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The Rolling Stones: An Illustrated Record
From the back of the The first complete guide to every Rolling Stones recording with an uncompromising pictorial diary of the Stones' careers, riots and incredible lifestyles. Compiled and written by New Musical Express Special Projects Editor Roy Carr (also co-author of The An Illustrated Record) with 200 illustrations, a diary of events, all possible recording details, and an interview with Mick Jagger.
- GenresMusicReferenceNonfiction
120 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1976
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About the author
Roy Carr
21 books4 followersRoy Carr (b. 1945) was an English music journalist, covering pop, rock and jazz. He joined the New Musical Express (NME) in the late 1960s, and edited NME, Vox and Melody Maker magazines.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 3, 2012
I guess Mick Jagger was born irritating. He's like the cocky leery pestilential tosser at school who goes out with all the girls you wanted to but didn't, never does any revision, is hated by all the teachers and gets jussst enough A levels to go to university where he continues to go out with all the girls you wanted to, never does any revision, is hated by all the lecturers for his insolence and hated by all the earnest political types for his frivolous condescending attitude, does no revision, attends very few lectures and jusssst manages to get himself a very moderate degree but who cares because with a bunch of very ugly friends he's formed a band which has already begun to eat the whole of the Western world, including all the girls and all the drugs.
Also, he is possibly - no, probably - the very absolute worst singer ever to sell a great number of records, worse than Donny Osmond, worse than Madonna, worse than Mark Knopfler, his voice thin, sneery, unsoulful, embarrassingly fake-Deep South, fake-black, an unconvincing 15 year old with a Wilson Pickett fixation, a pimply boy trying to come on strong. So hideous when compared with Lennon or McCartney or Daltrey or Ray Davies, none of whom felt the need to pretend to come from Mississippi. Mick Jagger was the last minstrel, a grotesque white English boy version of a black man, a caricature, flapping his private parts about on a giant stage made entirely out of his own ego. Everything stolen from James Brown down to the last mince. But of course, he was the singer in the Rolling Stones, so he didn't have to revise any more. And for the next 40 years he pouted and sashayed and wiggled his ass all over the world.
But actually, I'm a fan.
What an embarrassment of riches British popular music in the 60s was, when the Stones with their fantastic string of singles from Come On to Brown Sugar were probably about the third or fourth best band around, after the Beatles, the Kinks and the Who. Starting with some powerful covers (Berry, Holly, even Lennon/McCartney) and then figuring out how the songwriting trick was done, and then for a while becoming brilliant and experimental songwriters at that, all their early singles are great, not one dud. There's some spot-on social satire (19th Nervous Breakdown, Out of Time, Mother's Little Helper, Get off of my Cloud), some flowery pyschedelical beauties (2000 Light Years, She's a Rainbow, Dandelion, Ruby Tuesday), some real achy breaky ballads (Wild Horses, As Tears Go By), political songs, drug songs, blues (Little Red Rooster, Love in Vain, not bad at all) stupid songs about nothing at all (Jumping Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Women) and of course some big fat anthems (Satisfaction, You can't always get what you want, Midnight Rambler). They flirted with everything going in the 60s and they did it with imagination and wit and melody and power, which is the best pop music has to offer. And so I forgive them for all the unexciting rifftastic rigmarole that the wind-up zombie Stones perpetrated on the tickle-my-happy-spot Western world for the next three decades. It doesn't matter. We have Paint It Black.
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Also, he is possibly - no, probably - the very absolute worst singer ever to sell a great number of records, worse than Donny Osmond, worse than Madonna, worse than Mark Knopfler, his voice thin, sneery, unsoulful, embarrassingly fake-Deep South, fake-black, an unconvincing 15 year old with a Wilson Pickett fixation, a pimply boy trying to come on strong. So hideous when compared with Lennon or McCartney or Daltrey or Ray Davies, none of whom felt the need to pretend to come from Mississippi. Mick Jagger was the last minstrel, a grotesque white English boy version of a black man, a caricature, flapping his private parts about on a giant stage made entirely out of his own ego. Everything stolen from James Brown down to the last mince. But of course, he was the singer in the Rolling Stones, so he didn't have to revise any more. And for the next 40 years he pouted and sashayed and wiggled his ass all over the world.
But actually, I'm a fan.
What an embarrassment of riches British popular music in the 60s was, when the Stones with their fantastic string of singles from Come On to Brown Sugar were probably about the third or fourth best band around, after the Beatles, the Kinks and the Who. Starting with some powerful covers (Berry, Holly, even Lennon/McCartney) and then figuring out how the songwriting trick was done, and then for a while becoming brilliant and experimental songwriters at that, all their early singles are great, not one dud. There's some spot-on social satire (19th Nervous Breakdown, Out of Time, Mother's Little Helper, Get off of my Cloud), some flowery pyschedelical beauties (2000 Light Years, She's a Rainbow, Dandelion, Ruby Tuesday), some real achy breaky ballads (Wild Horses, As Tears Go By), political songs, drug songs, blues (Little Red Rooster, Love in Vain, not bad at all) stupid songs about nothing at all (Jumping Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Women) and of course some big fat anthems (Satisfaction, You can't always get what you want, Midnight Rambler). They flirted with everything going in the 60s and they did it with imagination and wit and melody and power, which is the best pop music has to offer. And so I forgive them for all the unexciting rifftastic rigmarole that the wind-up zombie Stones perpetrated on the tickle-my-happy-spot Western world for the next three decades. It doesn't matter. We have Paint It Black.
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November 18, 2015
Absolutely my all time favourite book about the Rolling Stones with a great mix of images and reproductions of press cuttings. I wish they'd do an updated version of this to the same standard abd covering the past 40 years.
June 21, 2016
my first book on the Stones , nice discography at that time it was published
October 26, 2023
The definitive guide to the greatest rock and roll band in the world. THE ROLLING STONES: AN ILLUSTRATED RECORD provides a full discography of the boys, including bootlegs (which you need if you want a record of their 1972 EXILE ON MAINSTREET tour of America) and film scores, along with incisive reviews of each record by Roy Carr and a sizzling interview with Mick Jagger. Quick summary, by Carr and myself: The Rolling Stones were never better than when Mick Taylor was in the band, and Jimmy Miller (RIP) produced their albums. Roy profiled the Stones before they sank into middle-age mediocrity with BLACK AND BLUE in 1976. (Don't worry folks. The Clash took up the mantle of the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band.) From the Jagger interview; Carr: Mick, would you do it all over again? Jagger: Oh, no. Once is enough for anybody.
February 20, 2012
Hard to find (except at collectors' conventions). The book covers the singles and albums of the Rolling Stones up until around 1977. Good commentary by Roy Carr, many photographs make this a keeper.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews