I Got Stoned on a Bank Holiday Monday for a Fiver

I found a Rolling Stones album, Hurragh!

It would have been easy to have ordered one online, paid for it and received it within twenty four hours but that really wouldn’t have been much fun. Instead, in our travels I would peruse the CD collections of charity shops in towns we were staying in or stopping in for a few minutes break looking for a Rolling Stones album.

I had been looking since January this year without success in charity shops in our hometown of Ringwood, nearby New Milton, Honiton, Paignton, Barnstaple and Birmingham. In these searches I did pick up a couple of CD’s by other artists just to hear what their work was like in addition to the narrow range of offerings on the TV or radio. Paloma Faith? Bought it. Played it and recycled it into the next charity shop. Rod Stewart? Bought one of his American songbook albums. Played it. Liked it and it now travels with us in the car.

On our Whitsun bank holiday here in the UK we rewarded our efforts in the garden over the weekend with a trip to our local antiques and collectibles emporium. A place where traders rented space and put their stock on display in cabinets, on shelves or, as with big items, on the floor. One stall had a CD rack full of CD’s.

In the CD rack was a section devoted to the Rolling Stones holding over twenty discs and each for a fiver. I chose one and felt like singing the lead track, Start Me Up, and gyrating like Mick Jagger. I was only held back by knowing my singing voice is as tuneless as a chicken trying to lay a scotch egg. As for the gyrations, well they were on hold as my back was still recovering from over exertion while painting one of our fences.

The album I bought was “The Best of the Rolling Stones 1971 – 1993”, a compilation of eighteen tracks.

I showed it to Heather and was told I could play it in the car when I was alone as the music “…would be a bit too jarring for me on the way to work in the morning”.

I did play it in the car the other morning while I drove her to work. And do you know what?

The first four tracks are what could best be described as “standards” from the Stones which have been the background tracks to anyone growing up in the sixties and seventies. They haven’t quite reached the status of being played on Radio Three in the half eight slot for anything eclectic, of quality and enduring but one day, maybe one day.

“Start Me Up” is the first track and a brilliant accompaniment to setting out on a drive. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and is the lead song on their Tattoo album released in 1981. At the time Keith Richards was living in Jamaica and in his own words “…was very tight with the Wailers”. So tight that the track was very nearly released with a reggae style rather than rock n roll.

Everyone knows “Brown Sugar” which is not surprising as it has been around since 1971 when it appeared on their “Sticky Fingers” album. It was the first single release from the album. If it hadn’t been for Ned Kelly, the Australian outlaw, this song may never have hit the sound waves. Back in 1969 Mick Jagger was in the middle of the Australian desert where he was the lead in a film about Ned Kelly. During filming he sustained an injury which put production on hold for two weeks. It was during that two week layoff that he penned “Brown Sugar”. No Ned Kelly, no Brown Sugar.

“The Harlem Shuffle” was written by Bob Relf and Earl Nelson for release in 1963. Surprisingly, at the time of release, there was no dance called “The Harlem Shuffle” but who cares? It is a perennially good tune to start or end any good party.

The Rolling Stones released their cover version in 1968 from their album “Dirty Fingers”. Keith Richards, Ronnie Woods and Bobby Womack did a lot of the groundwork for this track at Ronnie Woods’s demo studio in his house at Richmond. Mick Jagger was away promoting his own solo album while this was going on. When he joined up with the band and heard what had already been prepared he liked it and recording took place.

“It’s Only Rock n Roll” is the title track from the album of the same name. At last a break from including “fingers” in album titles. Work on the album started in November 1973. This track was a huge effort by the group to break the cycle of, as Mick Jagger said, the fans and critics saying “…oh, its not as good as the last one”. The original cut for this track was made in Ronnie Woods’s studio with Mick Jagger and David Bowie on vocals before the version on this album was recorded in Germany without David Bowie. Hopefully somewhere in an archive is that track with David Bowie that someone will find and release just to see if it was as good as or even better than the Jagger Bowie duet for “Dancin’ In The Street”.

I was familiar with these first four tracks. But the next fourteen tracks not quite so much. Songs such as “Angie”, “Fool to Cry” and “Tumbling Dice” I now know quite well as the whole album has been on the CD player in the car. All of them have a bluesy rock n roll style and a couple of the tracks I wouldn’t have recognised as from the Stones which illustrates how richly talented they are both as a group and as individuals.

And I nearly forgot to mention, Heather has given the album her seal of approval with the words “We can play this next time we go to Paignton”.