Google Play: The Rolling Stones Part 3 "LA Live '75"

[ROLLING STONES MUSIC]
MICK JAGGER: LA Forum, 1975.
Opening promotion gag of the tour was one of the best--
my favorite, sort of, gag was we went down Fifth Avenue on a
flatbed truck and played whatever song we played.
"Brown Sugar" probably, or something like that.
I don't remember.
Obviously, people looked as they passed.
But being New York, they didn't really care that much.
And so they gave it a glance, probably.

The journalists that we'd hoped would cover this story
of us playing outdoors weren't told about this.
And they were put into a bar.
As we came near, they were told to go outside and look.

This show is at the LA Forum, which I always remember when
it opened -- it no longer is like this-- but the guys that
showed you to your seats were dressed in togas.
Because it was the LA Forum.
Get it?
And they were togas with little sparkly bits on it.
It was very nice.
KEITH RICHARDS:There were some weird dress
codes in those days.

MICK JAGGER: The first [UNINTELLIGIBLE] of the
desperate tune-up twigs is Ronnie Wood, guitar.
It was the first show with Ronnie Wood, and he played
very well in it.
It's obviously very different.
I mean, there's quite a lot of time between playing on stage
with Mick Taylor and then playing on
stage with Ronnie Woods.
But it was a big adjustment.
KEITH RICHARDS: I never found it tricky to play with Ronnie.
Different.

You play with any other player and it is different.
Mick Taylor was a spectacular lead player.
Before that, when I worked with Brian Jones, we were more
interlocked.
It was more rhythm and lead.
It wasn't that separation, everything.
With Mick Taylor there was more separation
between rhythm and leads.
At least live.
Not so much on record, but on live.
And quite rightly so, because he was a
beautifully fluent player.
And it also gave me a chance to sit down and sit on those
riffs, which I love to do.
I love a good riff to sit on.
And with Ronnie, it's kind of a mixture of the two.

Ronnie added a lot of this-- has the same qualities that I
worked with Brian Jones, which is sort of more interlocking
way of playing.
But it also has some very nice bottlenecks and
lead style as well.
So Ronnie is in between Mick Taylor and Brian.
I mean, I just sit there and hammer out the chords, and try
and give them a push.
After all, I wrote 'em.

MICK JAGGER: On this tour, the album we'd had out previously
was It's Only Rock n' Roll.
So we were doing that, It's Only Rock n' Roll.

KEITH RICHARDS: And that kind of piece is made for stage,
really, that song.
And the thing with tours is you're always going out behind
an album, as well, generally speaking.
You write a song, and within a week or so you've recorded it.
And in actual fact, it's still a baby.
Because until you've taken it on stage, and run it around
the boards, and put it through an audience, and got the
feedback and all of that, it's not fully grown.
And some are great record songs and others are great
live songs, too.
You could always feel, especially at the beginning of
a tour, this certain tension between that.
And eventually you find out which ones stick and which
ones don't.
And which one will oil in and which one that you're going to
have to work at live.
And you have to put them out there and see how they go.
And also, you've got to see especially how
Mick feels about it.
MICK JAGGER: I'll tell you who's playing with us tonight.
On keyboards, we've got Billy Preston.

We had Billy Preston playing with us.
It was fantastic.
I used to go off, and Billy would do whatever couple of
tunes he would do.
"Will It Go Round In Circles," "Outer Space." This was the
early days of synthesizer stuff.
So a lot of people hadn't really heard this kind of
thing played live.

I would tease him a lot about his wigs,
which he didn't like.
He took it really in good humor, but he didn't like it.
So I had to restrain myself.
I had a lot of jokes when I introduced him about his wigs.
Because he had so many different ones.
And of course, I saw them.
And I wouldn't know which ones--
he would ask me if this one looked all right.
We also had a percussion player called Ollie Brown who
played with Billy.
And we had Steve Madaio on section with Bobby Keys.

KEITH RICHARDS : We always had very, very strong ties with
the Chicago blues guys.
And Howlin' Wolf was one of them.
Chester was his real name.
We didn't go around saying--
I'd say Howling--
It was Ches.
I mean, icon.
Smokestack Lightning.
And he played "Little Red Rooster."
Actually, I'd first met him on the Jack Good Shindig!
show, in like 1964 or 1965, on some TV show.
And that's where we first met each other.
And we were the only other act on that TV show that knew
anything about them.
And we had a rapport with him.
Later on, I once went to a party at Muddy Waters' house.
And miraculously, woke up at Howlin' Wolf's house.
And I still have no idea how that happened.
Obviously, some kind friends had transported me.

When it comes down to it, the blues is what America gave the
music to the world.
I think the Stones always thought that, actually, we
were playing America back their own music.
And in a way, I think that's probably one of the best
things that the Stones really did was they did turn America
back on to music that it was forgetting, that it wasn't
getting to hear.
And people like Muddy and Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Reed, Slim
Harpo, and people like that got a whole new lease on life.
And once again, America realized what
great music it has.

It's like taking coals to Newcastle, except Newcastle
hadn't seen the coal before.