being a flaw, this concept of jam it makes it more interesting. Rubén Pozo speaks of a work that is “decadent, in a good sense, in the terms in which the figure of Oscar Wilde is analysed”. Certainly the most determined black and blue offers a sonic coherence outside Charlie Watts, who with his impeccable drums gifted oscillation He effortlessly leads the album down welcoming paths. In the rankings of Stones albums after 1982, black and blue abandoned the last position to leave it to questionable albums such as Undercover (1983), Dirty jobs (1986) or Bridges to Babylon (1997)
“In black and blue It’s not just the Rolling Stones who do this rock and roll“, Franco Fernández, host of the program and podcast, contributes from Argentina It’s just the Rolling Stonesnow in its tenth season. “In this album we can hear them performing funk, reggae, ballads, touches of jazz, but also rock songs with power riff. Furthermore, it is an opportunity to listen to them together with other guitarists that few remember, but who were part of the band for a short time during these recording sessions, such as Wayne Perkins and Harvey Mandel, who contributed a sound that sometimes seems galactic and that has never been repeated”, adds Fernández.
black and blue It was released in May 1976 and reached number one in sales in the US and two in the UK. Not bad for a transition album. Another honor of the album: it was tested during the sessions Stand tall in an original reggae version, a song that will be recovered in a rock version in 1981 and which will be the last great Rolling Stones classic.
