RECOMMENDED. Music.

“Exile on Main St.” The 1972 album of The Rolling Stones. A little backstory: Recording began in 1969 in England, and continued in mid-1971 at a rented villa in the South of France while the band lived abroad as tax exiles. A collage of various images, the album's artwork, according to frontman Mick Jagger, reflects the Rolling Stones as "runaway outlaws using the blues as its weapon against the world,” showcasing "feeling of joyful isolation, grinning in the face of a scary and unknown future.” 

       I do dig background tales and stories how artists collectively work/ed. Such as Bob Dylan and The Band toiling in the Big Pink, a house in West Saugerties, New York. The Band’s “Music from Big Pink” (1968) and Dylan’s “The Basement Tapes” (1975) emanated from that house. 

       The Stones’ “Exile on Main St.” was recorded in a French villa called Nellcote. Although overdub sessions were completed at Los Angeles's Sunset Sound—with additions of pianist Nicky Hopkins, saxophonist Bobby Keys, drummer Jimmy Miller and horn player Jim Price—the feel and feelings of “Exile…” was all Nellcote, though I don’t know how’s that, really. LOL! 

       It was all about the music--blues, rock and roll, swing, country and gospel, and lyricism that navigated playful, eerie themes of hedonism, sex and whatever—that got me hooked to this rock/blues outlaw abandon.

       Sure, we get the definitive thump, thud, and trickery of "Tumbling Dice," "Happy," “Ventilator Blues," “Sweet Virginia,” and "Soul Survivor." But there’s also a loose cover of Robert Johnson’s "Stop Breaking Down."

       The Rolling Stones never disappoint me. Can’t help shake my skinny hips and all that. But on “Exile on Main St.,” I also somehow feel how the blues really rocks in an isolated world of self-imposed exiles. 🎼🎹🎼