IT'S ONLY ROCK 'N' ROLL
With early tracks such Walking The Dog (chosen by Ian Anderson), classic hits like Jumpin’ Jack Flash (Alice In Chains’ William DuVall) or later-period belters such as Start Me Up (Marillion’s Steve Hogarth), the stars’ choices confirm one thing: that the Stones really are the Greatest Rock’n’Roll Band In The World.
I’m A King Bee
(From The Rolling Stones, 1964)
As a teenager I was a huge Beatles fan, buying everything they did with my paper-round money. Then along came the big hoo-hah about these educated bad boys from the south with The Rolling Stones, their first album. I was skint, but borrowed the extra cash from my mother – which took weeks to pay back, but boy it was worth it. Every track smashed it, and I was converted into a huge fan. I loved how Mick Jagger sang their cover of Slim Harpo’s I’m A King Bee, selling the lyric in such an innuendo-charged way. I still love that first album today. Somewhere I still have the original vinyl.
George Glover, Climax Blues Band
Walking The Dog
(From The Rolling Stones, 1964)
This was a breath of fresh air at the time, in the face of cheesy UK pop chart songs. I remember learning and playing it in 1964 when I was just seventeen. We played it at a local youth club dance, and a gang of nasty biker youths keep saying aggressively: “Play it again.” In spite of my polite explanations that we had already played the song three times there was little option, as we could not afford to replace trashed guitars and amps. I lost count of the times we played it “again” and have never been able to listen to the song since!
Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull
It’s All Over Now
(From 12 X 5, 1964)
In the early-to-mid-1960s I was in a band called the Missing Link, who did a lot of Stones covers, so I go all the way back with them. I was a bass player back then, and the one song of theirs that I loved performing live was It’s All Over Now. Until then I’d been a fan of The Beatles and The Shadows, so it was a turning point for me. They made me think: “I really like that bad-boy image.” I fought that change, but eventually I had to go with the flow.
The recording of that song is so good, as is the whole rhythmic thing, and you can hear the two guitars – they sound different in the mix. It was one of the first perfect rock-meets-pop songs.
The Stones still inspire me now. Where would we be without them? I blame them for the fact that everyone else is still on the road. Before the Stones came along you had to turn to jazz and folk to find sixty-year-olds going out on tour. In pop or rock, once you hit twenty, or at a push thirty, you were over. The Stones rewrote those rules, and they continue to do so.
Andy Scott, Sweet
It was very hard to choose between this and the live version of Midnight Rambler [on Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!]. There were such fundamental differences between their live-y, rock-y shit and the singles that they put out. I saw them live on TV, and they are the masters of stretching out one song – they’d been on stage for forty-five minutes and had only played three or four tunes. Midnight Rambler is one of the songs that they really elongate. And they do it so expertly, better than anyone else I know – even some of the Yankee bands. Which make you think: “Jesus, let’s go home.”
I once read an interview with Bill [Wyman] on their inner dynamic – this guy is doing something, another something else, a third one is behind the beat and fourth is asleep in the corner. He wondered how the fuck the thing doesn’t fall apart. Even the band don’t know, and that’s the magic of it.
So getting back to your question, I like both of those aspects of what they do, but if somebody put
