#39 The Rolling Stones- The Rolling Stones No 2

Can the Stones achieve Satisfaction on their second date with us?

(Decca)

Released: 15^th January 1965

Producer: Andrew Loog Oldham

Topped the chart:

31^st January 1965 (for 3 weeks)

28^th February 1965 (for 6 weeks)

18^th April 1965 (for 1 week)

Ten weeks total

As the UK’s foremost American blues diplomats, The Rolling Stones must have felt like nuns in the Vatican recording much of their second album in Chicago’s Chess Studios. The home of Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley and Dale Hawkins in the late 50s and early 60s, Chess was basically their Mecca, and what a difference a recording studio makes.

Compared to the tinny and claustrophobic recordings on their debut, here the songs have a warmer, less hemmed-in feel as if the listener is in the room. While Andrew Loog Oldham still sits behind the control desk, the benefit of professional American recording engineers is clear as day. Here for the first time are The Stones as a band, rather than just a bunch of blokes who unknowingly wandered into the room at the same time—there’s a groove goin’ on between bass, drums and rhythm guitar.

Two features of note that thrive under this change in setting: first of all, secret sixth Stone Ian Stewart whose piano drives the likes of Down the Road Apiece and Down Home Girl, singing out in true honky-tonk glory. Meanwhile, Mick Jagger, so reigned in on the first album, sounds free and cocky second time around. The strutting peacock that we’ve known for the last 60 years had started to shake his tail feathers on The Stones roll of number one singles of the era (It’s All Over Now, Little Red Rooster and The Last Time) but he sounds confident for the first time on an LP during the strutting stage patter of Everybody Needs Somebody to Love. It’s not quite up there with the Solomon Burke original or, indeed, the Blues Brothers version, but it’s a little joy injection that feels much needed.

Quality-wise, we’re looking at a reverse-Beatles for the most part; in that here the covers are the stars and the originals really need some work. It’s not a hard and fast rule—an attempt to out-Drift The Drifters on Under The Boardwalk finds its face meeting the wooden decking (it’s still better than the Bruce Willis version, mind you) and the Jagger-Richards Off the Hook is a decent Merseybeat pastiche with a pulsating bassline—but it fits for the most part.

Best of the covers is Alvin Robinson’s Down Home Girl, a song that finally catches the whiff of danger and illicit thrill that all the publicity around the Stones had been aiming for, while the boogie-woogie of Down the Road Apiece is almost single-worthy in its catchiness. Chuck Berry’s You Can’t Catch Me is fun too, if hewing a little too close to the original, while short, sharp closer Susie Q feels particularly fresh, ahead of its time in its Stooges/13^th Floor Elevators garage boogie. When it comes to the two other originals, What a Shame is a decent riff in search of a better song, while Grown Up Wrong is a low point, repetitive to the point of irritation.

A minor improvement, then, but there’s no doubt that the 45 was the format that still best suited the Stones in early 1965. Confidence is higher this time around, but it still drops in a few unexpected places. Muddy Waters’ I Can’t Be Satisfied, for example, should be catnip to the band but it’s here that the poor production creeps back in. Of course, greater success was still to come with a Jagger-Richards original not a million miles away with its title…

Score: 6 /10

Track listing:

SIDE A

1.      Everybody Needs Somebody to Love

2.      Down Home Girl

3.      You Can’t Catch Me

4.      Time is on My Side

5.      What a Shame

6.      Grown Up Wrong

SIDE B

7.      Down the Road Apiece

8.      Under the Boardwalk

9.      I Can’t Be Satisfied

10.  Pain in My Heart

11.  Off the Hook

12.  Susie Q