Log #77 - Exile Sur la Rue Principale - The Rolling Stones in France 1971

~

1. Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street

2. Paolo Nutini - These Streets

3. Sensational Alex Harvey Band - The Impossible Dream

4. Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Next

5. Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Live

6. Holger Czukay - Moving Pictures

~

I came late to the Rolling Stones and they come late to this blog too via, perhaps subconsciously, Marianne Faithful from last week (and also more consciously through considering going to see them for the first time on tour in the UK this Spring).  

When I was younger I considered them a bit of a novelty band, neither tickling my ivories as a heavy metal band or progressive rock.

I consequently didn't really get Exile when I first heard it - as a beginner it didn't even seem to have any of the tunes I was familiar with - the likes of Start Me Up or Brown Sugar that used to get us excited at discos!

Oh how green I was. My dismissal was misguided. The Rolling Stones were and (incredibly) still are a classic rock band with a unique take on a loose and ramshackle form of rhythm and blues, and much cooler than the prog rock bands of the time or the heavy metal bands they preceded. 

Now I get it and can appreciate Exile too. Capturing a moment in time when this band were at their peak the album almost defined the bohemian and decadent rock and roll lifestyle with 18 tracks of raw and spontaneous back to basics swampy honky tonky country blues that were very much at odds with the progressive rock movement of the time and some of their own more expansive experiments of recent times. By single track you may not recognise much as being the best of the Stones but this is an album of atmosphere where the whole is something greater than the sum of its parts like Neil Young's desperate Tonight's The Night.  

A sprawling experience made in the idyllic surroundings of a French villa surrounded by guitars, drugs, hangers on, and pretty girls, those (must have been) the days...

...or were they?

The album and its making is surrounded by rock 'n' roll myth, but what was the reality? The Stones were actually genuine tax exiles forced (against their will) to decamp to France to avoid 93% tax rates in England.

I just didn't think about it, and no manager I ever had thought about it, even though they said they were going to make sure my taxes were paid. So, after working for 8 years, I discovered nothing had been paid and I owed a fortune. 

Mick Jagger

Keith Richards had rented Villa Nellcote, a sprawling mansion near Nice in the South of France and moved there with partner Anita Pallenberg and 2 year old son Marlon in early 1971. The rest of the band followed although they didn't actually stay at Nellcote, renting alternative accommodation nearby.

However once attention turned to recording a new album the Stones' new mobile studio was moved into the basement and Nellcote became the HQ for the band who would drop by with the crew to  record (and socialise of course) although it soon became obvious this arrangement rarely worked for the nocturnal Keith Richards. He was sinking into the throes of a serious heroin addiction and could barely make any scheduled sessions - not on any account of disrespect or rudeness he recalls - he "was just asleep".

In reality, far from luxurious the allegedly former Nazi headquarters from the war was rundown and damp (the basement was cramped and the band's instruments would constantly go out of tune).

It wasn't a great environment for, like, breathing. 

Keith Richards 

Tensions in the band were high. Richards and Jagger (who was often absent, more interested in visiting his new and pregnant wife Bianca who sensibly avoided Nellcote preferring to stay in Paris) weren't getting on and London boy Charlie Watts was homesick. Worse still new boy Mick Taylor was about to join Richards in his drug habit.

The house not surprisingly became a magnet for a multifarious selection of musicians, employees, friends, executives, advisers, groupies, and drug dealers, some welcome, many not. One night a thief walked in and helped himself to Richards' guitars.

We were never by ourselves... day after day, it was 10 people for lunch... 25 for dinner...

Anita Pallenberg

The sessions such as they were became shambolic jams that went on for days, often thwarted by power cuts, with hundreds of takes of rambling songs that were never finished. In fact contrary to the myth, many of the songs were written and demoed elsewhere, including London, and finished off with additional recording and production later in LA. After the birth of Jagger's daughter, Jade, he instructed the band to just carry on recording instrumental tracks and he'd add the vocals later.

Out of decadence and adversity came the Rolling Stones’ defining masterpiece.

Of course despite all this, the band frictions, the shambolic arrangements (both living and musical) and sloppy playing have contrived together to produce a ramshackle masterpiece. But at the time critics, fans, and the band themselves weren't particularly impressed with the outcome. Jagger recalls the muddy mix where his vocals struggle to be heard over the general din:

When I listen to Exile it has some of the worst mixes I've ever heard. I'd love to remix the record, not just because of the vocals, but because generally I think it sounds lousy. 

Richards wasn't sympathetic of course:

Lead singers never think their vocals are loud enough.

The place was eventually raided and Richards was banned from France. He still states: "While I was a junkie, I learned to ski and I made Exile On Main Street." Fair enough. Many consider this Richards' album.

Personnel

The Rolling Stones:

Mick Jagger – lead vocals, harmonica
Keith Richards – guitars
Bill Wyman – bass guitar
Charlie Watts – drums
Mick Taylor – guitars

Additional musicians:

Nicky Hopkins – piano
Bobby Keys – tenor saxophone
Jim Price – trumpet
Ian Stewart – piano
Jimmy Miller – percussion, drums
Bill Plummer – double bass
Billy Preston – piano, organ
Al Perkins – pedal steel guitar
Richard Washington – marimba
Clydie King – backing vocals
Venetta Fields – backing vocals
Joe Green – backing vocals
Gram Parsons – backing vocals
Chris Shepard – tambourine
Jerry Kirkland – backing vocals
Mac Rebennack (Dr. John) – backing vocals
Shirley Goodman – backing vocals
Tami Lynn – backing vocals
Kathi McDonald – backing vocals