Black And Blue

About

Part of loving 1976’s <i>Black and Blue</i>—and there’s a lot to love—is letting go of what you expect from The Rolling Stone. They were still a rock band, if rock was what you wanted: “Hand of Fate” could’ve been on <i>Beggars Banquet</i> and “Crazy Mama” on <i>Exile on Main St.</i> But where <i>Goats Head Soup</i> and <i>It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll</i> worked to keep continuity with the sound they developed in the late ’60, <i>Black and Blue</i> didn’t bother trying. Jagger had moved to New York and fallen in love with funk and disco (“Hot Stuff,” “Hey Negrita”); Keith Richards with reggae (“Cherry Oh Baby”). Mick Taylor left the band and Ron Wood joined, stripping out the guitar solos and moving back toward pure rhythm. The songs were short, the grooves were long, and the performances—Jaggers’, especially—combined sex and humor in ways they never had before. That “Hot Stuff” was the band’s first song to make the R&B charts since “19th Nervous Breakdown” 10 years earlier made sense: Not since their early albums had they sounded so connected to Black music, or so joyfully indebted to it. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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