Overlooked Music: Black and Blue

Have you heard of the Rolling Stones? They’re a band from the 60’s with big lips and drugs and coconuts. They are old. Recently I listened to their mid 70’s creation Black and Blue and was surprised to find that’s it’s actually a great album.

There’s the dogma that the goats-head era stones were at an artistic low point, and I see some validity to that, but Black and Blue gets swept along too easily.

I like the experimentation with different styles on this album, particularly the funky opener “Hot Stuff” and the reggae “Cherry Oh Baby” which the stones pull off pretty well compared to their punk contemporaries from this time period (See “Redando Beach” by Patti Smith….). “Hand of Fate” features some great guitar sections, and “Melody” has a wonderful nonsensical hook: Melody, Melody, it was a second name. Billy Preston’s piano shines through on that track and Mick’s sounds great on “Memory Motel”.

I don’t really know what’s going on with the album cover– Charlie Watts looks like he’s going through Chemo and Bill Wyman is wearing some sort of wizard’s uniform– but the album is great and worth a second listen.