Out Of Our Heads

About

When The Rolling Stones came to Chess Studios in Chicago in the summer of 1964, they were met by a middle-aged Black man standing on a ladder painting the ceiling: Muddy Waters—a figure so important in the band’s origin story they named themselves after one of his song. And there he wa, painting the ceiling. The band’s project had always been, in part, reparational: They wanted the Black musicians they loved to get the money and recognition the band felt they deserved. Waters had toured Europe a year earlier as part of the American Folk Blues Festival, a package that presented blues not as a living, breathing art form, but as a fixed cultural export, the kind of thing you might see in a museum. Getting people interested in guys like Muddy Water, Howlin’ Wolf, and Willie Dixon—that would’ve been nice. Getting them to realize Water, Wolf, and Dixon were still alive and trying to make a living—at a time when Black America was aching from the struggle for civil rights—would’ve been even better. Released in July 1965—and recorded at Chess starting in November the previous year—<i>Out of Our Heads</i> was a pivot point. The Stones were still covering blues and soul—Marvin Gaye’s “Hitch Hike,” Sam Cooke’s “Good Time,” Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me”—but they were also discovering their own identity, folding in hints of country (“The Spider and the Fly”), English folk (“Play With Fire”), and rockabilly (“The Last Time”). .

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The Clerk says

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