{"id":43523,"date":"2014-04-26T07:16:49","date_gmt":"2014-04-26T11:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=43523"},"modified":"2014-06-29T15:34:22","modified_gmt":"2014-06-29T19:34:22","slug":"a-musical-blast-from-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=43523","title":{"rendered":"A Weekend “Blast From the Past”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jagger\/Richards<\/em>. \u00a0\u00a0Anyone who knows modern popular music immediately thinks of the Rolling Stones on reading those names.<\/p>\n

Both are now 70+.\u00a0 So today, most people likely think of them – and the Stones – as tired, aging old rock-n-rollers who still perform hits of yesteryear.\u00a0 And I guess today that\u2019s accurate.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a shame.\u00a0 Because thinking of them as they are today, sometimes we forget just how damn good<\/em><\/span> these guys were at their peak.<\/p>\n

Their peak began in 1968, while the three primary members of the Stones (Jagger, Richards, and the late Brian Jones) were all facing potentially lengthy prison sentences.\u00a0 Though the band had had success previously – and had released \u201c(I Can\u2019t Get No) Satisfaction\u201d in 1965, nearly universally held to be perhaps the best rock & roll tune ever written – they still weren\u2019t fully “locked in”.<\/p>\n

The experience of facing jail apparently caused them to focus their efforts.\u00a0 And focus they did.<\/p>\n

They returned to their blues\/rock&roll roots.\u00a0 Musically, the result was good.\u00a0 And it stayed good for four full years – from May 1968 to May 1972.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a Baker’s dozen tunes from the Stones\u2019 peak – the original versions. If it\u2019s been a while since you\u2019ve listened to them it might be worth the time to listen again, if for no other reason than to remind yourself just how good they were.\u00a0 (And if you’ve never really listened to the Stones of that era, it might also be worth your while.)\u00a0 The songs are presented roughly in chronological order.<\/p>\n

Here’s a bit of perspective.\u00a0 “Midnight Rambler” is considered a quintessential Stones tune.\u00a0 “Honky Tonk Woman” and “Brown Sugar” were #1 hits.\u00a0 “Street Fighting Man” was hugely musically innovative and considered so subversive in it’s day (1968) that many US radio stations wouldn’t play it – but still made the top 50.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

And IMO they are the four weakest tunes in the set.\u00a0 The other nine tunes are better.<\/em><\/p>\n

Find a good set of headphones, crank up the volume a bit – and enjoy.\u00a0 They’re from before the days of music videos, but the audio should be near CD-quality.<\/p>\n