Because the Rolling Stones are Fuckin' Awesome, That's Why #2

   In summer 1976, the Rolling Stones toured Europe, an extension of their go-round of America the year prior. That spring they'd released Black and Blue, inarguably the worst of their 1962-1983 output. To flog the album they included some of its dreadful songs in the 1976 shows. ("Fool to Cry," anyone? "Hot Stuff"? Eesh.)
   By 1976 Keith Richards' heroin addiction had attained epically destructive proportions. (Hence Black and Blue, in all its shitty glory.) Tragedy dogged him that year, too. A month before the Stones pulled into Paris for a multi-night stand, Keith's son Tara died, aged three months. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome was cited as the offical cause, but rumors, naturally, floated about the extensive drug use indulged by Keith and his longtime partner Anita Pallenberg. 

   Regardless, the tour went on. Beneath the photos below, I've posted an audio recording of the June 7 Paris show recorded directly from the mixing board--the console where a technician balances the sounds of the instruments and singing for optimal concert broadcast.
   Because it is taken for that source (as opposed to from a little tape recorder held by an audience member), this bootleg recording has nearly the clarity of a live album. Indeed, the Stones culled three sides of the double live album Love You Live (1977) from the 1976 Paris shows.
   Incidentally, that album's fourth side featured a few songs from their ill-fated early-1977 appearance at the El Mocambo club in Canada. Keith was busted for heroin possession on his way into the country for the shows; the busts precipitated his cleanup from, at least, that particular heavy drug. (It wouldn't be until 2006, after brain surgery, that he surrendered cocaine. He was sixty-three.)

   If nothing else from the nearly two-hour June 7 show, listen to "Honky Tonk Women," the first song. (I recommend earbuds/headphones.) Keith is in the right channel, guitarist Ron Wood--who'd joined the Stones the year before--in the left. Inside-baseball fans will want to know (or already do) that at the time both Keith and Woody were playing through three Ampeg amplifier heads and three speaker cabinets with six 12" speakers--a ridiculous amount of power.
   On "Honky Tonk" and some other songs, Keith played a custom-built five-string Zematis guitar (it was later stolen). From his opening blast in "Honky Tonk," his guitar tone is dementedly raunchy.
   In the press at the time he  made a big deal of the difference in the band after Ronnie Wood replaced guitarist Mick Taylor, a Stone from 1969-1974. Taylor was rightly known as a brilliant player capable of improvising melodic, achingly gorgeous solos. But his focus on soloing left Keith to anchor the rhythm, which happens to be his particular forte anyway.
   By way of example of the Taylor-Richards style, I've included a recording of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" taken from a show in Brussels in 1973, Taylor's last tour with the Stones and, aficianados will tell you, the band's peak live period. Keith again is in the right channel, Taylor in the left. The Stones suffered licensing problems with their 1960s material, which prevented them from putting out a highly anticipated live album from the 1972 American tour. This version of "YCAGWYW" was taken from a professional recording first broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour in 1974. It is the great Stones live album that was never released, the holy grail for Stones freaks.. (Oh, fuck it--below "YCAGWYW" I've posted audio of the entire performance. Spend an hour or so to see how really great the Rolling Stones once were.)
   Anyway, Ronnie Wood proved a less adept soloist than Mick Taylor, but he perfectly commingled rhythm and lead parts with Keith; the two meshed completely. Keith has dubbed their style of interplay "the ancient art of weaving" and has said it's like having "one guitar and four hands." You'll hear that on the June 7, 1976 "Honky Tonk." Listen, for example, to Woody's pounding rhythm behind Keith's solo. At the end of it, Woody perfectly doubles, way up high, Keith's solo-ending lick.

   Below the June 7 show audio you'll see footage of the Stones playing "Honky Tonk," taken from another of the Paris concerts. 

   Enjoy! 

Keith onstage in '76, looking a bit the worse for the wear. In hand: the Zematis five-stringer. 

Keith and Anita in '76: stylish as rockers, high as kites. 

The June 7 Paris show (sound only). Listen to "Honky Tonk Women," the first song.

   Footage of "Honky Tonk Women" from another of the Paris '76 concerts. 

Mick Taylor owns "You Can't Always Get What You Want," Brussels, 1973

The Stones in Brussels, 1973. Makeup, glitter, heroin--genius.