After two lacklustre efforts with the poppy Between The Buttons (1966) and the acid-addled Their Satanic Majesties Request, Beggars Banquet recharged their batteries by returning to the blues and R&B of Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Robert Johnson and Elmore James that had inspired them as teenagers.
In the early ‘60s, white kids with a passion for imported R&B blues records — like Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Eric Burdon, Jack Bruce and Paul Jones— got their first chance to be onstage via Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated.
By mid-1962, the Stones had formed and quickly dominated the scene. Jagger was middle-class, a born leader expected by his family to become a politician. Jones was bohemian, multi-instrumental and academically bright. Richards was a loner who grew up in a tough neighbourhood. Watts, a jazz fanatic, dressed immaculately and loved cricket. Wyman sang in the church choir and was married.
Their manager and record producer Andrew Loog Oldham was arrogant and unpleasant but visionary enough to play up their “bad boy” image. He also locked Jagger and Richards in a kitchen and told them not to come out until they’d written a song. They came up with monsters like “The Last Time” and “Satisfaction”. Later, when their writing expanded to the pop flavoured “Ruby Tuesday”, “Paint It Black” and “Lady Jane”, they had Jones’ multi instrumental surrealism to give it glitter.
Beggars Banquet was a reaction to a dark period of drug busts and LSD intake in 1967. Jones was a basket case by then. Unhinged by Jagger stealing his role as band leader, and by Richards stealing his girlfriend, German actress Anita Pallenberg, his paranoia worsened by constant drug busts. He hardly turned up for recording sessions. If he did, it’d be with something like a sitar which was inappropriate for the track they were working on. Richards took over dual guitar duties.
Beggars Banquet was “the Stones coming of age,” according to engineer Glyn Johns. It was more than that. In 1968, the Stones, Led Zeppelin and the Jeff Beck Group were making records that were updating the blues for the space age. The Stones were helped with new producer Jimmy Miller, who’d worked with the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic.
Additionally, Jagger, Richards and Jones’ lifestyles as pop idols allowed them to move with underground film makers, artists and gallery owners, which gave their R&B a depth. Pallenberg turned them on to black magic and voodoo, which they experimented with on “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”.
Jagger’s girlfriend Marianne Faithfull, the actress daughter of a baroness, was turning him onto highbrow plays, books, poetry and philosophy. A book she lent him, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita portrayed the Devil as a sophisticated socialite, a “man of wealth and taste.” It started off life as a Bob Dylan ballad called “The Devil Is My Name” but became a samba. As documented in bootleg versions of the album sessions, a frustrated Watts found it hard to deal with the rhythms, so they brought in percussionist Rocky Dijon. Also on the track, uncredited, were Dave Mason of Traffic and pianist Nicky Hopkins (who was on other tracks) while one version featured Eric Clapton whom the Stones were eying as a replacement to Jones.
Richards said 2002: “‘Sympathy’ is quite an uplifting song. It’s just a matter of looking the Devil in the face. He’s there all the time. (It’s) just as appropriate now, with 9/11. There it is again, big time. When that song was written, it was a time of turmoil. It was the first sort of international chaos since World War II. And confusion is not the ally of peace and love. You want to think the world is perfect. Everybody gets sucked into that. And as America has found out to its dismay, you can’t hide. You might as well accept the fact that evil is there and deal with it any way you can. ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ is a song that says, ‘Don’t forget him’. If you confront him, then he’s out of a job.”
Richards tried new tunings and ways to get a rough sound. “Street Fighting Man” was, believe it or not, recorded on acoustic guitars on a cheap cassette player. Watts’ thundering drums — denoting the barricades falling over in Paris as the French government almost collapsed, unlike in the “sleepy London town” — was actually played on his tiny 1930s drum rehearsal pad!
“No Expectations” was cut with the Stones sitting on the floor campfire-style with open mics. It was the last hoorah by Jones, who played extraordinary slide guitar. “That was the last time I remember Brian really being totally involved in something that was really worth doing,” Jagger recalled. “That was the last moment I remember him doing that, because he had just lost interest in everything.”
Contrary to popular belief, it was Dave Mason, not Jones, playing the Indian reed instrument, the shehani, on “Street Fighting Man”.
Another uncredited player was Family’s Rick Grech on electric violin on “Factory Girl.” The song, rumoured to be about actress Edie Sedgwick of Andy Warhol’s Factory entourage, was described by Richards as “an Appalachian song, the kind I listen to at home.”
Richards’ love for 1930s country blues also saw them tackle Rev. Robert Wilkins’ “Prodigal Son” — credited to Jagger-Richards although Wilkins’ version can be heard on Vanguard’s Blues At Newport, Volume 2.
The guitar crispness of “Stray Cat Blues” was musically inspired by Velvet Underground’s “Heroin” while another R&B run-through, “Parachute Woman” was also recorded on a cassette. There was humour on the self-mocking “Jigsaw Puzzle” and the hokey country “Dear Doctor” about a man getting drunk before his wedding. The album finale, “Salt Of The Earth”, thundered to a tremendous climax courtesy the Los Angeles Watts Street Gospel Choir and some frantic ivory-banging from Nicky Hopkins.
Also cut during the sessions were the gorgeous ballad “Blood Red Wine”, “Sister Morphine” and “Love In Vain”, the latter two which emerged on later albums.
Despite its triumph, Beggars Banquet would have been an even greater achievement if it had kept to its original tracklisting which included “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and its b-side “Child of The Woman”. It had been rushed out as the lead single in May (going straight to #1) with a remarkable music video depicting them with painted faces. The idea was for the album to come out a month after.
But it was delayed for four months (and losing an estimated $1 million worth of sales) when Decca Records threw a tantrum over its art cover. It depicted a filthy public toilet with the song titles graffiti’d along with slogans as “God rolls his own” and “Lyndon loves Mao”. The band finally relented and issued it as a white RSVP card to a banquet. Alas, it came a month after The Beatles released their double album with a similar plain white cover. (The original cover was used when Beggars Banquet came out in 1984 on CD).
Beggars Banquet also had a flaw: due to an error in mastering, it was heard at a slower speed than it was recorded. In 2002, it was released with the correct speed.
Nevertheless, when this writer asked Richards what he would have changed about Beggars Banquet, his reply was instant. “Nothing! It still holds together well. I’m still fond of it, bless its little heart.”
