Friday, February 03, 2012

The Devil's in the Details

If you have any love for the creative process or the nineteen sixties (and if you're a liberal reading this blog, you have tons of love for both!), please watch these two videos of the Rolling Stones recording Sympathy for the Devil in 1968, from the bare outlines of the song being sketched by Mick Jagger and Brian Jones on acoustic Gibsons, with the addition of Keith on a third acoustic and Charlie Watts. Then the experimentation with new instruments and drums and backup singers begins, and in the second video you slowly but surely start hearing the final lyrics, rhythms, and musical building blocks of the final (in)famous recording. Unfortunately we don't see Keith create what has to be one of the most recognizable guitar solos in the history of rock, but I still find these video documents from June 1968 hypnotizing.  I hope you do too.
Thanks to the Guitar World website, where these were posted earlier today.

Now I need to put on Beggars Banquet and listen to it with new ears.

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