On November 1, 1981, I saw the Rolling Stones perform at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas. Their handpicked opening bands for the dates in Texas were ZZ Top and the Fabulous Thunderbirds. It was a kick in the pants to see both Stones guitarist’s Keith Richards and Ron Wood, certifiable rock guitar gods, standing off to the side of the stage, getting all gooey watching young T-Birds guitarist Jimmie Vaughan laying down some seriously authentic blues.

By then it had already been well documented that the Rolling Stones’ have a great love and affection for this quintessential American music. They are always quick to remind journalists and anybody else who was paying attention, which is everybody if you are the Stones, that they began their career as a blues band.

Finally after all these years, here at the end of their long and incredibly successful career, the Rolling Stones pay homage to the music that they love so dearly. However, their brand new all blues album Blue & Lonesome is a gigantic fart in church.

I was really hoping this would be a good album. It isn’t. The culprit here, as one might suspect, is Mick Jagger. There isn’t anything it seems that he can’t screw up and make worse.   

Even his beloved blues gets crapped on here. This album could be the swan song for this venerable rock and roll institution. It would be quite appropriate if they exited the stage the way they came in; by playing Chicago blues tunes to an audience who, after all these years, still has no point of reference from which to evaluate this music.

The fact that Jagger has very little feel as to how to interpret the blues and very little ability as a harmonica player, doesn’t stop him from trying to play them. This, of course, is not unusual, but if you are Mick Jagger, the whole world watches and that is unusual. As one might expect, he is over the top. Any semblance of subtlety and nuance this music demands takes a back seat to his insatiable ego and bad musicianship.

With over fifty years of experience watching and listening to Mick Jagger, I have to admit I am just plain tired of shaking my head and rolling my eyes. Now he is asking me to put my hands over my ears as well.

At 59 years old I can barely remember life without the Rolling Stones. Like most children I fell in love with their music. To me they represented everything there is to love about rock&roll. Then I grew up. My tastes evolved, but I could always find a little room in that not so terribly nostalgic soul of mine for a little Rolling Stones music. After all it’s only rock&roll and I like it. I suppose one can do a lot worse than the Rolling Stones.

I also liked the fact that, until this latest debacle, they mostly stayed away from their beloved blues. They seemed to have at least enough self-awareness to know that they simply weren’t very good at playing it.  They were right. How could they be? They spent a lifetime playing something else. Their albums often find these lads dabbling in various forms of music including blues, but they always return to their strength which is their own original tunes written by Jagger and long-time band mate Keith Richards. Great hooks and riffs, along with the pile driving drumming of Charlie Watts, accompanied songs about all the things your mother told you to avoid.

Now, after all this time, they decide to slum it in that place where they started. They prove here the old adage that the blues are easy to play, but very difficult to play well. This is why as far as I’m concerned Blue & Lonesome is just one more, bad blues album.

I was really, truly hoping that this band could revive some interest in the blues form and perhaps this album, as poorly conceived and executed as it is, just might do that. I would guess that it has already out sold all other blues releases to come out in the last calendar year...combined.

However, the Rolling Stones do what every bad blues band does, which is to attempt to redefine blues to fit their own lack of talent. In the booklet of liner notes, that has a weird smell to it, they open with the statement that reads “...the music has its origins in the Southern States of the U.S.A. and was honed to perfection in post war Chicago.” Oh great...so that same old mono-thematic story is re-enforced by the biggest juggernaut in the music business. Charlie Watts, whose drumming I have always admired and enjoyed, is quoted, “It’s not technical it’s emotional.” WRONG...and what’s funny is when I read this in a press kit, I know what to expect...bad blues. Why would this rock&roll band turned blues interloper be any different? At the end of the day they're not.

The Stones interpret the same old Chicago blues men that have been covered by just about everybody. Songs by Otis Rush, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed are taken out for a spin. A full four Little Walter tunes are strangled to death by The Stones. If you are a harmonica player with the limited ability of Mick Jagger taking on Little Walter over and over again is laughable. It also reveals a complete lack of humility. 

By now it is pretty obvious that Jaggar has never been cursed with any sense of self-awareness. On Blue & Lonesome this aspect of his musical instincts is literally painful. There isn’t one tune that comes remotely close to supplanting the originals. Blue & Lonesome also reveals a true lack of creativity, as they really don’t have anything new to say through this material either.

Keep in mind The Stones don’t acknowledge the existence of blues music from Kansas City, Texas, the West Coast or anyplace else for that matter. They don’t acknowledge the many styles and facets of this music which I find endlessly fascinating and just plain fun. So the same old tired clichés that keep music fans away from this music in droves are all trotted out yet again. One Chicago style lumpty lump after another is given The Stones treatment on Blue & Lonesome.

- David Mac



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