Exile on main street
Elizabeth Guest -
The phrase ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll ’ is always bandied about- be it in songs, tattoos or many a musician’s autobiography. Whilst the phrase may have gained notoriety with a 1977 Ian Dury single of the same name, there’s really only one band with which it is synonymous. Here are a few clues. British. Named after a Muddy Waters single. Still (mostly) rocking well into their ninth decade. You think you have the answer? Correct- The Rolling Stones! Now that’s cleared up, let’s draw your attention to one Rolling Stones album in particular. As their tenth studio album and first double album, Exile on Main Street is two sides of the Stones at their very best. Two sides of sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Recognised as a pivotal, hard rock album, and heralded by many as their very best, Exile
On Main Street is a standout in the Stones’ rather extensive discography. Preceded by the
similarly impressive forerunners of 1968’s Beggars Banquet, 1969’s Let It Bleed, and
1971’s Sticky Fingers, Exile’s birth in 1972, rounded oƯ a celebrated succession of
albums. But the circumstances surrounding the conception of Exile were diƯerent. They
were unorthodox, and they involved the law. Finding themselves as tax exiles, the band
holed up at the soon-to-be rather infamous Villa Nellcôte. With its luxury and splendour,
the villa seemed to have it all, all but a professional recording studio and a band which
was not partially ravaged by drugs. Such a setting was instrumental in cultivating a sound
that was simultaneously both sweaty and sleazy and powered by hazes of hedonism and
heroin. Exile by name, exile by nature.
Exile On Main Street can be christened as a sixty-seven-minute-long scrapbook of sound,
with its contents entailing everything from the muddy and soulful to the debauched and
the raw. With Keith Richards at the helm, the nocturnal Nellcôte sessions transported
influences such as gospel and country from across the Atlantic, right into the basement
of the villa. Crafting 18 songs in total, which were then refined and recorded at LA’s Sunset
Sound Recorders, under the watchful guise of Jagger, Exile is an immersive trip to the
American South. Recorded in France. Revised in America. By a British band. However, in
spite of the scattering of supposed juxtapositions, the album functions in a truly
remarkable way.
Opening the album is the ever lewd and lascivious ‘Rocks OƯ’, featuring Jagger’s textbook
drawl and Richards’ signature slicing guitar. Yet Exile fosters a new partnership, that of
saxophonist Bobby Keyes and pianist Nicky Hopkins. Mick and Keith can really rock, but
Keyes and Hopkins can really roll. The prowess of Keyes is exemplified during the hurtling,
rock and roll number of ‘Rip This Joint’, however the muddy ‘Shake Your Hips’ brings the
breakneck Stones express to slower speeds. During ‘Casino Boogie’, Mick and Keith
wrestle back the reigns to duet a never performed live number, with William S. Burroughs
style lyrics. Both rockers and beatniks? Cool. The boogie-woogie inspired lead single,
‘Tumbling Dice’ was the album’s only major hit with Jagger’s bluesy embellished vocals
being fervently bolstered by the soulful accompaniment of Clydie King and Vanetta
Fields. Slower speeds are once again resumed thanks to the momentary stationing at
country rock- with the more gentle saxophone saturated succession of ‘Sweet Virginia’,
‘Torn and Frayed’ and ‘Sweet Black Angel’. The album’s ninth stop at the lustful ‘Loving
Cup’ gives Hopkins’ piano a well earned break, with the guitar and Charlie Watts’
percussion instead coming to the forefront. After all, Richards was at the album’s helm,
so it would be rude not to include a track in which he takes over lead vocals, with Richards
doing exactly that in ‘Happy’. Of the track, Richards stated in 1982:
‘'Happy' was something I did because I was for one time early for a session... We
had nothing to do and had suddenly picked up the guitar and played this riƯ. So
we cut it and it's the record, it's the same... It was just an afternoon jam that
everybody said, 'Wow, yeah, work on it'.
As the album reaches its second third, there is a marked contrast between the hurtling,
murky swampiness of ‘Turd on the Run’ and the low, lumbering blues number of
‘Ventilator Blues’, whereby Jagger does his best Howlin’ Wolf impersonation. If there were
to be a song to neatly and singularly personify Exile, it would be that of the rolling ‘I Just
Want to See His Face’. Rusty mixing has Jagger’s reaches arriving in waves, followed by
chugging percussion, velvet-laced gospel backing and in true Jagger fashion, some out of
time clapping. It’s almost three minutes of being submerged in the sweaty, swampiness
of a New Orleans twilight. An example of the Stones at their most spiritual begins to round
oƯ the album, with the hymn-like ‘Let it Loose and ‘Shine A Light’ emphasising a certain
Miss A. Franklin’s influence on the band. The vinyl’s final side once again brings piercing
guitar licks, with a compelling stop at the riveting ‘All Down the Line’. In true cyclical
fashion, we are once again back in the deep American South, with Jagger’s vocals
commanding a rough authority on a cover of Robert Johnson’s ‘Stop Breaking Down’. Yet
Exile still has one last hurrah left. ‘Soul Survivor’ is a rocking, rallying rouse for the band’s
endurance and an appropriately apt end for an album which would soon top the charts in
six countries.
Photo By Lynn Goldsmith 1972
Whilst Exile did garner some scattered critical acclaim upon its initial release, it took nearly 40 years of fence sitting and agreeing to disagree for the album to be truly heralded. In 2010, the album was remastered, with the subsequent release of an expanded version, which fell upon welcome ears. Now, over fifty years since its birth, Exile on Main Street is rightly and deservingly basking in its golden glory. Sex, drugs and rock and roll, but make it vintage.
