Between The Buttons

About

Sometime during the sessions for <i>Between the Buttons</i> in fall 1966, The Rolling Stones saw Jimi Hendrix play live. Hendrix was in London then, doing what would become known as doing his Jimi Hendrix thing: playing the guitar with his head, his teeth, while it was on fire, and with a general degree of power and lightness that made everyone else look mortal. The band was impressed. (Brian Jone, who was taking acid so continuously that he may have been crying for any number of reason, reportedly emerged from one of Hendrix’s shows in tear.) Not that they shifted course. If anything, <i>Between the Buttons</i> was an entrenchment. Touring, which the band had spent most of the year doing, had toned their muscle. Jones’ indifference toward the guitar had mellowed into polite estrangement. Where the marimba of “Under My Thumb” had seemed striking a year earlier, Jones was now playing trumpet, vibraphone, recorder, and kazoo. Charlie Watt, who until then often seemed to be drumming primarily because rock bands need drummer, became a focal point: “Connection,” “Yesterday’s Paper,” “My Obsession”—all instances where less and less (tight, primitive, often cymbal-free patterns) felt like more and more. The rhythm was there, and the soul wa, too. But the white British blues that the Stones had made their name on was fading like a scar. <i>Aftermath</i> had introduced new kinds of ballads: part folk, part psychedelia, guided by the feel of soul but not the structure of it. “She Smiled Sweetly,” which had no guitar at all, is one. The indomitable “Ruby Tuesday”—left off the album’s UK version—was another. If <i>Aftermath</i>’s “I Am Waiting”—always an underrated song—proved the band could submit themselves to a woman without turning it into a power play, <i>Between the Buttons</i> combined that new vulnerability with a stoicism that defined the band’s ballads for years to come: wistful and bittersweet, but faced unblinkingly toward the wind. Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Cream—let the kids run with the ball. Chasing them would only wear you out. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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