Following in Footsteps

Album: The Rolling Stones, Stone Age, 1971 (cassette reissue)

Best Track: "Paint It Black"

Lasting Memory: This past weekend while hanging out with some friends who are way more into music then I am, I went off on a rant about how the Rolling Stones stole their shtick wholesale from underrecognized American bluesmen and R&B acts. Suspecting I was being unfair I gave myself a few days to back off from that observation. And I will, a little bit.

Certainly several songs on the singles and studio outtakes compilation Stone Age are true originals. "Paint It Black" and "As Tears Go By" stand out and stand up as worthy contributions to the rock canon from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But then there are the too-faithful covers of songs like "My Girl" and "The Spider and the Fly" that make me wonder if the Stones did anything more creative than Pat Boone did when he had the hit with "Tutti Frutti" rather than Little Richard.

Having thought on this longer than probably necessary, I'll give the Stones credit for being artists rather than appropriators. For one thing, the Stones always called attention to the sources of their material, and it may well be the case that far fewer people would ever have heard "It's All Over Now," for instance, had the Stones not recorded the Bobby and Shirley Womack song.

Second, and something I only learned this morning, the Stones had no intention of making their career on the work of others. The band didn't want their versions of "My Girl" and the like released on album. So good on them for that.

Shame I had to waste that rant, though. I'll just have to wait and see what else I can get myself work up about.

Up Next: The Rolling Stones, Gigantes del Pop, 1982