Customer Reviews

Songs of the Rolling Stones: All Blues'd Up (This Ain't No Tribute Series)

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This is a really nice surprise! I didn't expect this to be as good as it is! All the stuff on this compilation gets high marks for originality...(except for two lame cuts/13-2=eleven super cuts ain't bad)...despite the familiarity of the tunes, the interpretations are highly unique with maximum emphasis on being soulful and bluesy. Look at the Masters who work on this project! "Wild Horses", sung by Otis Clay, is worth the price of this CD alone, the slow-driving, flat-out-heart-pumping rythmn is hot enough to get my favorite wife off the couch and tangoing in my arms with a get your ya-yas out look in her eyes;) This is the cream of the da-mint when it comes to solid craftsmanship and bluesmen, (Luther Allison, Larry McCray, Lucky Peterson, Junior Wells, Gatemouth Brown, Willie Dixon, Bobby Womack, Alvin Hart...)-these muthas play it loud and play it right, and when you combine that with extra-hard and edgy tracks you got the potion and the motion. I'm partial to Taj Mahal and when he sings about dem "Honky-Tonk" Ladies, it's as real as a smoky juke-joint a few blocks from Chicago's Michigan Avenue full of rough and tough, red-roughe wearing trouble. I'm curious as to why most of this compilation was recorded in 1997, yet the CD release is only a few months old? Doesn't matter though-the music is timeless and, please Sir, can I have another!

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown RULES this CD. His song isn't heard till the disc's half way mark, but mercy, it's worth the wait. He just tears up "Exile On Mainstreet's" "Ventlator Blues" with so much grit and swagger. As Sonny Landreth's slide guitar slithers all around, Mr. Brown's thundering vocals and virtuoso fiddle lays down the law for all the snot nosed, wise ass, wanna-be students of the blues(the Stones!). It's Truth rising up in an impressive gesture of annoyance - "Just WHO did those silly punks think they were?!" And, it's just so damn joyous a sound.

Taj Mahal does amazing things with "Honky Tonk Women." James Cotton's harmonica soulfully wails as Mahal's expert plucking and righteous crooning drags this tune deeper back into the woods than Mick or Keith ever dared imagine. The Stones did their own acoustic version of this one back in '69 with "Country Honk" on "Let It Bleed", but this version beats it down with a mighty vengeance. Taj and James' performance alone is worth the price of admission.

"You Can't Always Get What You Want" gets a tremendous workout by Luther Allison with commanding vocals and fiery guitar licks. The "Walk On The Wildside" female backing vocals refrain is a touch of genius. This cut opens the disc with such a level of energy and sublime talent that I had serious doubts if anything that followed could touch it. As you've just read, my doubts were proven foolish by Taj's and "Gatemouth's" awesome work.

Junior Wells does an impressive job of making the cliched "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" sound fresh and relevant with a stomping beat and just enough harmonica. His voice is as earnest and raw as any pimple faced poser.

Johnny Copeland's axe easily shreds "Tumbling Dice", the last song he would ever record or perform. It's interesting to note that his then 18 year old daughter Shemekia accompanies on backing vocals. Though lacking the original's menacing intensity, "Midnight Rambler" rocks hard with Larry McCray's smoking guitar. "Heart Of Stone" is perhaps without that innocent vulnerability that Jagger poured out on his, but Joe Louis Walker turns it into a smoldering torch song - A mature master of soul belting out true agony.

Alvin Youngblood Hart represents himself here heroically with a pair of real fine treatments of "Sticky Fingers" classics, the boozy bar room ballad "Sway" and the haunting disc closer "Moonlight Mile." Both are faithful covers but done with such skill and love that every beat and note rings out with joy. Just gorgeous guitar, too.

The remaining songs are all fine covers by able veterans. The four tracks are all genuinely soulful but perhaps not quite remarkable, unless, of course, you're one of those self righteous, strident people who believes that the Rolling Stones stole their music from the American Negros so long ago. Well if those pale, scrawny Brits did steal it, then the proud guys on this disc just took it back...

Two solid covers; one by Junior Wells, "Satisfaction", works as a barrelhouse blues. The other is Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown's estimable version of "Ventilator Blues." The great tracks though are Otis Clay's singing "Wild Horses"--you'd sware he wrote it himself. The other is Alvin Youngblood Hart's "Sway," pulled off because he has the strain in his voice, but the lead guitar to finish it off.

This CD is awesome. It includes 13 of your favorite Rolling Stones tunes performed by some of the greatest Blues artists of all time. If you like the Blues, this CD will be in the top of your collection. After hearing it you'll wonder if these great songs were originally intended to be Blues tunes all along. Otis Clay's version of Wild Horses is the best. I would never have believed you could improve on this original classic, but Otis will blow you away. Luther Allison's "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is another that will have you searching for more Blues versions of the classics before the song is over.

This Ain't No Tribute disc is one of the best tribute discs of the stones that this Stones Fan has ever heard. After all it was the Stones who introduced millions to the roots of rock music. If you like the Blues, even just a little, and if you like the Stones, these covers of some of their classics and some not so classic will impress you. Bobby Womack, a Chicago Blues Man from the late 50's early 60's, covers the Stones early hit " It's All Over Now" which was originally his song before the Stones covered it. If you want to here a new take on some old classics this disc is well worth the purchase. I'm glad to see that the "This Aint No Tribute Series" is still available, but this one is the best of the bunch.