Welcome to week six of the music of the Rolling Stones 1962 to 1974. This week, we're going to focus on just one album, Exile on Main Street. It's almost like, we're talking about two albums as we have done previous weeks, two studio albums that is because Exile on Main Street is a double album. And so, like, for example, the Beatles White Album, it's got a lot of music on it. So we are going to focus just on that album this week and we are going to consider it to be a classic Stones album, that's been the kind of critical reception. Because it's a classic Stones album and its coming almost at the very end of the course, its going to give us a chance to look at the album and not only look at it for what it, it is as, as the next, the next album in the sequence that we've been talking about. But also to use it as a lens through which to look at the music of the Rolling Stones and summarize some of the things that we've been talking about in the week leading up to this week. So we'll, we'll use it as a way of looking at song styles and influences. We'll, we'll use the album and, and this, this week as also a way of looking at the history of concert tours kind of pulling together the kind of things that we've been talking about over the last five weeks. And also talk a bit about the history of the recording studios and the various studios that the Stones have used. So, in many ways this week is not only going to focus on Exile on Main Street, but it's going to be kind of a summary or a kind of a taking stock of where we are thus far and then we'll finish up in week seven by coming back to Goat's Head Soup and It's Only Rock and Roll. So, as we begin this this week, let's do a little bit of a historical survey of the kinds of things that are happening in 1971 in 1972 for the Rolling Stones as they, they make their way from Sticky Fingers to Exile on Main Street. What the Rolling Stones discovered about their business dealings? And we talked a bit about Alan Kline and, you know, all of that. But whatever one believes about whether they were being treated fairly by the management or not. There was one thing that, that became clear to them as they were coming to the end of 1970 and the end of 1971 and that is that they owed a lot of taxed that had never been paid to the British government. So the way that taxation was at that time, it was extremely high in, in the 80s. Percentage wise for some kinds of investments, it was into the 90s. It meant that it was almost impossible to make enough money [LAUGH] to be able to keep enough of it to be able to payoff the tax debt that you owed. So you had to figure out a way of making that money and not paying the taxes on it, so that you could use that money to pay the taxes that you already owed. Anyway, this was the, this was the way the thing was sized up by Prince Rupert Loewenstein, who had started to work with the Stones business and, and their money and the financial end of things. And so the Stones decided that what they would do is they would they would move out of the country, they were advised to move out of the country to go become tax exiles and maybe if you've read a lot about a lot of other bands, big bands during the early 1970s, a lot of them did this tax Exile strategy. They were of, became formally residents somewhere else, so they didn't have to pay these, these high taxes back to the British government. So this is what the Stones did. And primarily, not because they wanted to leave the UK, but because they had to be able to make enough money as they say to pay their taxes. And so, as we get to the schedule of what's happening in 1971 for them, they do a tour that's called Good-Bye Britain. [LAUGH] In March 1971, they would basically do a British tour where they're basically saying, well, we're going to be out of the country for awhile, so here's a tour that that says good-bye. The the album, Sticky Fingers is released in April of 1971 and as we talked about last week, it's the first record to be on the Rolling Stones new label called Rolling Stones Records, which was announced at the same time, about the same time as Sticky Fingers was released in April of 1971. Marshall Chess Is running that label for them. And so as we talked about, the Decca deal had expired, they decided to do their own deal. Ma, make their, make their own have their own record company, but it would be distributed through Atlantic, Marshall Chess took over. So, all this is happening at the beginning of 1971 as the group are, are becoming tax exiles and leaving the country they're releasing Stick, Sticky Fingers and on to move, they move on to recording the next album. So, it turns out that they move to France and the various members of the Rolling Stones ended up, mostly at the South of France ended up finding places to rent, long-term, long-term rentals. Charlie Watts, I think he actually, even bought the home that he used during this period. They found rentals, but for some reason, these, these rentals they were, you know, geographically not really close to each other. Bill Wyman had long drive from where he was staying to where they ended up doing a lot of their recording, which was in the house that, the big mansion that Keith Richards was renting. But for what, whatever those reasons were, that's the way it was. So they were kind of scattered around in the south of France, there and their main, their Main Street was pretty much the kind of the, the Riviera Strip there where there was a lot of a lot of fun stuff going on. So they record most of the tracks that are going to be on Exile on Main Street plus others. They record at least the initial versions or the backing tracks or initial versions of these things during the period between June and October of 1971 at this mansion that Keith Richards is renting called Villa Nellcote. Sorry for my French pronunciation for those of you who are picky about that kind of thing. Anyways, so, so they, they when they first went to France in April, May 1971, they kind of looked around for recording studios. And they realized that there wasn't really anything for them in any of the towns around where they were planning on living, you know, the equipment wasn't good enough. But they, it occurred to them, look, we have this mobile recording studio, the Rolling Stones Mobile Truck. You know, they'd used it and that sort of thing. So They brought it over, they set it up at, at the place that Keith was at and they used the, most of the basement of that as their kind of recording stuff and they had cables going out to the recording truck and this kind of thing. And it kind of became their very elaborate home studio, where a lot of these things were recorded. During the course of that ti, the time that they were recording there at Keith's place, it kind of also became hangout central for everybody. That's where people would people go, not only where their band would hang out, but wives and significant others, friends, people would come through, a lot of times it'd just be one big party going on and that worked for a while. But after the summer sort of expired and we started to get into October of 1971 the Rolling Stones started to get word that if they didn't clear out, there might be a drug bust. One can imagine that perhaps the people in the tourist community there had pretty much had enough of these Rolling Stones. It had been fine while they were there in the summer, bringing their friends, and spending a lot of money and creating some celebrity, but now they were going into the off-season and maybe it was time to get rid of these guys and send them packing. And so they left France in October of 71 and the recording moved to LA, where it would have gone anyway in order to finish up the album. It's just that there was a lot more recording that was done and interesting people come into the picture, musicians and things come into the picture during LA and they continue working on that album until March of 1972. In April 1972 the single Tumbling Dice is released with Sweet Black Angel as the B side. Tumbling Dice goes to number seven in the US and number five in the UK. And at the same time Exile on Main Street well not at the same time, just a month later, Exile on Main Street is released in May of 1972 and then after they feel like Tumbling Dice has had its sort of time on the charts and it seems to be coming down the charts, they released the song Happy, also from Exile on Main Street with All Down the Line on the B Side in July of 1972 and Happy goes to number 22 in the US. So that gives us a sense of what's going on with the Rolling Stones at the beginning of 1971, they leave the UK's tax exiles. They do a little bit of tour before that, they move to France. Recording through most of the summer into the fall. That, that scene sort of dries up on them in various kinds of ways and so then, they move their party to LA where they work on the album until March of 72. They bring out a single, Tumbling Dice in April. They bring out an album in May and then another single in the summer of of 1972. Before we move on to talking about the album Exile on Main Street in more detail, however. Let's just say, a couple of words about some of the personal and personnel matters that were going on in the Rolling Stones. And I should say, you may have noticed that during, during this course, I've kind of avoided talking a lot about the personal romantic relationships in various kind of liaisons with members of the band and kind of the more sensational and titillating sort of personal stuff and that's on purpose. You can get all that information somewhere else. A lot of it is just he said, she said, here's what I saw, kind of thing going on. But I I think it probably is worth sort of mentioning some of these kinds of things. For example, during this time in May 1971, Mick Jagger gets married to Bianca. And this sort of introduce him, introduces him to a kind of a jet set lifestyle, which becomes a very big im, important part of Mick's. You know, life and image during, certainly the first half of the 1970s information I have says that when they were married in May of 1971 she was already with their boughter, their daughter, who would be born in October by the name of Jade. So what we with, with Bianca is of course, the thing with marry unfaithful is over, a chromatic experience for Mick and all that went with that. And now he's married to Bianca Jagger. And about the same time, Keith descends into heavy drug use. So you know, Keith would well, he, he was, was a hardworking guy when he was doing the music. But when he wasn't doing the music, a lot of times he was he was abusing substances. But he remained, he remained very productive artistically in spite of this. During a lot of this period well all of this period and the period before and the period after Keith's significant other was Anita Pallenberg. All kinds of stories about Keith and Anita and Brian and Mick and all this kind of thing, we don't need to get into it. But just to know that there were these women in the situation with the Stones there, when they were in France sort of, you know, creating a certain element of domestic life before them while they were recording this album. During this period, Charlie and Bill Charlie Watson, Bill Wyman are somewhat less involved in many of the session with Keith Richards and Mick Taylor playing bass on some of the tracks instead of Bill Wyman and Jimmy Miller playing drums now and again. This is because of the, kind of round the clock recording schedules that they would that they would employ. It was basically when Keith felt like he wanted to record, whoever was there would show up and he would, they would start recording and what happened would happened. And you know, for the guys who lived an hour, two hours drive away, whatever to, to be there at the time when that was happening, pretty difficult. So they ended up participating maybe less than they would have, had these, had this, had this thing would have been a little bit more structured. That it was unstructured, meant that it could be creative in all kinds of ways that you could never be if you had to book a three hour slot at Olympic Studio say, for example or RCA Studios like that. So that gives us a little bit of a mapping of what's going on in 1971 and 1972 for the Stones. So now let's take a close look at this album. Exile on Main Street.
