The Rolling Stones 2000-present
 The Stones used the recording sessions in Munich to audition replacements for Taylor. Guitarists as stylistically far-flung as Humble Pie lead Peter Frampton and ex-Yardbirds virtuoso Jeff Beck were auditioned. Rory Gallagher and Shuggie Otis also dropped by the Munich sessions. American session players Wayne Perkins and Harvey Mandel also appeared on much of the album. Yet, Richards and Jagger also wanted the Stones to remain purely a British band. When Ron Wood walked in and jammed with the band, Richards and everyone else knew he was the one. Wood had already recorded and played live with Richards and already contributed to the recording and writing of It's Only Rock 'n Roll. The album, Black and Blue (UK 2; US 1) (1976), featured all their contributions. Though he initially declined Jaggers offer to become a full member of the Stones because of his ties to the The Faces, Wood committed to the Stones in 1975 for their upcoming Tour of the Americas. At the insistence of Wyman and Watts, Wood was eventually made a full member in the 80s. The 1975 Tour of the Americas featured stage props including a giant phallus and a rope on which Jagger swung out over the audience.
Toronto's El Mocambo Club where Love You Live was recorded.Although The Rolling Stones remained popular through the first half of the 1970s, music critics had grown increasingly dismissive of the band's output, and record sales failed to meet expectations. Jagger had booked a live recording session at the El Mocambo club in Toronto to balance a long-overdue live album, 1977's Love You Live (UK 3; US 5), the first Stones live album since 1970's Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!. Richards' addiction to heroin delayed his arrival in Toronto; the other members had already assembled, awaiting Richards, and sent him a telegram asking him where he was. On February 24, 1977, Richards and his family flew in from London on a direct BOAC flight and were detained by Canada Customs after being found in possession of a burnt spoon and hash residue. On March 4, Richards' common law wife Anita Pallenberg plead guilty to drug possession and was fined for the original airport event. On Sunday, February 27th, after two days of Stones rehearsals, armed with legal arrest warrants for Pallenberg, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police discovered 22 grams of heroin in Richards' room. Richards was charged with importing narcotics into Canada, which carried a minimum seven-year sentence upon conviction. Later the Crown prosecutor conceded that Richards had procured the drugs after arrival. Despite the arrest, the band played two shows in Toronto, only to raise more controversy when Margaret Trudeau was seen partying with the band after the show.
The drug case dragged on for over a year until Richards received a suspended sentence and was ordered to play two free concerts for the CNIB in Oshawa, Ontario. This sparked one of Richards' first musical projects outside the Stones (with more to come as Jagger's own solo interests dawned in the 1980s), as he and Wood formed a band, The New Barbarians, to perform at the shows. This motivated a final, concerted attempt to end his drug habit, which proved largely successful. It also coincided with the end of his relationship with Pallenberg, which had become strained since the death of their third child (an infant son named Tara) and her inability to curb her heroin addiction while Keith struggled to get clean.
Charlie Watts in Hannover, 2006While Richards was settling his legal and personal problems, Jagger continued his jet-set lifestyle. He was a regular at New York's Studio 54 disco club, often in the company of model Jerry Hall. His marriage to Bianca ended in 1977. By this time, punk rock had become influential, and the Stones were criticised as decadent, aging millionaires, and their music considered by many to be stagnant or irrelevant.
In 1978, the band released Some Girls (UK #2; US #1), which included the hit single Miss You, the country ballad Far Away Eyes, Beast of Burden, and Shattered. In part a response to punk, many songs were fast, basic, guitar-driven rock and roll. The album's success re-established the Stones' immense popularity among young people. After the US Tour 1978, the group did not tour Europe the following year, breaking the routine of touring Europe every three years that the band had followed since 1967.
Entering the 1980s on a renewed commercial high due to the success of Some Girls, the band released its next album Emotional Rescue (UK 1; US 1) in mid-1980. The recording of the album was reportedly plagued by turmoil, with Jagger and Richards' relationship reaching a new low. Richards, more sober than during the previous ten years, began to assert more control in the studio — more than Jagger had become used to — and a struggle ensued as Richards felt he was fighting for his half of the Glimmer Twins. Though Emotional Rescue hit the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, it wajgds panned as lackluster and inconsistent. Some felt it was a poor imitation of its predecessor.[citation needed]
In early 1981, the group reconvened and decided to tour the US that year, leaving little time to write and record a new album, as well as rehearse for the tour. That year's resulting album, Tattoo You (UK 2; US 1) featured a number of outtakes, including lead single Start Me Up. Two songs (Waiting on a Friend and Tops) featured Mick Taylor's guitar playing, while jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins played on Slave and dubbed a part on Waiting on a Friend. The Stones' American Tour 1981 was their biggest, longest and most colourful production to date, with the band playing from September 25th through December 19th. It was the highest grossing tour of that year. Some shows were recorded, resulting in the 1982 live album Still Life (American Concert 1981) (UK 4 / US 5), and the 1983 Hal Ashby concert film Let's Spend the Night Together which was filmed at Sun Devil Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona and the Brendan Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands, New Jersey.
In mid-1982, to commemorate their 20th anniversary, the Stones took their American stage show to Europe. European Tour 1982 was their first European tour in six years. The tour was essentially a carbon copy of the 1981 American tour. For the tour, the band was joined by former Allman Brothers Band piano player Chuck Leavell, who continues to play and record with the Stones. By the end of the year, the band had signed a new four-album, 28 million dollar recording deal with a new label, CBS Records.
|
