HOWEVER THE ’60s may have ended, one thing was clear: the Rolling Stones were beginning the 1970s with a clean slate. All the new elements were in place: Jimmy Miller was a producing whiz; Mick Taylor was an acclaimed new guitar hero; the Decca deal was almost over and done with; a new label was in the works. The Stones needed a debut single to launch it, at least as successfully as the Beatles launched their Apple label with “Hey Jude” in 1968. So what was it gonna be?
Back in 1969 when Mick was in Australia filming Ned Kelly, he injured his hand on the set, and while recuperating, conjured up a riff to which he gave the working title “Black Pussy.” (Guess what that was going to be about?!?) The basic tracks were recorded at the Muscle Shoals sessions in early December, after the tour-closing final concert in Florida and the Altamont show. The reason the track stayed on the shelf for more than a year was because of the legal and contractual issues the group was dealing with both with their old record label and their then-manager Allen Klein. (Both “Brown Sugar” and “Wild Horses” were recorded at Muscle Shoals and, in the end, the two songs appeared not only on the first Rolling Stones Records release, Sticky Fingers, but also on the Hot Rocks compilation album on ABKCO. Since they were recorded while the group was still under contract to Decca, the two songs are co-owned by the Stones and Allen Klein.)
On some level, songs intended to be hit singles have to have the widest possible reach. It is somewhat bizarre then, yet totally in character, that the Stones’ first mass-appeal success of the new decade is also one of the group’s most controversial efforts. How many taboo subjects could the boys cram into one three-minute, forty-eight-second recording? Let’s see—miscegenation, rape, cunnilingus, slavery, racism, sexism, and for good measure, a veiled reference to heroin—all set against another one of the Stones’ top-ten riffs of all time!
The only concession to potential outrage and censorship was the changing of the title from “Black Pussy” to “Brown Sugar.” It brings to mind a quote about the way rock ’n’ roll works:
KEITH RICHARDS: Music isn’t something to think about, at least initially. Eventually it’s got to cover the spectrum, but especially with rock ’n’ roll, first it has to hit you somewhere else. It could be the groin; it could be the heart; it could be the guts; it could be the toes. It’ll get to the brain eventually. The last thing I’m worried about is the brain. You do enough thinking about everything else.
“Brown Sugar” hit the bull’s-eye. Following its release on April 16, 1971, it zoomed up the charts, landing at number one on May 29—the sixth Stones single to do so.
