Rolling Stone Blues

Composer: Muddy Waters               Original performer: Muddy Waters (1950) 
Recording date: November 2022-March 2023          Recording locations: Henson Recording Studios, Los Angeles, USA;
Metropolis Studios, London, England; Sanctuary Studios, Albany, Bahamas; & MixStar Studios, Virginia Beach, USA
Producer: Andrew Watt          Chief engineer: Paul Lamalfa
Mixers: Andrew Watt & Paul Lamalfa            Never performed onstage





Line-up:

Acoustic guitar: Keith Richards
Vocal: Mick Jagger
Harmonica: Mick Jagger
 

I wish I was a catfish
Swimming in a deep blue sea
I would have all you good looking women
Fishing after me
Fishing after me
Fishing after me

Oh well
Oh well
Oh well

Well I went to my baby's house
And I sit down on her steps
She said, Now come on in now, baby
My husband he just left

My husband he just left

My husband he just left


Oh well

Well my mother told my father
Just before I was born
She said You got a boy child coming, he's going to be
Going to be a rolling stone

He's going to be a rolling stone

He's going to be a rolling


Oh well


 

TrackTalk
 

He’s like Andy, I don’t have time to write fucking blues lyrics; I’m writing 28 lyrics that I have to make sure I have finished.

- Andrew Watt, August-September 2023, on first asking Mick to write an original blues song


It didn't happen immediately. One day, while hanging out with Keith in New York, he was sitting with me talking. But I found it hard to focus on his words because he had an old Martin acoustic guitar in hand, and he was playing the most primal blues I had ever heard in my life. Not many people can play blues like that. Robert Johnson could, Muddy Waters could, and Keith Richards certainly can. He seemed possessed by something, channeling the essence of the blues. It wasn't about complexity; it was about having it in your soul, and Keith had it in spades. It was surprising. I never really thought of him playing a slow Robert Johnson blues, but it's what he really loves. So I made a mental note of it. After that experience, I told Mick that I thought he and Keith should do a straight acoustic blues for the album. Mick found the idea intriguing but was initially noncommittal, given the many other songs we had to complete. But as the record started falling into place, I pushed him again on the idea. Sometimes that goes well, and other times it does not (laughs)... At one point, Keith began telling me the story about how the band got its name, and as he was telling me that, I just asked the dumbest question: Have you guys ever played Rollin' Stone before? He thought for a second and said, no they hadn't which sort of surprised him. They had played every other Muddy Waters song, but ironically, never that song. And that's when I pounced and asked whether he would consider playing it for this record. Keith said he knew it backwards and forward, but the decision ultimately rested with Mick. I said, Give me a second and I'll call him. So I went in the other room, and I called him. I was excited and said, You don't have to write any blues lyrics because you can just tackle Muddy's '"Rollin' Stone". There was a long pause on the phone. At first, I thought he was going be angry that I was pushing the blues idea again, but then he just said, Okay, when do you want to do it? We were finishing up our overdub session, so I suggested doing it that day. As Mick made his way to the studio, Keith began playing the song. And now the hairs were raising on everyone's arms in the studio. They were finally going to record the song that inspired the band's name..

- Andrew Watt, August-September 2023


That was a fun thing to do with Keith. We’ve never done that song, so we had to get it down. There’s so many Muddy Waters songs. That one, the song that we named the band after, we’d never done. I don’t know why.

- Mick Jagger, August-September 2023


That was Andrew's idea. He turned up at the studio with a 1920s Gibson L-4 acoustic and asked us to do that Muddy thing. Ironically, I'd never played that song before, but the guitar was beautiful, and we did it in a couple of takes. The guitar that he laid on me was just the perfect sort of instrument for the job. It was perfectly archaic and, I must confess, pretty difficult to play (laughs).

- Keith Richards, August-September 2023



Keith, along with his guitar tech, Pierre De Beauport, and I listened closely to Muddy's original recording as a reference. We were like Is that an electric guitar? It seemed unlikely; he was playing acoustic back then, yet the sound was so heavy because of the way he played and how it was recorded. So I said I have an acoustic 1930 Gibson L-4 with me, which is like the L-1 guitar associated with Robert Johnson. Keith was like Oh, let me see it. And so he started playing the song. He could play it beautifully, but it's not an easy guitar to play. It was made before guitars had truss rods, so there was no way to really adjust the action. But this is when the universe does its thing. We started looking at these two pictures of Robert Johnson. There's the one of him with a cigarette, and there's the other one of him with the hat (shot from) further away. And we noticed in the photo of him with the cigarette that he had a capo on the second fret of his guitar. Keith caught that. So we all asked, Why is there a capo on the second fret? What does that mean? Most Robert Johnson songs are in the key of E and A. We theorized that maybe he tuned down the guitar a full step, to D, and put a capo on the second fret to bring the guitar back up to E so that the strings were looser and he could play and bend easier. So Pierre did exactly that with the L-4, then he handed it to Keith, who found it played effortlessly - like butter. Then we debated whether to record using an acoustic or an electric guitar. Meanwhile, Mick was on his way, and we needed a plan. Ultimately, we settled on trying it both ways and deciding later. We set up microphones for the L-4's acoustic sound, and Pierre added a lipstick pickup to it, so we could rout a signal through all four amps in Keith's setup, located in another room. The funny thing was, the volume was so loud from Keith's amps that the electric sound from the other room began bleeding into the acoustic mic, creating a fantastic blend.

- Andrew Watt, August-September 2023


I love the fact that Andrew kicked everyone out of the studio and said, Mick and Keith, you are going to play the song when you first met, inspired by the album you had under your arm on the station when you were kids: Muddy Waters’ "Rolling Stone Blues”. I thought that was very sweet.

- Ron Wood, August-September 2023



Mick used a bullet microphone for his harmonica, that we routed through one of my Dumble-modified Fender Champs from the '50s. He also used another mic for his vocals. However, as they played, Mick kept moving closer to Keith. Then Mick stood up, rendering the vocal mic unnecessary because he was right next to the room microphone that was capturing Keith's guitar. Ultimately, the recording consisted primarily of this single room mic, along with a subtle mix of the four amps and a touch of the bullet microphone, which added an extra layer of edge to the harmonica.

- Andrew Watt, August-September 2023


Mick and I can toss that off in a barroom to pay for a drink. It was beautiful to be able to do it, because it wouldn’t have occurred to me to do that. And Andrew had to force us both to say, Come on. I mean, the song is, in a way, the most obvious thing to do. After all, the band is named after that track. When we did it, Mick and I were just together face to face and going, We got to do the shit here and lay it out. And so that’s what we did.

- Keith Richards, August-September 2023



Neither of them wore headphones. It was simply the two of them, playing together.

- Andrew Watt, August-September 2023


We used tape actually... for Rolling Stone Blues. We recorded that on tape. Just for fun, kind of a go vibe, you know. Just Keith and me, so we recorded it on a 24-track tape.

- Mick Jagger, September 2023


We did two takes. It’s not something you want to record over and over. When we finished, I said to Mick, Well done, Muddy.

- Keith Richards, September 2023



I made the decision with Paul Lamalfa, my engineer, that we would record on tape, because there was no better way to capture the essence of the moment. The goal was to capture the magic of two musicians in a room. We aimed to re-create the vibe of Muddy's original recording, and if there were ever two guys who could do it, it was Keith and Mick.

- Andrew Watt, August-September 2023


It was heavy. It's probably the most important thing I'll ever record.

- Andrew Watt, August-September 2023


This is Mick and me going: here is where it all started. Mick plays incredible harp, I love the man, and it is a nod back to the very beginning. Hey, if you want to know about the band… this is it, baby.

- Keith Richards, c. August 2023


Man, I've never even come close to thinking of wrapping up the Rolling Stones' story, so my answer to that is Absolutely not. It was just a cool way of wrapping up this album, and the story so far.

- Keith Richards, August-September 2023, asked if the song closing the album means the Rolling Stones' story is wrapped up


It's a fitting statement, but it's not a coda. It's more a tip of the hat to Muddy Waters, Chicago and all the blues men we learned our stuff from.

- Keith Richards, October 2023


We needed some real, so we got as real as we could get. This is the Rolling Stones. This is what they can do.

- Keith Richards, September 2023








Back to TrackTalk Menu.

Back to Hackney Diamonds.

Back to Main Page.