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Exile on Main St.

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Exile on Main St. is a 1972 double album by The Rolling Stones. Initially greeted with lukewarm reviews, the album has since been critically reappraised and is now commonly considered one of the best albums in The Rolling Stones' catalogue, and one of the most revered albums of the rock era.

Legend has it that the album was recorded in the basement of Keith Richards' new home, Nellcôte, at Villefranche-sur-Mer, near Nice, France. In reality, many basic tracks were recorded in 1969 and 1970 at Olympic Studios and Mick Jagger's Stargroves country house in England during sessions for Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers. These tracks, together with additional basic tracks recorded at Keith's villa in June 1971, were taken to Sunset Sound Recorders in Los Angeles and numerous overdubs were added during sessions that meandered from December 1971 until May 1972. Incidentally, the full line-up only appears on two songs.

Basic tracks for "Rip this Joint", "Shake Your Hips", "Casino Boogie", "Happy", "I Just Wanna See His Face", "Turd on the Run" and "Ventilator Blues" were recorded at Nellcôte. According to Dominique Tarle, who documented the period in the oral history/photo collection Exile, work was conducted on "Sweet Virginia" and "Sweet Black Angel" as well in spite of allegations from engineer Andy Johns that those tracks had been recorded at Stargroves in 1970. The basic band for the Nellcôte sessions is believed to have consisted of Keith Richards, Bobby Keys, Mick Taylor, Charlie Watts, Nicky Hopkins, and Jagger when he was available and/or interested. Bassist Bill Wyman did not find the ambience surrounding the Richards villa to be endearing and sat out most of the French sessions. As Wyman appeared on only eight songs of the released album, most parts were played by Taylor and upright bassist Bill Plummer. Wyman noted in his memoir Stone Alone that there was a clear dichtotomy between the band members who freely indulged in drugs (namely Richards and Keys) and those who more or less abstained (Wyman, Watts, and Jagger).

Producer Jimmy Miller, a notable drummer in his own right, covered for an absentee Watts on "Happy" and "Shine a Light". Thousands of dollars of heroin flowed through the mansion on a weekly basis in addition to a contingent of backseat drivers that included the likes of William Burroughs, Terry Southern, and Gram Parsons. Contrary to popular belief, Parsons does not appear on the album and was asked to leave Nellcôte at an undetermined time, the result of his obnoxious behavior.

Although newlywed Jagger was frequently missing from Nellcôte, he immediately took charge during the second stage of recording in Los Angeles, arranging for keyboardists Billy Preston & Dr. John and the cream of the city's session backup vocalists to record layers of overdubs. The final gospel-inflected arrangements of "Tumbling Dice" and "Shine a Light" were inspired by Jagger and Preston's visit to a local evangelical church.

The elongated recording sessions and differing methodologies on the part of Jagger and Richards reflected the growing disparity in their personal lives. During the course of the making of the album, Jagger had married first wife Bianca Pérez Macías resulting in their only child, Jade, being born in October 1971. Keith Richards was firmly ensconced with partner Anita Pallenberg, yet both were in the throes of heroin addiction, which Richards wouldn't overcome until the turn of the decade. Even though the album served as an encapsulation of the "cosmic American music" theory so ardently proselytized by Parsons and is often described as being Richards' finest moment, Jagger was already expressing his boredom with rock and roll in several interviews at the time of the album's release. With Richards largely beholden to heroin, the group's subsequent 1970s releases—directed largely by Jagger—would experiment with various trendy genres, eschewing the country, blues, and early rock and roll which served as a foundation for Exile and the Stones in general.

Released in May 1972, having been preceded by the Top 10 hit "Tumbling Dice", Exile On Main St. was an immediate commercial success, hitting #1 worldwide just as the band embarked on their famed 1972 American Tour, their first in the U.S. in three years, and during which they played many songs from the new album. "Happy", sung by Keith Richards, would be a Top 30 US hit later that summer. Although its initial critics considered Exile on Main St. to be a ragged record, its legend grew steadily over time and has since been considered by many as The Rolling Stones' finest hour. It is currently certified triple platinum in the US alone.

In 1998 Q magazine readers voted Exile on Main St. the 42nd greatest album of all time, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 3 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003 it was listed as number 7 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Also in 2003, the TV network VH1 placed it at number 12 on their best albums survey, and Pitchfork Media ranked it number eleven on their Top 100 Albums of the 1970s. The album was ranked number 19 on the October 2006 issue of Guitar World magazine's list of the greatest 100 guitar albums of all time. [1]

In 1994, Exile on Main St. was remastered and reissued on one CD by Virgin Records.

The album's title has frequently been referenced by other bands in their own album titles. For example, the British acid house group Alabama 3 titled its debut album Exile on Coldharbour Lane, and Liz Phair titled hers Exile in Guyville. Phair even claims her album to be a song-by-song "response" to Exile on Main St.

Track listing

All songs by Mick Jagger and Keith Richard, except where noted.

  1. "Rocks Off" – 4:32
  2. "Rip This Joint" – 2:23
  3. "Shake Your Hips" (Slim Harpo) – 2:59
  4. "Casino Boogie" – 3:33
  5. "Tumbling Dice" – 3:45
  6. "Sweet Virginia" – 4:25
  7. "Torn and Frayed" – 4:17
    • Features Mick Taylor on bass
  8. "Sweet Black Angel" – 2:54
  9. "Loving Cup" – 4:23
  10. "Happy" – 3:04
  11. "Turd on the Run" – 2:37
    • Features Bill Plummer on upright bass
  12. "Ventilator Blues" (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Mick Taylor) – 3:24
  13. "I Just Want to See His Face" – 2:52
  14. "Let It Loose" – 5:17
  15. "All Down the Line" – 3:49
    • Features Bill Plummer on upright bass
  16. "Stop Breaking Down" (Robert Johnson) – 4:34
  17. "Shine a Light" – 4:14
  18. "Soul Survivor" – 3:49
    • Features Keith Richards on bass

Personnel

Additional personnel

Recording personnel

Charts

Album

Year Chart Position
1972 Billboard Pop Albums 1

Single

Year Single Chart Position
1972 "Happy" Billboard Pop Singles 22
1972 "Tumbling Dice" Billboard Pop Singles 7

Certifications

Organization Level Date
RIAA – USA Gold May 30 1972
RIAA – USA Platinum May 31 2000


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