ALBUM REVIEW - The Rolling Stones Goat’s Head Soup 2020 Deluxe Reissue
By Tommy Womack
From 1968 through 1972, The Rolling Stones experienced what are known as their “golden years”. They did a series of untouchable albums: Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Get Yer Ya Yas Out, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street. 1973’s Goats Head Soup, though, was quite touchable. After half a decade at the top of their game, The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band had managed to make a mediocre record. To be fair, it was a good record; it’s just that the Stones didn’t make merely “good” records.
They’d had one stinker in their 10-year catalogue, Their Satanic Majesties Request in 1967. At least they’d had an excuse for that one. During the frustrated sessions for that bad psychedelic left turn, Mick and Keith spent a small amount of time in jail (and a lot of time in court) after a legendary pot bust at Keith’s country home, and founder/guitarist Brian Jones was going clearly off the rails into drugs, booze and heartache after losing his girlfriend to Keith. While many would reflect on the Summer of Love as a great time to be alive, for the Stones it was a drag.
Contrasting that, Goats Head Soup was made when it was definitely not a drag to be The Stones. They’d just finished their legendary 1972 tour of America when they really were The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band, followed by a triumphant swing through Australia. But when the band reconvened in December ’72, things were different somehow.
Firstly, they recorded the album in Kingston, Jamaica, a dangerous inscrutable place where white faces had big targets on them. This was long before non-reggae groups from Europe and America began to record there. The reason they chose Kingston was because the band had been thrown out of so many countries, they almost had to leave the planet. Their work visas in the U.S. had expired, they couldn’t live and work in their native England because of the high taxes, and they couldn’t reconvene in France (where they’d moved) because Keith was wanted in a big drug bust there now. There was a time when Mick used to walk around the corner to Keith’s house in London and they would jam and write songs endlessly. The frays in their relationship came when they became tax exiles in France, living in different cities until Keith had to vamoose to Switzerland. The band not only didn’t live in the same city anymore, they sprawled over different continents. Hence, the glimmer twins just weren’t as close as they’d once been.
Secondly, Keith’s heroin habit was raging by late ’72. Anyone who’s ever worked in a band with a junkie knows how frustrating it is, and here was Keith in Kingston, slumped on a sofa in the control room with his head down, nodding off, while the rest of the band attempted to record anyway, sorely lacking Keith’s contributions which were the centerpiece of the band’s sound. Keith did wake up long enough to make some contributions, but they were sporadic and lacked the rhythmic spark that made him so special.
Thirdly, they were fried and out of ideas. For ten years they’d been mobbed by fans, crawled all over the world doing two shows a night, spent interminable weeks in recording studios and television sound stages. They were frankly simply tired.
All that said, Keith did come up with some (some!) nice stuff. He’d written the bones of what would become “Angie”, which would be a huge hit, and he brought in the sleepy and atmospheric “Coming Down Again” which if anyone asks you what heavy drugs sound like, refer them to this. So even though Keith came up with a little bit of nice stuff, it fell to Mick to actually compose an album. Just as it fell to hired hand Billy Preston to provide some spark in Keith’s stead.
The brand-new deluxe reissue of the album is the best remaster yet of this drugged-out, muddily recorded fall from grace. Having dissed the album up and down already, let me say that it’s still an eminently listenable experience. The companion disc of rough mixes and newly discovered tunes is a gold mine. Appearing there is a song called “Scarlett” that had been lost to history, featuring Jimmy Page when he himself was at the top of his game. The rough mix of “Dancing with Mr. D.” reveals a bit about why it plods a bit – Keith didn’t play on the basic track. He overdubbed his part later, when he was presumably awake. Charlie Watts, when playing with Keith, was one of the greatest drummers in rock and roll; when he wasn’t playing with Keith, he was a drummer.
But if you get the mega SUPER deluxe reissue of the album, you’ll thank me for recommending it. This is where the goods are, some of the most delicious rock and roll ever created is given its first official release: an entire show from the subsequent 1973 European tour. Keith always kicked junk before a tour because it was a royal pain in the ass to score heavy drugs on the road, and he played like a roaring lion. Long available as the bootleg Brussels Affair, it is one of the best rock records ever. All the Goats Head Soup tunes get a Keith-sized kick in the butt, and then you have the 11-minute “Midnight Rambler” which is worth the price of the whole damn reissue. As good as they’d been the year before in America, in Europe they were just a little bit better, and hearing that is worth your hard-earned money.
Tommy Womack is a founding member of Bowling Green’s legendary Government Cheese. His next band, the bis-quits, made one album for John Prine’s Oh Boy label. He is a member of the part-time band Daddy with Will Kimbrough. He’s made eight solo records, authored three books and is the only two-time winner of the Best Song award in the Nashville Scene Critics Poll. He lives in Nashville.