I Know It’s Only Rock n’ Roll…

I remember it like it was a bolt out of the blue.  I was at a friend’s house and his older brother had just purchased a new album – Black and Blue by the Rolling Stones.  The older brother also possessed Goat’s Head Soup and Exile on Main Street.  The three albums were very different from one another but I was hooked.  I would digest every album from that point on and through the years, have enjoyed much of their earlier albums though their period of the 1970s is my favorite.  Yesterday was the 50^th anniversary of their first gig as The Rolling Stones.  Consider this article a little tribute to the greatest rock n’ roll band in history. 

When I was a kid, one was either a Rolling Stones fan or a Beatles fan.  I never understood The Beatles but the Rolling Stones impacted me like no other band.  There was something raw and rebellious about the Stones where the Beatles seemed to be pretending.  I must have annoyed the daylights out of parents with singing and asking to buy this album or another.  Of course, they had the right to suspect my musical tastes as I was once fond of KISS.  The Stones are based on the rich tradition of the blues and as I grew older and more aware of their lyrics and complexity, it simply intensified my affiliation. 

Of course, as a young teen, part of the Stones’ attraction was their rebel status and to think they had been ticking off parents for decades.  It is quite impressive.  I do enjoy some of their post 1970s material, most notably Tattoo You, Undercover (the title track is still amazing to hear) and Voodoo Lounge.  Unlike some fans, I’m not as upset about the “newer” material as the progression of the band was both predictable and inevitable.  After one achieves international stardom to become some of the richest musicians on the planet, it is hard to play the rugged, life-is-tough style.  Though they are based on the blues (a great love of mine as explained in an earlier article), most of the older blues musicians are not much better off than they were when they began.  They certainly do not enjoy the riches of the Stones so they remain tied in.  What the Stones still bring across, however, is audacity and brashness.  Brash might be a difficult adjective for men well into their 60s but it applies.  Yet, they also represented danger. 

As a young man, dangerous people and ideas were like a drug.  I remember the first time I heard “Gimme Shelter” with its focus on the worst of mankind.  I still get chills listening to Merry Clayton belting out that rape and murder is “just a shot away.”  Similarly, songs like “Shattered,” “Midnight Rambler” and “Dead Flowers” drew me in.  “Undercover” fits into the category.  As dark as their music could be, their presentation was just as troubling to my parents with Mick’s serpentine movements and Keith’s death-defying existence.  As an adult, I know most of their antics were part of a show (something the “rock-is-deviltry” folks never understood) but to a young boy, they were thumbing their noses at the powers that be and it is hard not to like that.   

In honor of their 50^th anniversary of existence, I’m spending a great deal of time listening to everything I have, from box sets to studio and live albums.  In sounds trite but the Stones served as a soundtrack to my life and often, I remember certain events in conjunction with a new Stones’ album or a song.  Though I’m well into my 40s and in lifestyle, far from my wilder years, I can pretend and remember my halcyon days when I was young and tough.  Like the Stones, I’m not what I used to be but the music and the memories remain the same.

The Blues

When I wore “a younger man’s clothes,” I was introduced to the blues by some guys with whom I served in the military. I grew up with jazz and country music in the house. Blues took a bit long to enter my life. Lately, I’ve reacquainted myself with the musical musings that, in some way, connect with me. Certainly most of the blues musicians I admire had it much worse than me; still, my first exposure to the blues was eye opening and life changing.

When I mention the blues, I prefer listening to some of the older guys – artists such as Robert Johnson, Son House, Big Bill Broonzy, Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James. In their lyrics and in their voices, one can feel pain. It is this quality that impacted me more than anything else. I appreciate some of the newer guys (with blues, newer means the 1960s and 1970s). Guys like Albert King and bar rocker Hounddog Taylor play a style of blues more analogous to the classic rock music with which I grew up. However, for all their bravado, there is something more authentic to be gleaned from the powerful voices, deft guitar playing and frightening wails of the older men who lived through the worse of racial hatred and economic depression.

The jazz movement was a natural extension of the blues and big band music of the 1920s and 1930s. Blues and country have so much in common – particularly some of the classic country music and not the over-stylized and over-produced mess that exists today. The same pain seen in blues musicians can also be heard in the tales of woe from early country stars. Yet, I still come back to the blues. The expression of life’s turmoil and difficulty is so real in their voices and lyrics and in the quality of their playing, it puts into perspective some of the new crop of singers attempting the same sound. What makes the newer music incompatible with the classic blues musicians are that the voice rings hollow…false. They have not lived it and so they are left to mimic it.

I encourage you to gravitate towards the sound of lost or spurned love as heard in Broonzy’s “Frankie and Johnny” or James' "Devil Got My Woman." Listen to a mixture of the old style religion and blues of Delta Blues legend, Son House, in “John the Revelator.” I dare you to listen to Robert Johnson and not think of the legend that suggests he sold his soul to the Devil for a chance at fame and fortune. He died so young, it seems to validate the story or at the least, give weight to the emotions he conveyed. These men (and women) who played the notes and belted out the songs represented the voice of generations and decades of misery, marginal living and hopes unrealized. Music was one of their joys and they used the medium to tell their story.

American music means a great many things to a great many people today. Each style claims an authenticity. However, if I may be a bit of a music snob, the blues represent the first true American music. Its devotees are spread throughout the world but we can visit the regions and hear the sounds and see the settings for ourselves. There is something timeless about their stories and I’ve been enthralled since my first exposure. If the blues ever became chic again, I would bemoan the Johnny-come-latelys but I implore more to venture into a record store (if you can find one) and connect. If you are open to it, it will change your life and your perspective.