For their 61st birthday, the Rolling Stones take out diamonds, not all of the same carat

2023-10-20 18:31:20
Ron Wood, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, in New York, in 2023. MARK SELIGER

On September 6, during a thirty-minute program hosted by American presenter Jimmy Fallon (“The Tonight Show”, on NBC) and broadcast on YouTube, live from the Hackney Empire redstone theater, in London, singer Mick Jagger and guitarists Keith Richards and Ron Wood announced that the new Rolling Stones album would be released on Friday October 20. Satisfaction from fans of the group formed in June 1962, sighs for whom the group, although active it has remained, has no longer aroused excitement since the end of the 1970s.

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In record store bins, on CD or vinyl 33-rpm records, and on dematerialized distribution platforms, here is Hackney Diamonds, twenty-fourth studio recording in the Rolling Stones’ British discography. Without going to qualify Hackney Diamonds very exaggerated “best rock’n’roll album of at least the last four decades”, quote from Daily Telegraph, among other enthusiasms from the British press included in the promotional messages, it turns out to be generally satisfactory. Its cover, on the other hand, is undoubtedly the ugliest in the group’s history.

There is what can be expected from a record by the group. Rock, a lot, blues or country impregnations, the rhythmic-soloist complementarity of Keith Richards and Ron Wood, the latter providing some well-crafted parts of slide playing – sliding effect on the strings by means of a metal tube or glass inserted around a finger –, Mick Jagger, who, in most cases, does not force too much on nasality, falsetto and stretching. Let’s add the ritual of a title sung by Keith Richards, the short ballad Tell Me Straight.

In December 2016 it was published Blue & Lonesome, covers of blues songs, but we had to go back to September 2005 for an album of original songs co-signed by Jagger-Richards, A Bigger Bang. In Hackney Diamonds, there are eight by the duo, one cover by bluesman Muddy Waters (1913-1983) and three in writing collaboration with Andrew Watt (who worked for Iggy Pop, Justin Bieber and Elton John). 33-year-old toddler to whom Jagger (80 years old) and Richards (79 years old) also entrusted the production of the record and several bass parts, in addition to those played by Richards and Wood.

Guitar tracery

In the rock department, in a classic Stoneman way, we will distinguish Get Close, evolving from a medium tempo towards a short saxophone part with percussion (James King), a nod to the Can’t You Hear Me Knocking from the album Sticky Fingers (1971), Bite My Head Off, although a little heavy, Whole Wide World, Live by The Sword, Alright. Driving Me Too Hard, with introduction modeled on Tumbling Dicefrom the album Exile on Main St. (1972), loses momentum on the choruses. The slightly country ballad Depending on You is supported by intertwining guitars, with a final addition of a little necessary string section, when the country-blues Dreamy Skies turns out to be perfect with acoustic guitar, slide effects and intervention by Jagger on the harmonica.

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