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Beggars Banquet is the seventh British and ninth American studio album by the English rock band The Rolling Stones. It was released in December 1968 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and London Records in the United States. The album was a return to roots rock for the band following the psychedelic pop of their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request.

Background

Glyn Johns, the album's recording engineer and longtime collaborator of the band, said that Beggars Banquet signaled "the Rolling Stones' coming of age ... I think that the material was far better than anything they'd ever done before. The whole mood of the record was far stronger to me musically." Producer Jimmy Miller described guitarist Keith Richards as "a real workhorse" while recording the album, mostly due to the infrequent presence of Brian Jones. When he did show up at the sessions, Jones behaved erratically due to his drug use and emotional problems. Miller said that Jones would "show up occasionally when he was in the mood to play, and he could never really be relied on:

When he would show up at a session—let's say he had just bought a sitar that day, he'd feel like playing it, so he'd look in his calendar to see if the Stones were in. Now he may have missed the previous four sessions. We'd be doing let's say, a blues thing. He'd walk in with a sitar, which was totally irrelevant to what we were doing, an want to play it. I used to try to accommodate him. I would isolate him, put him in a booth and not record him onto any tract that we really needed. And the others, particularly Mich and Keith, would often say to me, 'Just tell him to piss off and get the hell out of here'.

Jones played slide guitar on "No Expectations", harmonica on "Parachute Woman", "Dear Doctor" and "Prodigal Son", Mellotron on "Jig-Saw Puzzle" and "Stray Cat Blues" and sitar and tamboura on "Street Fighting Man" ,,,,

The lively basic track of "Street Fighting Man" was recorded on a cassette deck at Richards' house, where he played acoustic guitar and Charlie Watts played on a toy drum kit. Richards and Mick Jagger were mistakenly credited as writers on "Prodigal Son", a cover of Robert Wilkins's Biblical blues song of the same name.

Release and promotion

On 7 June 1968, a photoshoot for the album, with photographer Michael Joseph, was held at Sarum Chase, a mansion in London. Previously unseen images from the shoot were exhibited at the Blink Gallery in London in November and December 2008. The album's original cover art, depicting a bathroom wall covered with graffiti, was rejected by the band's record company, and their unsuccessful dispute delayed the album's release for months.

On 10–11 December 1968 the band filmed a television extravaganza entitled The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus featuring John Lennon, Eric Clapton, The Who, Jethro Tull, and Marianne Faithfull among the musical guests. One of the original aims of the project was to promote Beggars Banquet, but the film was shelved by the Rolling Stones until 1996, when it was finally released officially.

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Blender
Boston Herald
eMusic
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
Entertainment Weekly	A
NME	8/10
Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Martin C. Strong	10/10

Critics considered the LP as a return to form. It was also a clear commercial success, reaching No. 3 in the UK and No. 5 in the US (on the way to eventual platinum status). The political correctness of "Street Fighting Man", particularly the ambivalent lyrics "What can a poor boy do/'Cept sing in a rock and roll band", sparked intense debate in the underground media.

In a retrospective review for eMusic, music critic Ben Fong-Torres called Beggars Banquet "an album flush with masterful and growling instant classics", and said that it "responds more to the chaos of '68 and to themselves than to any fellow artists ... the mood is one of dissolution and resignation, in the guise of a voice of an ambivalent authority." Colin Larkin, writing in the Encyclopedia of Popular Music (2006), viewed it as "a return to strength" which included "the socio-political 'Street Fighting Man' and the brilliantly macabre 'Sympathy for the Devil', in which Jagger's seductive vocal was backed by hypnotic Afro-rhythms and dervish yelps." Larry Katz of the Boston Herald called Beggars Banquet "both a return to basics and leap forward." In his review for Rolling Stone magazine, Anthony DeCurtis said that the album was "filled with distinctive and original touches", and remarked on its legacy:

For the album, the Stones had gone to great lengths to toughen their sound and banish the haze of psychedelia, and in doing so, they launched a five-year period in which they would produce their very greatest records.

According to Martin C. Strong, Beggars Banquet was the first album in "a staggering burst of creativity" in a five-year period that ultimately comprised four of the best rock albums of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 57 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In the same year the TV network VH1 named Beggars Banquet the 67th greatest album of all time. The album is also featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Reissue

In August 2002, ABKCO Records reissued Beggars Banquet as a newly remastered LP and SACD/CD hybrid disk. This release corrected an important flaw in the original album by restoring each song to its proper, slightly faster speed. Due to an error in the mastering, Beggars Banquet was heard for over thirty years at a slower speed than it was recorded. This had the effect of altering not only the tempo of each song, but the song's key as well. These differences were subtle but important, and the remastered version is about 30 seconds shorter than the original release. It was released once again in 2010 by Universal Music Enterprises in a Japanese only SHM-SACD version.

Track listing

All songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards except where noted.

Personnel

Chart positions

Album

Singles

Certifications

References

1. ^ Lester, Paul (10 July 2007). "These albums need to go to rehab". guardian.co.uk. Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 21 July 2013.
2. ^ DeCurtis, Anthony (17 June 1997). "Review: Beggars Banquet". Rolling Stone. New York. Archived from the original on 10 July 2013. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
3. ^ Clayson, Alan (2008). The Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet. Billboard Books. pp. 256–. ISBN 978-0-8230-8397-8.
4. ^ Karnbach, James; Bernson, Carol (1997). The Complete Recording Guide to the Rolling Stones. Aurum Press Limited. p. 404. ISBN 1 85410 533 7.
5. ^ Elliot, Martin (2002). The Rolling Stones: Complete Recording Sessions 1962 - 2002. Cherry Red Books LTD. p. 545. ISBN 1 901447 04 9.
6. ^ Wyman, Bill (2002). Rolling with the Stones. Dorling Kindersley Limited. p. 512. ISBN 0 7513 4646 2.
7. ^ Appleford, Steve (1997). The Rolling Stones: It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll, The Stories Behind Every Song. Carlton Books Limited. p. 256. ISBN 1 85868 345 9.
8. Hayward, Mark; Evans, Mike (7 September 2009). The Rolling Stones: On Camera, Off Guard 1963–69. Pavilion. pp. 156–. ISBN 978-1-86205-868-2. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
9. "Our Work". Metro Imaging. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
10. ^ Allmusic review
11. Blender review
12. ^ Katz, Larry (16 August 2002). "Music; Stoned again; Band's early albums reissued in time for tour". Boston Herald. Scene section, p. S.21. Retrieved 9 July 2013. (subscription required)
13. ^ Fong-Torres, Ben (2 April 2008). "The Rolling Stones, Beggars Banquet". eMusic. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
14. ^ Larkin, Colin (2006). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Vol. 7 (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 119. ISBN 0195313739.
15. Browne, David (20 September 2002). "Satisfaction?". Entertainment Weekly (673). New York: 103. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
16. "Review: Beggars Banquet". NME. London: 46. 8 July 1995.
17. Rolling Stone review
18. ^ Strong, Martin C. (2004). The Great Rock Discography (7th ed.). Canongate U.S. pp. 1292, 1294. ISBN 1841956155.
19. "Beggars Banquet". Rolling Stone. January, 2003. Retrieved 21 August 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
20. Walsh, Christopher (24 August 2002). "Super audio CDs: The Rolling Stones Remastered". Billboard. p. 27.
21. ^ http://www.everyhit.com/ Type in "Rolling Stones" under "Name of Artist"
22. https://www.allmusic.com/artist/p5298/charts-awards
23. https://www.allmusic.com/artist/p5298/charts-awards/billboard-singles

Further reading

• MacNeil, Jason (23 August 2004). "The Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet / Let It Bleed". PopMatters.

External links

• Beggars Banquet at Discogs (list of releases)

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• Pages with empty short description
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• The Rolling Stones albums
• 1968 albums
• Albums produced by Jimmy Miller
• Decca Records albums
• English-language albums
• London Records albums
• ABKCO Records albums
• Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients