This even goes for the rest of Beggars Banquet - “Devil” is a strange opener for this otherwise spare, minimal album. Over a clattery, ominous samba rhythm, Jagger hands the mic to Satan on “Sympathy for the Devil.” It’d take on a second life both in cinema and myriad cover versions: it could be the only song championed by both Martin Scorsese and Axl Rose.įifty years on, this Stones classic remains daring and enveloping almost nothing sounds like it. To celebrate the release of Beggars Banquet (50th Anniversary Edition), here’s a track-by-track retrospective of the original album. It can all be traced back to Beggars, in which they stretched out, recalibrated and got back to their roots. The rawer, filthier approach here foreshadowed their ‘70s classics, like 1971’s Sticky Fingers and 1972’s Exile on Main St. The following year, Jones would be found dead in a swimming pool at 27. Drop the needle on any other song, and you hear the World’s Greatest Rock ‘n Roll Band barely rocking at all.īeggars Banquet also marked the Stones’ first transitional period. But rather than anchoring the album, both singles feel like outliers. It’s not just the Rolling Stones unplugged their fiery hits “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Street Fighting Man” both appear here. They dropped the psychedelic façade and picked up acoustic guitars the results were bare-bones gems like “No Expectations,” “Factory Girl” and “Salt of the Earth.” With Richards, a student of American folk and blues, mostly running the show, the Stones achieved more with less. “And the others, particularly Mick and Keith, would often say to me, ‘Just tell him to piss off and get the hell out of here.’” “He’d show up occasionally when he was in the mood to play, and he could never really be relied on,” producer Jimmy Miller remembered of the Beggars sessions at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. It reflected Jones’ eccentric sensibilities Richards dismissed it as “flimflam.”Īs they worked on its follow-up, Jones began to be a liability. Their last album had been 1967’s Their Satanic Majesty’s Request, a zonked detour into psychedelic rock.
Musically, the rest of the Stones were ready for a change. By 1968, Jones’ rock n’ roll creation had taken over the world - and he became a shell of himself with a nasty drug habit.
As the band gained steam, so did Jagger and Richards’ songwriting abilities, and they swiftly hogged the spotlight from their old leader. Over time, he established himself as the quiet, arty counterpart to his outrageous bandmates, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
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