The Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed (1969)

(This review originally appeared in November 2003.)

The bass that opens "Live With Me," the fourth cut on the Rolling Stones's 1969 album Let It Bleed, catches your ear with its roughness and fluidity. Once Charlie Watts's drums kick in and get the song going, it only gets better from there, with Mick Jagger offering up lyrics juxtaposing dirty, salacious crudity with formal, mannered living, and without irony ("I got nasty habits / I take tea at three") When I first bought Let It Bleed on a digitally remastered cassette in the late eighties, the bass on that song really stood out to me; I thought it was one of Bill Wyman's finest moments. When my cassette copy of Let It Bleed broke, I replaced it with the SACD reissue, which included the full credits for each track. It was then that I discovered that the bass on "Live With Me" had actually been played by. . . Keith Richards?

Well, yes. That game of musical chairs was par for the course in the recording of Let It Bleed, which is the most haphazard, most undisciplined, and most random LP the Stones have ever made. The band was in a state of flux at the time. Brian Jones was on his way out (he died in July 1969, after Jagger and Richards showed him the door) and Mick Taylor, late of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, was just coming in. Some songs on Let It Bleed feature Jones, others feature Taylor; many have neither. The group was in such disarray that outside help was needed to get the album done. The great Leon Russell played piano and arranged the horns on "Live With Me," Nicky Hopkins added his piano skills elsewhere, and producer Jimmy Miller substituted for Charlie Watts on drums for the album's epic closer, "You Can't Always Get What You Want." (Al Kooper joined in on organ and French horn.)

Accidents seemed to be the rule of the day during the sessions for the Stones's eighth studio album. A country-and-western remake of the single "Honky Tonk Women," called "Country Honk," was, according to one source, an impromptu warm-up performance that just happened to be caught on tape. (Different stories suggest otherwise.)  An accidental wiping of Mick Jagger's lead vocal on "You Got The Silver" left Keith Richards's harmony vocal to stand on its own when Jagger was unavailable to re-record his vocal track.  The album is just like the back cover showing the carefully crafted record player artwork on the front in a shambles.  In a word, it's a mess.

But what a glorious mess it is. Let It Bleed captures the Stones in a moment of transition from being sixties rebels to seventies professionals as they pushed their bad-boy image as far as they could - which led to the Altamont disaster shortly after this album's release - even while becoming more musically savvy. Here the Stones were working their way through mishaps and putting the carefree sixties spirit behind them while looking toward a future of some of their best music as well as bigger and grander concerts. (Their groundbreaking U.S. arena tour of 1969 was a template for seventies and eighties arena rock in general.) "Gimmie Shelter" emerged as a tough, serious plea for stability; the slasher anthem "Midnight Rambler" found the Stones at the very edge of mayhem. And "You Can't Always Get What You Want" exhibited the dark side of sixties idealism perfectly. As Dave Marsh later wrote, it (as well as "Gimmie Shelter") was about as terminal as the sixties got.

So was the whole album. That's why Let It Bleed, in spite of the fact that it's ready to fall apart at a moment's notice, is essential for any serious record collection.