keith richards Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

The Rolling Stones “Out of Our Heads”

sfilzen — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 18:03:57 +0000

The Rolling Stones “Out of Our Heads” 1965. Just read the news that Stones drummer Charlie Watts died this morning at age 80 (b. 1941, d. 2021) so I’m spinning one of their earlier LP’s in honor of his incredible career (he continued to perform on tour through 2019). This is the US version of Out of Our Heads; the UK version has a very different track listing due to the UK habit of not including singles on full-length albums. The LP has a mix of covers and Jagger-Richards and Stones originals. The Jagger-Richards penned tracks include the classics “The Last Time” (#1 UK, #9 US), “Satisfaction” (#1 in the US and UK), “The Spider and the Fly” (b-side to the UK “Satisfaction” single) and “One More Try.” Two tracks are credited to Nanker Phelge, which is an alias of sorts indicating the writing credits (and royalties) to the entire band plus their early manager/producer Andrew Oldham: “The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man” and one of my all-time Stones favorites, “Play With Fire.” Covers include “Hitch Hike” (Marvin Gaye), “Good Times” (Same Cooke), “Cry to Me” (Bert Berns, performed originally by Solomon Burke) and a live recording of Bo Diddley’s “I’m All Right.”

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Rolling Stones “Let It Bleed”

sfilzen — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 15:07:06 +0000

Rolling Stones “Let It Bleed” 1969. I’m spinning the Stones 8th studio LP today, December 18th, because it’s not only Keith Richards’ birthday (b. 1943) but it’s also Stones’ session and touring saxophonist Bobby Keys birthday (b. 1943, d. 2014). Let It Bleed was Keys’ first Stones album (he’d play on several more); he also was the partner-in-crime for many of Richards’ escapades during their American tour in 1969 just prior to Let It Bleed’s release on December 5th, 1969 (I recently read Richards’ autobiography Life from 2009 and, wow, it’s amazing they both lived to see 70 years of age).

Let It Bleed was a pivotal recording and a massive hit, going to #1 in the UK and #3 in the US. It not only is included on many best-of lists (records, songs like “Gimme Shelter” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”) but is also viewed by many popular culture historians as the record that marked the end of the 60′s – not only in its release timing but also turning a view of the world from the happy, hippie flower power energy that infused youth culture to one of darkness, violence and destruction (helped along, of course, by the disastrous Stones concert at Altamont the day after Let It Bleed’s release).

Our version of Let It Bleed is an early US edition. The cover of Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain” (the only cover song on the LP) is credited to Woody Payne in the liner notes and according to Wiki marks it as an early pressing (Woody Payne was a pseudonym of Johnson’s). The whole album is seeped in American blues and honky tonk and my favorite tracks are “Gimmie Shelter” (how it’s spelled on the cover and the inner sleeve of our copy), “Let It Bleed” and “Midnight Rambler.” I do like “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” but I kind of over-listened to it in the 80′s when it was included on The Big Chill soundtrack.

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The Rolling Stones “The Rolling Stones”

sfilzen — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 17:55:42 +0000

The Rolling Stones “The Rolling Stones” 1964. Today, December 18th, is Kieth Richards’ 75th birthday (b. 1943). He is ranked as one of the best guitarists of all-time as well as the co-writer, along with Mick Jagger, of several of the best songs of all-time. This is the US version of The Rolling Stones on London Records with the subtitle England’s Newest Hit Makers (which became its official US title in later years; the US release has a few different tracks and titles than the UK version). The LP went to #1 in the UK and hit #11 in the US. Only a few tracks on the Stones’ debut album were written by Jagger and Richards (at the time he was going by Keith Richard, no “s”): “Tell Me” which went to #24 in the US, and also two tracks credited to Nanker Phelge (a band pseudonym) along with Phil Spector: “Now I’ve Got a Witness” and “Little by Little.” The rest of the album is packed with covers of early rock-n-roll and blues covers including classics like “Not Fade Away” (originally by Buddy Holly) which went to #3 in the UK and #48 in the US, “Route 66″ (Bobby Troup), “I Just Want to Make Love to You” (Willie Dixon) and “Carol” (Chuck Berry).

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The Rolling Stones “December’s Children (And Everybody’s)”

sfilzen — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 20:31:00 +0000

The Rolling Stones “December’s Children (And Everybody’s)” released in the US on this date, December 4th, in 1965. It’s a collection of previously released UK singles and album cuts, cover songs and a few new tracks; December’s Children went to #4 in the US in 1966. AllMusic describes the LP as “haphazard” in its assembly but definitely worth having for several of the included tracks, most especially the two hit singles “Get Off My Cloud” (#1 in the both the US and UK) and “As Tears Go By” (US-only release, #6; the Marianne Faithful version went to #9 in the UK in ‘64). Some of the cover songs are pretty great, too, including “Talkin’ About You,” originally by Chuck Berry, which first appeared on the Stones’ Out of Heads, “Look What You’ve Done” by Muddy Waters and a live version of “Route 66″ by Bobby Troup, which appeared on the UK live EP Got Live If You Want It! I also really love “I’m Free” (originally on Out of Our Heads) which The Soup Dragons made into a hit alt-psych raver in 1990.

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The Rolling Stones “Sticky Fingers”

sfilzen — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 16:56:46 +0000

The Rolling Stones “Sticky Fingers” released on this date, April 23rd, 1971. Swaggering, dirty rock-n-roll blues and one of my favorite Stones albums; our copy is stored in the special LP box because 1. it’s original with the working zipper, perforated belt buckle opening to reveal a guy’s tidy whiteys and 2. the zipper would ruin all of the other vinyl surrounding it on a shelf.

Sticky Fingers rates high on many best-of lists and hit #1 in several countries, including the UK and the US where it remained for 4 weeks soon after its release. The Rolling Stones issued two singles from the LP: “Brown Sugar” (UK #2 and US #1) and the mournfully beautiful “Wild Horses” which only came out in the US where it charted at #28. I like those songs, of course, but also among my favorites are the cover of traditional gospel “You Gotta Move” (the Stones credit Fred McDowell’s version), “Bitch,” “Sister Morphine” which Keith Richards and Mick Jagger co-wrote with Marianne Faithfull (she released the track first in 1969 as the b-side to “Something Better” and it was rerecorded for Sticky Fingers) and most especially “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” which I first got obsessed with during my senior year of college when my roommate and I would blast it, singing along at top-volume, windows open, in our shitty apartment.

Yeah, you got satin shoes
Yeah, you got plastic boots
Y’all got cocaine eyes
Yeah, you got speed-freak jive

Can’t you hear me knockin’ on your window
Can’t you hear me knockin’ on your door
Can’t you hear me knockin’ down your dirty street
Yeah

Help me baby, ain’t no stranger
Help me baby, ain’t no stranger
Help me baby, ain’t no stranger

Can’t you hear me knockin’, ahh, are you safe asleep?
Can’t you hear me knockin’, yeah, down the gaslight street, now
Can’t you hear me knockin’, yes, throw me down the keys
Alright now

Hear me ringing big bell tolls
Hear me singing soft and low
I’ve been begging on my knees
I’ve been kickin’, help me please

Hear me prowlin’, I’m gonna take you down
Hear me growlin’, yeah, I’ve got flatted feet now now now now
Hear me howlin’, I’m all, all around your street now
Hear me knockin’, and all, all around your town

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Tom Waits “Rain Dogs”

sfilzen — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 16:57:58 +0000

Tom Waits “Rain Dogs” 1985. Today, December 7th, is Tom Waits’ birthday (b. 1949) so in celebration I’m spinning his sprawling 8th studio LP, a concept album about the “urban dispossessed of New York,” hearing his voice all “soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car.” Rolling Stone described Rain Dogs as merging “Kurt Weill, pre-rock integrity from old dirty blues, [and] the elegiac melancholy of New Orleans funeral brass, into a singularly idiosyncratic American style” and rated it among the top 100 greatest albums of the 1980′s, as did Pitchfork and Slant Magazine. Notably, Keith Richards plays guitar on three tracks: the bluesy “Big Black Mariah,” rockin’ rhythm and blues “Union Square” and the country-inspired weeper “Blind Love.” Also noteworthy: “Downtown Train,” one of the catchier songs on a highly unusual and experimental album, was later covered by Rod Stewart (as well as by Patty Smyth, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Bob Seger). Stewart’s version hit #3 on the US charts in 1989 and received the Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal performance. Waits’ imagery throughout Rain Dogs is rock poetry at its finest. The lyrics to “9th & Hennepin” paint the urban dispossessed picture so brilliantly you can feel the chill, smell the stink and experience the bleak emotions on that street corner.

Well, it’s 9th and Hennepin
All the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon’s teeth marks are on the sky
Like a tarp thrown all over this
And the broken umbrellas like dead birds
And the steam comes out of the grill like the whole goddamn town’s ready to blow
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs
And the horses are coming down Violin Road and Dutch is dead on his feet
And all the rooms they smell like diesel
And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept here
And I’m lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway
And I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat
And no one brings anything small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
One for every year he’s away, she said
Such a crumbling beauty
Ah, there’s nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won’t fix
She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by
And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
Till you’re full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out over the side to anyone who will listen
And I’ve seen it all
I’ve seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train

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