Mick Jagger / Keith Richards / 3:03
Musicians
Mick Jagger: vocals
Keith Richards: rhythm guitar
Brian Jones: slide and lead guitar, harmonica
Bill Wyman: bass
Charlie Watts: drums
Ian Stewart: piano
Recorded
Chess Studios, Chicago: November 8, 1964
Technical Team
Producer: Andrew Loog Oldham
Sound engineer: Ron Malo
“What a Shame” testifies to the Rolling Stones’ visceral attachment to modern blues of the Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf kind, and it is tempting to wonder whether the London group was still under the thumb of Brian Jones. Although a Jagger-Richards composition—admittedly one of their first—the lyrics have something of that darkness or sadness that is characteristic of the blues: What a shame/Nothing seems to be going right… You might wake up in the morning/And find your poor self dead. The fact that this number was recorded in the temple of Chicago blues also explains a thing or two. Mick Jagger had begun to see himself as Sonny Boy Williamson II—and by this stage he was not far from wrong. Neither had the other members of the group much more to learn from their mentors, least of all Ian Stewart, whose playing sounds as if he might have spent his childhood in a juke joint somewhere between Memphis and New Orleans. However, Jagger would explain in the Melody Maker of November 28, 1964, that the lugubrious aspect of the lyrics reflected the atmosphere at Chess: “Sunday in Chicago is like Sunday in Scotland—dead.”
“What a Shame” was released as the B-side of “Heart of Stone,” which climbed to a perfectly respectable number 19 in the United States on February 20, 1965. This is the first time both sides of a 45 were credited to Jagger-Richards.
With a very good introduction from both guitars, Keith playing his Les Paul in a kind of blues picking style and Brian playing slide on his Vox “Teardrop,” the Stones launch into this electric blues headfirst, providing a framework for Mick’s excellent vocal performance. Credit should also be given to the Watts-Wyman duo for laying down an infectious groove, and to Stu for his superb piano (sadly mixed down). It is Brian, however, who takes the number to a new level with a brilliant harmonica solo (most likely overdubbed) underneath which Bill indulges in a somewhat unusual bass line. One of the first attempts by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to write something other than a ballad, “What a Shame” can perhaps be faulted at a compositional level as the writing does not distinguish itself sufficiently from the standards of the blues genre, but it is a very good number nevertheless.