[gmku]

My RYM review for Black and Blue, submitted for your entertainment:

I spoke recently with Keef regarding the release of Black & Blue, asking him why it had taken so long for the Stones to release the freaking thing after the last one. I remember him cupping one hand behind his neck, and saying, “Just a lot of things coming undone. I had this habit, you know, and then there was the thing with Mick Taylor leaving and all. I'm not saying this is any excuse, I'm just saying certain other things had priority, you know what I mean, man (cackle, cackle, hack, hack)." He went on to explain that Mick Jagger missed his hair appointment the day before the photo shoot, and that being the case, after expenses of flying in a new hair dresser from New York City, Ronnie got jealous and demanded he be given the salon treatment too. There would be no hair spray to be sprayed, though, and if they combed their hair themselves, then Keith told them they may just score a new set of glam clothes for the disco in Jamaica.

I went on to tell him that I'd been waiting months for the thing to come out and I didn't give a fuck about their haircuts or disco clothes or drug habits, which was not really true. I cared a lot back then about everything about the Stones, how they cut their hair, what clothes they wore, and what vein Keith used to shoot up.

Anyway, this wasn't the album I was expecting, I told Keith. Not by a long shot.

"(Cackle, cackle, hack) So," Keef goes, "you're thinking it was gonna be something really hot coming on the heels of the 1975 Tour of the Americas. Bet you even bought it on the day of its release."

"Yeah man," I say, shaking my head no to the proffered joint, "saw it was a gatefold cover, cool pics of the Stones where you could actually see them close up, right down to the hairs on Mick's head and the whiskers on your chin and Ronnie's chin. But what the fuck.
You guys look a little... disco? Sure enough. Hot Stuff. Ah, come on. But I listened and I dug it. And then I listened again, and didn't. Same with about every song on the record. Still feel that way. Sometimes the whole album hits me just right and I love it. Other times I can barely get through the third track."

"This is one you have to be in the mood for," Keef says. "Goes best with a balmy late spring night and chilling with some cheap swill. Beyond that, well, Hot Stuff can be hypnotic, and Charlie sounds like he's a 45 pistol. Hand of Fate is typical StonesalaBrownSugar. Cherry Oh is nice--light, but nice, like a nap in the summer sun. Memory Motel is less than what it seems, a rather cliched road song over a standard 50s rock ballad chord progression. Boring but somehow charming--"

"--yeah, especially when you sing your lines about how she's got a mind of her own and she use it well, mighty fine. I love that part, Keef."

"Thank you, mate."

'But, ah, Side 2. I hate it. Fool to Cry is okay, but so corny sometimes it makes me grind my teeth."

"So, (cough, hack, cackle), a generous three RYM stars for something that could have been great with a little more effort perhaps, better arrangements, more songs. IThat's what you're giving it? Well, probably more than we deserved really. Not many critics liked it. And we did just sort of slap it together. As I remember.

"Keith, I dunno, man. You gotta understand. I wanted to like it so much. I still want to. I still dig the cover, the recording charts on the inner sleeve, the moonlit night scene on the label, the disco-boys doing their sparkler letters inside the gatefold (I always believed each was spelling a letter of S T O N E--do you see it?)."

"You got that? Wow, man, you're like the only one. That's exactly what we were doing. Or trying to. Some of us (cackle) couldn't get it right, you know (cackle)."

"And that maybe there was a double meaning. You know, like you were saying you were all stoned when you were getting your photo done or something."

"Er, well, that may be reading too much into it."

"Really?"

"Yeah, man, come on, you think we were just some happy-go-lucky trippy Grateful Dead easy listening band for frat boys to get stoned to, man. We were the freaking Rolling Stones, mate."

"Yeah... . So, Black & Blue, Keef. Like, what was it all about."

"Hey, yeah, so, man, I'm sorry you don't like it more," Keef says, field shredding the end of his joint and tossing it to the Bahama breeze. "Another drink? Be right back. And hey, you know, those jeans you're wearing..."

Oh, shit, I'm thinking. I've heard nothing but a rash of shit ever since buying these damned Levis 511s Skinny fits. Iggy Pop, Mick Jagger. Who did I think I was, some aging old skinny Brit rocker.

"What, Keef?"

"Man... You rock them!!"