On their 1964 self-titled debut album, their 20-year-old manager Andrew Loog Oldham wrote, “The Rolling Stones are more than a group, they are a way of life.”
For many of us, the Stones became a cultural touchstone, if not exactly a way of life. Sullen, discourteous and not adopting tidy suits, the Stones appealed to kids who smoked behind the bike shed, skipped school and didn’t stand up when God Save the Queen was played at the start of movie sessions.
Singer Mick Jagger, guitarists Brian Jones and Keith Richards were from the other side of pop’s mirror, bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts mostly silent partners on the margins of controversy.
We knew them as first-name-basis stars.
In the mid-60s when they toured here, attention was on Mick and Brian, Keith yet to emerge as the infamous character he was to become. Bloated and drug-addled Brian was fired in 1969 and died shortly after: a bright light of our adolescence suddenly extinguished.
But the most acutely felt death has been that of Charlie in 2021, the quiet man with a bemused smile about his accidental career in rock’n’roll, which allowed him to indulge his love of jazz and collecting rare first editions.
Such was his close relationship with Keith, the Stones without Charlie seemed inconceivable.
Yet, here they are again with a new album, Hackney Diamonds.
The Stones were never a limited company, more a business-as-usual corporation that survived the departure of Brian, his replacement Mick Taylor, Bill and important sidemen: pianists Ian Stewart and Nicky Hopkins, saxophonist Bobby Keys …
And Charlie anointed a successor: Steve Jordan who had played in Keith’s X-Pensive Winos and sat in for the Stones’ 1986 Dirty Work when Charlie was dallying with heroin and booze.
Charlie was there on some early Hackney Diamonds sessions but it’s Jordan – not qualifying for first-name familiarity yet – who carries all but two songs.
Although they haven’t been musically relevant for 40 years, the Stones became symbols of something they’d long since ceased to be: rebellious bad boys.
We celebrated their longevity and that Keith (who, 50 years ago, topped an NME list of “rock stars most likely to die” within the year) defied the Reaper.
The Stones were outrage with a wink, millionaire rebels without a cause. Armies of accountants keep their wealth from grabbing hands: Gimme Tax Shelter?
I saw them frequently: Auckland’s Civic in 1966; Western Springs twice; Chicago in 2002 when, for the first time, I heard Charlie get huge applause, as he did in November 2014 at Auckland’s Mt Smart Stadium.
I met Mick once (yes, he’s tiny) and interviewed Keith whose voice was all catarrh and cackling.
He said “come round the tradesman’s after the show” but I wasn’t so naive to think they’d be there and greet me like an old pal. They’d long had separate managers and dressing rooms: Mick’s with a punchbag, Keith’s with Arabian Nights décor.
I never saw Charlie’s, but it would have been orderly.
When Keith had that accident in 2006 I was asked to write his obituary just in case. It was a good piece but I’m glad it was never used.
I faithfully bought their albums, 1968′s Beggars Banquet heralding a string of classics until Tattoo You (1981). After that it felt like a collect-the-series obligation. I doubt I’ve played Bridges to Babylon (1997) more than twice.
Their last studio album was A Bigger Band in 2005, a double album that would have made a decent single. Few have demanded another album since.
However, when Hackney Diamonds – their 24th studio album, its title slang for the shattered glass after a smash’n’grab – was teased two months ago there was genuine expectation.
If the first single Angry was an atrophied recycle of stronger riffs like Start Me Up, the 7-minute-plus Sweet Sound of Heaven follow-up with Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder was a terrific slice of gospel soul which surged towards a false ending, Gaga and Jordan opening it up again over Wonder’s electric piano and Mick the answering voice behind Gaga’s soaring emoting.
It was a promising harbinger for an album that frequently explodes with energy and, after disappointing decades, rewards jaded faith.
The tough-minded riff-driven Get Close and Live By the Sword (both with Elton John on piano, the latter with Charlie and bassist Bill back) conjure up their it’s-only-rock’n’roll attitude. Paul McCartney plays bass on the sneering punk fury of the potty-mouthed Bite My Head Off which would have made a better, attention-getting first single.
But the guests are mostly incidental because Mick, Keith, Ronnie Wood, Jordan and bassist Darryl Jones – who’s been with them for almost 30 years – take centre stage with rare passion.
Driving Me Too Hard is an archetypal Stones rock’n’roll strut.
One local wag suggested the heroic rock of Whole Wide World – “the dreary streets of London, they never promised much, a dead-end job to nowhere and all your dreams are crushed,” drawls Mick in his signature Mockney – is them burning the Midnight Oil.
When they dial down the adrenalin for Depending on You and the weary slide guitar wheeze of Dreamy Skies – which references an old ham radio playing Hank Williams – the songs could have slipped off Some Girls (1978). Richards gets away another cracked mid-tempo ballad with Tell Me Straight.
There are lesser moments (Mess It Up, also with Charlie) but at least they sound committed. If Angry wasn’t the smartest first single it’s a decent album track.
Drummer Jones is more assertive than Charlie, who favoured a subtle metronomic swing and in places is like the session man who got the gig and is making the most of it.
If this is their final studio album it’s unexpectedly impressive, their most consistent album since the 1970s, the period Hackney Diamonds mostly resembles. They’ve avoided being seduced by current trends and returned to their distinctive, if familiar, take on American blues and roots country.
So, it’s a “yes”. At last.
They close their account by coming full circle with an acoustic treatment of Muddy Waters’ earthy Rollin’ Stone Blues, perhaps recorded during the sessions for their Blue and Lonesome covers album of 2016.
It’s a nice gesture of chapter-closing and self-mythologising. It was the song Brian adopted for the name of a fledgling London blues band more than 60 years ago. The one that became a way of life for them … and a touchstone for many of us.
Hackney Diamonds is available now digitally, on CD and vinyl.
