EXILE ON MAIN STREET DELUXE
 


Recorded:
February 17, 1967: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England
April 17-July 2, 1969: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England
April 3, 1970: Rolling Stones Mobile Unit, Mick Jagger's home Stargroves, Newbury or Olympic Sound Studios, London, England
July 1970: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England 
October 17-November 2, 1970: Rolling Stones Mobile Unit, Mick Jagger's home Stargroves, Newbury & Olympic Sound Studios, London, England
July 10-late July 1971: Rolling Stones Mobile Unit, Keith Richards' home Nellcôte, Villefranche-sur-mer, France
October 14-November 23, 1971: Rolling Stones Mobile Unit, Keith Richards' home Nellcôte, Villefranche-sur-mer, France

Overdubbed & mixed:
Fall 2009: One East Studio, New York City, USA; Henson Recording Studios, The Village and Mix This!, Los Angeles, USA; London, England

Producers: Jimmy Miller, Don Was and The Glimmer Twins
Chief engineers: Glyn Johns, Andy Johns, Joe Zagarino and Krish Sharma
Mixer: Bob Clearmountain
Released: May 2010
Original label: Universal Music



Contributing musicians: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Mick Taylor, Nicky Hopkins, Bobby Keys, Jim Price, Ian Stewart, Jimmy Miller, Lisa Fischer, Cindy Mizelle, David Campbell.
 

Pass the Wine (Sophia Loren)
Plundered My Soul
I'm Not Signifying
Following the River
Dancing in the Light
So Divine (Aladdin Story)
Loving Cup (alternate take)
Soul Survivor (alternate take)
Good Time Women
Title 5

 


 

CREATION - PART 1: UNEARTHING


(Universal) asked me if there were any tracks (from Exile on Main Street) that hadn't been used, and I said, I doubt it very much. Secondly, I just couldn't be bothered - but they said, Please, will you look? I was quite surprised to find the tapes in such a good state. They all had to be baked in ovens (to) last forever. 
- Mick Jagger, 2010


I think it was like an albatross for (Mick). It wasn't something he was particularly looking forward to. He kind of apologized for foisting it on me.
- Don Was, 2010


I got the boxes out. Universal said, We've got a fan helping us who's a walking encyclopedia of the Stones. Can he send you bootlegs from the period? He sent me loads of things, but when I listened to them I kept thinking, Wait a minute, this isn't from Exile, this is much later. I was listening to them with Keith, and Keith's going, Mick Taylor sounds fantastic on this one. And I said, Yeah! Doesn't he? And I looked at the list. And it wasn't Mick Taylor, it was B. B. King, and we only recorded it five years ago. 
- Mick Jagger, 2009


When we heard these songs, they sounded like... Exile. They had that great basement sound.
- Keith Richards, 2010


They just sent me hundreds of hours of multitracks to go through, which was the best gig ever. It was all mixed up. It was labeled by number code and it wasn't an accurate directory of what it was...For a Stones fanatic like myself, it was just a field day. It was just surprise after surprise... There's an Exile underground, and I wanted to give them some surprises too, not just better mixes of stuff they are familiar with.
- Don Was, 2010


We got as far as a double album, and some things you just chop off. We've done it I think with every album we've ever made. And a lot of those things get picked up again and they end up on the next album. I think a lot of the things on Goats Head Soup were ideas that came off Exile on Main Street. But these ones were just forgotten. It's really nice to have a big, um, can. Things that you'd forgotten about.
- Keith Richards, 2010


I hadn't really realized how much was left over until I started going into this project. I automatically assumed that anything good that we'd done on Exile would roll over to (the following album).
- Keith Richards, 2010


Keith and I listened to it. We picked things that we rather liked. And then I started doing research on my own and I found out that quite a lot of these pieces were really not from the Exile period at all. They were either earlier or later. Some of them much later... Exile was recorded over quite a long period. Some of it was recorded in Olympic Studios in England, some was recorded in France, and then there was stuff done in L.A. So I set myself a sort of time frame for it. The first recording was Loving Cup in 1969, and then the last sessions for Exile were done in 1972. So that was my time period. 
- Mick Jagger, 2010


A lot of times, I remembered where they were done or where I was sitting. And some of them I just didn't remember at all. I was playing guitar or something, and I don't remember any of it. Where was that recorded? So I tried to find out where it was recorded and when. They weren't all recorded in the same place. Some of them I really remembered, but some I didn't remember at all. Some of them were really together - maybe the one you've heard, it was called Plundered My Soul, that was perefect, you didn't have to edit, it was all perfect. Some of the others were much more loose jams. 
- Mick Jagger, 2010


There are a lot of tracks floating around, but not with the current vocals on them, because they didn't exist. We tried to use tracks that hadn't been so heavily bootlegged. 
- Mick Jagger, 2010


It's not really like a solid piece of tape, like you think of Scotch tape. It's more like sandpaper. You have all these oxide particles and they get moved over the magnetic recording heads and rearranged into patterns that when it passes oever the playback head - the playbeck head recognizes those patterns and transduces it into sound waves. Tapes from the '50s and '60s are OK. But I guess they started saving money, and tapes from the '70s, '80s, '90s - the particles tended to coagulate together and fall off the surface. So baking somehow makes them adhere to the surface without altering the pattern. f()KThey just sent me hundreds of hours of multitracks to go through, which was the best gig ever. It was all mixed up. It was labeled by number code and it wasn't an accurate directory of what it was...For a Stones fanatic like myself, it was just a field day. It was just surprise after surprise... There's an Exile underground, and I wanted to give them some surprises too, not just better mixes of stuff they are familiar with.
- Don Was, 2010, on "baking the tapes







CREATION - PART 2: TOUCHING UP THE CANVAS


(The tracks) weren't finished. None of them had vocals on, which is probably one of the reasons they never came out or whatever. We had so many tracks, but... I could've finished them, but I didn't. Either I didn' t have any ideas, or I couldn't be bothered or whatever - they're unwieldy in some way. They were very much like any other Rolling Stones song then or now, to be honest. You'd listen to them and you'd go, Okay, so that needs a vocal, and that's the chorus, this is that. Some were pretty much together, and some were less together. And you just treat them as if they were new, to be perfectly honest. It's always a bit odd to revisit things, but after you get used to them, it doesn't really matter if they were done last week or 35, 40 years ago. 
- Mick Jagger, 2010


Some of them had no vocals on them - no song, no vocals, no words, no music. Just tracks. Which were really good. Some of the tracks were all done and perfect except I wasn't on them... So I wrote words, and I wrote melodies, and song on some of them. 
- Mick Jagger, 2010


It's kind of interesting, the process. It sounds a bit weird, but to be honest, if someone had sent me these tracks and told me, You did those two years ago - the process is exactly the same. It's not the best way of writing songs. My favorite way of writing songs is to have the melody and at least most of the lyrics while the music's there, but sometimes it happens that it isn't like that, and a lot of people work like that, that sometimes you have to write to a finished track. It happens like that and you just do it. 
- Mick Jagger, 2010


There wasn't much to be done and I really didn't want to get in the way of what was there. It was missing a bit of body here and there, and I stroked on acoustic here and there. But otherwise, I really wanted to leave them pretty much as they were. Mick wanted to sort of fix some vocal things, but otherwise, basically they are as we left them 39 years ago.
- Keith Richards, 2010


I brushed a little acoustic guitar. I can't even remember on which song now. The original guitar track sort of stuttered and fell apart halfway through, so Don said, Well, we better replace that. But that's all I did really.
- Keith Richards, 2010


I added bits and pieces here and there. I added some percussion. I added some vocals. Keith put guitar on one or two. I added some acoustic guitar and some other things... In the spirit of Exile we added some girl background vocals on Tumbling Dice and Shine a Light. We had some nice background vocals on the originals. But I think in the end it's very much sounding like it was in those days, so to speak. 
- Mick Jagger, 2010


I listened a bit to the regular album and just sort of copped the attitude a bit (for the vocals). I don't know if that takes away from them or not. I mean, I could have fibbed to you - you totally would have believed me. 
- Mick Jagger, 2010


Nothing was touched, with the drums or the bass or anything. I did one overdub with Keith, playing on So Divine, he played a bit of guitar-dub on that, but his parts where all done already you know, they where already there...  
- Mick Jagger, 2010


Charlie didn't need to come in. The drums were all perfect. 
- Mick Jagger, 2010


I'm not saying (Mick Taylor participating)'s not true. I'm simply not going to deny it or say it didn't happen.
- Keith Richards, 2010


(Mick Taylor participating i)s a rumor, babe. If he was on there, I would know. We've had no contact with Mick for a long time.
- Keith Richards, 2010


I’ve put Mick Taylor on Plundered My Soul, because he wasn’t on it. I wasn’t on it, he wasn’t on it, so obviously we were driving to the studio when that was done (laughs)... (I)t was very nice, it was just like the old days, you know, I just sat Mick down and we did it like half an hour...  
- Mick Jagger, 2010


(For the mix, i)f the piano's in a certain spot on Exile, it's in the same spot now. We didn't try to rewrite the book on it.
- Don Was, 2010









APPRECIATION

I spent the last six months living with it, so I know it pretty much inside out now.
- Mick Jagger, 2010


(I've tried) to pick things that were recorded in that time frame. Some of them are of interest and fun, but some of them are really good, so I hope people like them. 
- Mick Jagger, 2010


My only criticism of the new ones is that the voice sounds like it was done yesterday. That's inevitable. But Mick likes them. He was rather pleased when he gave them to me. He must've got into this.
- Charlie Watts, 2010


Bill's solid as a rock, man. What a bass player! I'm actually more and more impressed with him, listening to this. You can get used to a guy, but listening back, going over this stuff to make this record, I'd say, Jesus Christ, he's better than I thought!
- Keith Richards, 2010


I think they're all good.
- Mick Jagger, 2010



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