The Rolling Stones

With the upcoming release of the Martin Scorsese-directed concert film, Shine a Light, the Rolling Stones are back on centerstage again, as they have been for almost forty-five years. Certainly they have been the longest active rock band in history, with the largest catalogue of songs that are implanted in my memory.

But I came to the Stones late. When I was a kid wrapped up in the Beatles and the Monkees, I had no idea who the Rolling Stones were. The radio stations I listened to didn't play them. I have dim memories of them being a shadowy group that were the anti-Beatles, and I suppose in a way they were, for as sophisticated as the Beatles were musically, they also had a much more friendly, pop sound. The Stones were edgier and darker, with a sound that was driven by the snarl of an electric guitar, which a pre-pubescent boy wouldn't respond to.

I think the first time I realized who they were and what they sounded like was in the mid-seventies, when Fool to Cry was on the charts. It was about that time that I switched from AM top 40 radio to the album-track oriented FM radio, where the entire world of the Stones opened up to me. When I was in high school the album Some Girls was released, with Miss You and Shattered getting constant airplay. Now I consider them on the Mount Rushmore of the classic rock-era, along with the Beatles, the Who and the Doors (I realize many people hate the Doors and would replace them with Led Zeppelin, but this is my Mount Rushmore).

The Stones were British boys who loved black American blues, and fused that sound with rock to create the quintessential sound of the generation. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction is certainly one of the great singles of all time, and the next two decades are full of great songs that are too numerous to mention, but I'll just name a few of my favorites: Paint It Black, Get Off of My Cloud, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Gimme Shelter, Mother's Little Helper, Sympathy for the Devil, Street Fightin' Man, Bitch, Can't You Hear Me Knockin, It's Only Rock and Roll, She's So Cold. And they also had several great, heart-breaking ballads: As Tears Go By, Ruby Tuesday, Wild Horses, Angie, Memory Motel, Love In Vain.

I saw the Stones during their Steel Wheels tour (that album had a great song--Rock and Hard Place) at Shea Stadium back in 1989, and they were dinosaurs then. It's now almost twenty years later and they're still going! Granted, they are banking on the old stuff, as they haven't had a real big hit since Start Me Up, which came out when I was in college (I think I reviewed Tattoo You for the school paper) and that was over twenty-five years ago.

Amazingly, I don't have many Stones records. I only have on CD--Sticky Fingers (I had Steel Wheels and another one from the eighties that were burgled). I have a few of their albums on obsolete vinyl (Let It Bleed, Goat's Head Soup, and Emotional Rescue), but I don't have aside from Let it Bleed I don't have the great sixties stuff. It's almost unnecessary, because tuning in to a typical classic rock station only requires a wait of about twenty minutes before a Stones song comes on.

I'm kind of looking forward to Shine a Light, and may schlep into New York to see it on IMAX. They are the greatest rock and roll band of all time, after all.