Artist: The Rolling Stones
Album: On Air
Label: Interscope
Release Date: December 1, 2017
Unearthed Jem
Photo by Claude Gassian
Written by Silas Valentino
To some smug degree, this is the best album released by The Rolling Stones in decades.
These 32 tracks (if you fetch the worthy deluxe version) condense three years of early, raw Stones into a cohesive package. Between 1963 and 1965, they appeared on various BBC programs and recorded a trove of live and studio cuts. There have been rumors of their existence for years and last month they were finally unearthed.
Some have hailed this collection as, in the style of Bob Dylan, their Basement Tapes but that’s just being reckless with shabby similarity. On Air is a collection of The World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band trimming their greenhorn by paying tribute to their elder United Statesmen.
Chuck Berry may as well be considered the sixth Stone. His electric guitar technique was the groundwork for the band’s chemistry with its steam engine rumble rhythm and lightning rod guitar licks. Because Berry is their muse, it’s ever-so appropriate the Stone’s debut single was a cover of his tepid “Come On,” a tune that flopped for Berry but ushered in a new era for rock ‘n’ roll when the Stones reimagined it–adding a pulsating bass line and howling harmonica courtesy of Big Lips Jagger himself. The band appeared on the pop music show Saturday Club in October 1963 to perform a jangling version of their single, which had been released earlier that spring.
In the 55 years since that radio recording the English language has morphed, allowing some words to enter the realm of acceptance. This allows for casual etymologists today to be mystified over a word’s pious misguidance from yesteryear. Take, for instance, the harmless word “jerk.” Berry’s original version of “Come On” included the cunning line: “Some stupid jerk trying to reach another number” but when the Stones took over, that noun was relegated to “guy.” As Jagger sings with crystal clarity: “Every time the phone rings sounds like thunder/Some stupid guy trying to reach another number” we’re left to ponder just how ridiculous the word change truly is and why the bad lads of rock ‘n’ roll opted to dilute their snarl.
During their first few years, The Rolling Stones were essentially an American blues cover band. Five more Chuck Berry covers are sprinkled over On Air as are cuts by staples like Bo Diddly, Arthur Alexander and Muddy Waters. But the gems are in the deeper digs. Barbara Lynn’s “Oh! Baby (We Got A Good Thing Goin)” gets a rework, swapping out a horn section for slinky guitars, whereas Tommy Tucker’s “Hi-Heeled Sneakers” receives a jolt of energy sourced by the blaring cheers of a female-dominated audience who came to the Saturday Club in April 1964 on a mission to scream.
Original numbers from the Jagger/Richards repertoire appear but they’re in low supply. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” being the least interesting while “The Last Time” continues to be haunting due to its destiny to soil the career of The Verve, who infamously sampled the tune in 1997 in their stunning “Bitter Sweet Symphony” single but lost all its royalty in a plagiarism mishap executed by the Stone’s legal team. Hearing the sharp guitar line, then recorded in March 1965 on the radio program Top Gear, sends shivers for its shady, capitalistic fate.
Perhaps the best moment within the collection is the final song: the instrumental flush of “2120 South Michigan Avenue.” Named after the location of Chess Records in Chicago and brandished by sways of sashay, this archetype blues-rock jam was recorded on Halloween 1964 adding an ambiance of cool ghoul.
It wouldn’t be until 1968’s Beggar’s Banquet–when The Rolling Stones shed their blues heritage, forgoing the past, and begin crafting rock ‘n’ roll’s future instead–but for three years in the mid Sixties a group of five white boys from England plucked something that wasn’t there’s, reshaped it into something more accessible to a wider whiter audience and then broadcasted this modification along the BBC airwaves to ears both then and (of more recent) now.