The new album of the gods of rock pays tribute to the bluesmen who inspired them. Ambitious, but boring.
Eleven years after their last album and four years after their last single original, “Doom and Gloom” the Rolling Stones come out, finally, their silence discography with an album rather surprising, ” Blue & Lonesome “, which digs up very old blues from the years 1955-1960. This is not a compilation so ” Greatest hits “, they do not revisit the standards of the genre, they are the same rather remote and reactivate titles signed bluesmen little known to the general public : Eddie Taylor, Jimmy Reed, Howlin’ Wolf, and Little Walter. The only song really known of the lot is “I Can’t Quit You Baby” Willie Dixon, because of the incendiary that had made Led Zeppelin on their first album. “It is a tribute to our favorite artists, those who have given us want to make music,” says Mick Jagger. This is the reason why we founded a group, we were fans and big proselytes of the blues. And here we are again to make it f ifty years after. “Initially, the Stones had found themselves in the studio to work on new titles. But it is rare that the work sessions (or the soundchecks as a rehearsal) do not transform themselves, at one time or another, improvisation, bluesy.
” We had already removed some of the new songs, and, one day, while we escrimions on one of them, we’d had enough, continues Jagger. Then, we played a title of blues, and then another and yet another. I said to everyone "Ok, you come back tomorrow and trying again three or four". Everything is done very quickly. “In three days exactly, in the studios in london Mark Knopfler, under the attentive ear of producer Don Was.
Mick plays a lot of harmonica and its many interventions that give the album its vintage scent. Just as the use of the studio where it was recorded almost live. “There is the bare minimum in terms of overdubbing and post production, says Keith Richards. The drive is almost doing everything alone. We never finished recording as quickly, no more than two or three takes per song, and for some, including "Blue and Lonesome", there has only been one. “
The Rolling Stones, an album of covers of blues, this seemed to be very p leasing. Dare, however, the question that may upset : it is how, what disk ? Because you feel good that there is a slight unease, that we turn around the thing without really daring to go there frankly. In reality, the problem is that we get bored a little bit on the length with these twelve titles are very similar in sound, form and spirit. This album is too honest and too radical looks more like a visit to the museum of the blues than an evening in a club steamy Chicago. Another observation is that the pieces are relatively short and leave little room for guitarists, and so it was in the 1950s, the long solos will only come later. With the british blues, and rightly so. The interventions of the likes of Eric Clapton, the guest of honour on two titles, are modest in time, but always remarkable of understated elegance.
Read also : The Rolling Stones : blues in the desert
” Blue & Lonesome “, an album completely in their discography, is a tribute to a music that finds it hard to survive and with musicians the world has forgotten. The Stones give to Caesar what belongs to him. We can only bow before this gesture as noble as free (they know perfectly well that with a ufo like they are going to navigate very far from the Top 10) in the hope that it has given the taste of the studio and that they will return soon. But with original titles, this time. Recess is over, guys !
” Blue & Lonesome ” (Universal). Output on 2 December.
reproduction prohibited
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