IN FEBRUARY OF 2006, the Stones played the Super Bowl halftime show in Detroit Michigan. This was second in a series of “sure thing” halftime shows after the Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake “wardrobe malfunction” debacle in 2004. In 2005, Paul McCartney got the gig. Who better than the Stones to pick up the mantle?
LAURENCE RANDALL: We like to have a G-rated show. We think we’ve done a good job of that since 2005. The Rolling Stones are the Rolling Stones. One thing we have learned over time is that you can’t tell an artist what to play or they will play the opposite. There were lyrics in the two songs not suitable to the NFL or their broadcast partners. In the conversations we had with them, we offered two alternatives a) if you would like to choose another song, you have a huge, vast catalog or b) if you’re not going to choose another song, you have to drop those lyrics.
Of course, the Stones being the Stones, they chose the unoffered option c. They sang the lyrics and had them censored. The “dead man come” line in “Start Me Up” was bleeped, as was the word “cock” in “Rough Justice.” Ironically, the third song in the set, “Satisfaction,” which had caused the Stones some trouble on Ed Sullivan back in the day (see chapter 13) escaped censor free.
CHUCK LEAVELL: I’m from Alabama. I was born in Birmingham and wound up—we settled in Tuscaloosa when I was probably in the fourth or fifth grade. That’s where I got my musical start. Hey, roll Tide!
The Stones play the Super Bowl at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, on February 5, 2006
Chuck was not the only guy on tour who was a sports fan.
CHUCK LEAVELL: The guys are all interested in sports. Of course, it tends to be more about soccer for them. Mick and Charlie in particular love cricket and watch the cricket matches all the time when we’re on tour. One of the things that fascinated me was, you got a lot of technical challenges to roll out this stage, throw it together, get all the equipment hooked up, be right on time for the television, do those songs to a particular time requirement, then break it apart and get the game back going. It was absolutely fascinating to do the rehearsals and see the precision all the people had to work with to make it come off right. It was a tremendous honor and so much fun being up there.
DARRYL JONES: That was pure joy, pure terror. Somebody said to me, “I heard a billion people are going to be watching.” It was really special. I was hoping we got a good one and we did.
And here’s an eyewitness account from a lucky Stones fan.
KURT SCHWARZ: The NFL championship game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks was played in front of sixty-five thousand rabid American football fans and was reportedly televised to over one hundred million people worldwide. I was there, not for the game, but FOR THE STONES!
First, a little background. A call went out about a month before the game for two thousand volunteers to “act” as an audience for the Don Mischer–produced extravaganza. Are you kidding me? My brother and I jumped at the opportunity to see the Stones for free in our hometown. The commitment was a serious one. We were subjected to a ton of downtime and waiting during over fourteen hours of rehearsal time spread out over two days. Believe me, it was worth it.
During the dress rehearsal in Ford Field, Friday night before the game, we got the Rolling Stones, live, for a sound check and complete run-through including lighting, cameras, and pyro. How cool. They worked effortlessly through “Start Me Up,” “Rough Justice,” and “Satisfaction” three times. Twice in front of all of us and once with us sequestered in the tunnel leading to the field. What an amazing vibe with two thousand people waiting in the wings all rocking and bouncing to a sing-along of “Satisfaction.” Between takes, my brother and I got to meet a few of the very cool Stones crew (Thanks Shep!) and even got an autograph from Chuck Leavell.
Now, on with the show! On a tongue-shaped stage designed exclusively for this event, the Stones ripped through their set. We watched the show from the lower right side of the lips, not our designated mandatory prerehearsed show position. But hey, after all, I’m a fan not a prop. No surprises, no special guests. Just pure rock ’n’ roll. Just the way it should be.
THE STONES’ MUSIC POST TATTOO YOU
Rolling Stones fan Matt Blankman has an annual ritual: to listen to all of the Stones’ albums in chronological order. We asked Matt to provide his perspective on the Stones’ recordings post 1981. Take it away, Matt!
Tattoo You, the Stones’ 1981 album release, was largely a hodgepodge of outtakes, leftovers, and neglected tracks from previous album sessions. Associate producer Chris Kimsey dug into can after can of tapes, some of which dated all the way back to the Mick Taylor era and Goats Head Soup sessions of late 1972, and compiled the worthy tracks. Mick Jagger did the bulk of the work bringing them into the present, writing lyrics and melodies, recording vocals, and helping Kimsey shape the unruly stew into a unified album that sounded up to date. The result was a huge financial and critical success. Tattoo You is fully in a classic Rolling Stones vein and yet was ready for 1980s radio. The last Stones album to hit number one on the Billboard album chart, it’s also what is now generally thought of by critics and Stones fans alike as the last great Rolling Stones album.
In the years since Tattoo You, Rolling Stones albums have all met a similar fate: lots of hype and attention at release, followed by reviews that breathlessly suggest that either a) it’s their best work since Some Girls or Exile on Main St. or b) it’s an embarrassment and they need to retire. For most fans, after running out the day of release to purchase any new Stones album, the initial excitement wears off within a few weeks, and albums such as Steel Wheels and Bridges to Babylon wind up gathering dust on the shelf while Sticky Fingers and Aftermath never leave the stereo for very long. Their album output in the three decades since Tattoo You may not live up to the brilliant standard they had created in the ’60s and ’70s, but these records all have their moments where the genius of the Rolling Stones fully shines through.
The Stones would release two more albums without touring, Undercover (1983) and Dirty Work (1986). However neither has aged particularly well and very few of the tracks ever made their way to the band’s live sets or classic rock radio. The lead single from Undercover, the politically charged “Undercover of the Night,” stands out as one of their more successful attempts at updating their sound for the ’80s, as does Mick’s oddball “Too Much Blood.” There’s no new ground broken on the back-to-basics horny-schoolboy rock ’n ’roll romp “She Was Hot,” but that doesn’t stop it from working.
Dirty Work saw the Mick and Keith feud of the 1980s at its zenith—Mick was absent from most of the album sessions. Made with then-hot producer of the moment Steve Lillywhite, the record suffers greatly from a dearth of good new Jagger/Richards songs. Ronnie Wood coaxed fellow British guitar hero Jimmy Page into playing lead on “One Hit (to the Body),” the only track that sounds remotely like a classic Stones single, but the production sounds terribly dated, with its 1980s “big drums” and female background vocalists. “Had It with You” is a lively, nasty rocker (and seemingly echoes Mick and Keith’s ongoing hostilities), but the lone track that truly transcends the album is Keith’s haunting, piano-driven ballad “Sleep Tonight,” with a guest appearance by Keith’s friend and sometime collaborator Tom Waits.
Détente was in the air a few years later as Mick and Keith got back together, wrote a few dozen new songs, and the Stones reemerged in the summer of 1989 with Steel Wheels. Steel Wheels saw a little nostalgia in the mix, as “Blinded by Love” was an acoustic-based song that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a 1966 Stones platter. As for the singles from the album, “Mixed Emotions” (or as Keith reportedly called it, “Mick’s Emotions”) was an effective call to arms, the strident “Rock and a Hard Place” less so, but both seemed like a Rolling Stones simulation rather than the real thing. Far better was the lost love song “Almost Hear You Sigh,” originally written by Richards and Steve Jordan for the former’s solo debut album Talk Is Cheap, retooled slightly by Jagger for the Stones. However, the album’s most memorable track may be the sublime and delicate Richards-sung ballad that closes the album, “Slipping Away.” The band seems to agree, as it’s been in the concert repertoire ever since and was re-recorded for the partly live Stripped album in 1995.
Bill Wyman decided to call it quits in 1993. But later that year they were back in the studio with producer Don Was working on Voodoo Lounge. The whiffs of nostalgia on Steel Wheels grew stronger on Voodoo Lounge, as Was tamped down Jagger’s desires to sound current in favor of a more classic Stones sound.
Jagger groused about it afterward, but Was’s instincts were in sync with Stones fans. The lead single, “Love Is Strong,” seemingly owed a lot to Richards’s work with his X-Pensive Winos, but Jagger delivered a slinky, sexy vocal and strong harmonica work. Despite several slashing guitar workouts, once again, they were at their best with the quieter songs. “New Faces” was a surprising delight—a harpsichord-driven acoustic song about jealousy of a young rival suitor that could have come from Aftermath or Between the Buttons. Ronnie Wood broke out his pedal steel guitar for “The Worst,” featuring Keith’s gravelly, lived-in lead vocal and a gentle Celtic-country-rock lilt. “Blinded by Rainbows” is a moving tale of a lost soul amid political and religious violence and strife made haunting by one of Jagger’s best vocal performances in years. Keith scored again with his second lead vocal of the album, the spooky, gritty “Thru and Thru,” seen by some as a message to the missing Wyman rather than to an errant lover. (Years later, the track was used on the seminal TV series The Sopranos, and the song quickly found its way back into the set list.) Voodoo Lounge lacks only a truly great rocker to join the pantheon of classic Stones albums.
Jagger would get his wish to let the Stones experiment with more contemporary sounds a few years later with Bridges to Babylon. Don Was returned, but Jagger brought in the Dust Brothers (riding high after working with Beck on his breakthrough album Odelay) to give some tracks a more current sheen. The resulting album is a bit scattershot, despite some strong material. Jagger’s attempts to incorporate hip hop and electronic elements to the blues workouts and ballads he and Keith had written seem gimmicky and have not aged as well as the more straightforward tracks. The lead single “Anybody Seen My Baby?” cringe inducing fifteen years later, with the sample of rapper Biz Markie sticking out like a sore thumb.
Nevertheless, the Stones still knew how to construct and execute a great track, as the terrific “Already Over Me” illustrates, featuring an expressive, sensitive vocal by Mick and beautiful guitar textures from Keith. “Flip the Switch” rocked at an absurdly fast clip and “Too Tight” was an unjustly neglected, driving barn burner buried near the end of the album. Other strong material, like “Saint of Me” and “Might as Well Get Juiced,” sound gummed up from the Dust Brothers overactive production. Keith protested that the more traditional takes of the bluesy “Juiced” blew the doors off the album version, and perhaps to reward his acceptance of Mick’s experiments, he was given three lead vocals on the album: including the gorgeous jazz ballad “How Can I Stop,” featuring jazz legend Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone.
The band got back together in 2002 to record some new tracks for a greatest hits collection (Forty Licks) and tour. The tour was excellent, the new songs adequate but forgettable. (Quick—when was the last time you heard “Don’t Stop”?) It took until 2005 to get a new full-length studio album out of the Stones, and it was worth the wait. A Bigger Bang was the most natural, least forced album the band had made in decades. Critics were again quick to suggest it was the best Stones record since Tattoo You but this time they were probably right. It neither sounded like the Stones pretending to replay their glory years or aping current pop trends, it simply sounded like the Rolling Stones. “Rough Justice” and “Oh No, Not You Again” were strong, driving rock ’n’ roll tunes that showcased classic Stones swagger and “Back of My Hand” the best bit of pure blues they’d recorded in eons. “Biggest Mistake” is an enjoyable and darkly funny sadsack tale of lost love. “Let Me Down Slow” showed they could still write an exemplary pop song and “Streets of Love” was a lovely, shimmering ballad. Perhaps they were inspired by their friend Bob Dylan’s late-career comeback, but A Bigger Bang found the Rolling Stones at peace with being the Rolling Stones, simply making strong music together, without pretense or affectation.