[The Rolling Stones - Mick Jagger at left]
Mick Jagger (b. 1943) [The Rolling Stones]
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (1965)
Paint It Black (1965)
Michael Phillip "Mick" Jagger (born July 26, 1943) is an English rock musician, actor, songwriter, record and film producer and businessman. He is best known as the lead vocalist and frontman of the rock-and-roll band The Rolling Stones.
The Rolling Stones started in the early 1960-s as a rhythm-and-blues cover band with Jagger as frontman. Beginning in 1964, Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards developed a songwriting partnership, and by the mid-1960's the group had evolved into a major rock band. Frequent conflict with the authorities (including alleged drug use and his romantic involvements) ensured that during this time Jagger was never far from the headlines, and he was often portrayed as a counterculture figure. In the late 1960's Jagger began acting in films (starting with Performance and Ned Kelly), to mixed reception.
In the 1970's, Jagger, with the rest of the Stones, became tax exiles, consolidated their global position and gained more control over their business affairs with the formation of the Rolling Stones Records label. During this time, Jagger was also known for his high-profile marriages to Bianca Jagger and later to Jerry Hall. In the 1980's Jagger released his first solo album. He was knighted in 2003. In 2006, Jagger was ranked by Hit Parader as the fifteenth greatest heavy metal singer of all time, despite not being associated with the genre.
Jagger was born into a middle class family at the Livingstone Hospital, in Dartford, Kent, England.
His father, Basil Fanshawe ("Joe") Jagger, and his paternal grandfather, David Ernest Jagger, were both teachers. His mother, Eva Ensley Mary, an Australian immigrant to England, was a hairdresser and an active member of the Conservative Party. Jagger is the elder of two sons (his brother Chris Jagger was born on 19 December 1947) and was raised to follow in his father's career path.
In the book According to the Rolling Stones, Jagger states "I was always a singer. I always sang as a child. I was one of those kids who just liked to sing. Some kids sing in choirs; others like to show off in front of the mirror. I was in the church choir and I also loved listening to singers on the radio - the BBC or Radio Luxembourg - or watching them on TV and in the movies."
From September 1950, Keith Richards and Jagger (known as "Mike" to his friends) were classmates at Wentworth Primary School in Dartford, Kent. In 1954, Jagger passed the eleven-plus, and went to Dartford Grammar School, where there is now a Mick Jagger Centre, as part of the school. Having lost contact with each other when they went to different schools, Richards and Jagger resumed their friendship in July 1960 after a chance encounter and discovered that they had both developed a love for rhythm and blues music, which began for Jagger with Little Richard.
Jagger left school in 1961. He obtained seven O-levels and three A-levels. Jagger and Richards moved into a flat in Edith Grove in Chelsea with a guitarist they had encountered named Brian Jones. While Richards and Jones were making plans to start their own rhythm and blues group, Jagger continued his business courses at the London School of Economics, and had seriously considered becoming either a journalist or a politician. Jagger had compared the latter to a pop star.
In their earliest days, the members played for no money in the interval of Alexis Korner's gigs at a basement club opposite Ealing Broadway tube station (subsequently called "Ferry's" club). At the time, the group had very little equipment and needed to borrow Alexis' gear to play. This was before Andrew Loog Oldham became their manager.
The group’s first appearance under the name The Rollin' Stones (after one of their favourite Muddy Waters tunes) was at the Marquee Club, a jazz club, on 12 July 1962. They would later change their name to “The Rolling Stones” as it seemed more formal. Victor Bockris concedes that the band members included Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Ian Stewart on piano, Dick Taylor on bass and Tony Chapman on drums. Some time later, the band went on their first tour in the United Kingdom; this was known as the “training ground” tour because it was a new experience for all of them.
The lineup did not at that time include drummer Charlie Watts and bassist Bill Wyman. By 1963, they were finding their stride as well as popularity. By 1964, two unscientific opinion polls rated them as England's most popular group, outranking even the Beatles.
By the autumn of 1963, Jagger had left the London School of Economics in favour of his promising musical career with the Rolling Stones. The group continued to mine the works of American rhythm and blues artists such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, but with the strong encouragement of Andrew Loog Oldham, Jagger and Richards soon began to write their own songs. This core songwriting partnership would flourish in time; one of their early compositions, As Tears Go By, was a song written for Marianne Faithfull, a young singer being promoted by Loog Oldham at the time.
For the Rolling Stones, the duo would write The Last Time, the group's third number-one single in the UK (their first two UK number-one hits had been cover versions). Another of the fruits of this collaboration was their first international hit, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. It also established The Rolling Stones’ image as defiant troublemakers in contrast to The Beatles' "lovable moptop" image.
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(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction is a song by English rock band The Rolling Stones released in 1965.
It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and produced by Andrew Loog Oldham. The number is noted for Richards's three-note guitar riff which opens and drives the song, and for the lyrics, which include references to sexual intercourse and a theme of anti-commercialism. The latter in particular caused the song to be "perceived as an attack on the status quo."
The song was first released as a single in the United States in June 1965 and also featured on the American version of Out of Our Heads, released that July. Satisfaction was a hit, giving the Stones their first number one in the United States. In Europe, the song initially played only on pirate radio stations because its lyrics were considered too sexually suggestive.
In Britain the single was released in August 1965; it became the Rolling Stones' fourth UK number one. The song is considered to be one of the all-time great rock songs.
Keith Richards states that he came up with the guitar riff for the song in his sleep, waking up in the middle of the night, recording the riff and the words "I can't get no satisfaction" on a cassette recorder and promptly falling back to sleep.
He would later describe the tape as: "two minutes of Satisfaction and 40 minutes of me snoring."
He and Jagger finished writing the song at the Jack Tar Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, in May 1965.
Jagger wrote most of the lyrics - a statement about the rampant commercialism that the Rolling Stones had seen in America.
Richards was concerned that the riff sounded too much like Martha and the Vandellas' Dancing in the Street.
Jagger later said: "It sounded like a folk song when we first started working on it and Keith didn't like it much, he didn't want it to be a single, he didn't think it would do very well... I think Keith thought it was a bit basic. I don't think he really listened to it properly. He was too close to it and just felt it was a silly kind of riff."
Jagger has also pointed out that the title lyrics closely resemble a line from Chuck Berry's 30 Days.
The Rolling Stones first recorded the track on 10 May 1965 at Chess Studios in Chicago -- a version featuring Brian Jones on harmonica. The group re-recorded it two days later at RCA Studios in Hollywood, with a different beat and the Gibson Maestro fuzzbox adding sustain to the sound of the guitar riff.
Richards envisioned redoing the track later with a horn section playing the riff: "this was just a little sketch, because, to my mind, the fuzz tone was really there to denote what the horns would be doing."
The other Rolling Stones, as well as manager Andrew Loog Oldham and sound engineer Dave Hassinger eventually outvoted Richards and the track was selected for release as a single.
The song's success boosted sales of the Gibson fuzzbox so that the entire available stock sold out by the end of 1965.
Like most of the Stones' pre-1966 recordings, Satisfaction was originally released in mono only.
In the mid-1980's, a true stereo version of the song was released on German and Japanese editions of the CD reissue of Hot Rocks 1964-1971. The stereo mix features a piano (played by session player Jack Nitzsche) and acoustic guitar that are barely audible in the original mono release (both instruments are also audible on a bootleg recording of the instrumental track).
This stereo mix of Satisfaction also appeared on a radio-promo CD of rare stereo tracks provided to US radio stations in the mid-1980s, but has not yet been featured on a worldwide commercial CD; even later pressings of the German and Japanese Hot Rocks CDs feature the mono mix, making the earlier releases with the stereo mix collectors' items. For the worldwide 2002 reissue of Hot Rocks, an alternate quasi-stereo mix was used featuring the lead guitar, bass, drums, and vocals in the center channel and the acoustic guitar and piano "split" left and right via a delay effect.
Satisfaction was released as a single in the US by London Records on 6 June 1965, with The Under-Assistant West Coast Promotion Man as its B-side.
The single made its way through the American charts, reaching the top on July 10, displacing The Four Tops' I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch). Satisfaction held on for a full four weeks, being knocked off on 7 August by I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am from Herman's Hermits.
The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 charts in America in the week ending June 12 1965, remaining there for 14 weeks; it was #1 for four straight weeks. While in its eighth week on the American charts, the single was certified a gold record award by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) for selling more than half a million copies in the United States, giving the band their first of many gold disc awards in America. Later the song was also released by London Records on Out of Our Heads in America.
According to "Joel Whitburn Presents, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942–2004", the song also reached #19 on the Top Selling Rhythm and Blues Singles.
Satisfaction was not immediately released by Decca Records in Great Britain. Decca was already in the process of preparing a live Rolling Stones EP for release, so the new single didn't come out in Britain until 20 August, with "The Spider and the Fly" on the B-Side. The song peaked at number one for two weeks, replacing Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe", between 11 September and 25 September, before being toppled by The Walker Brothers' Make It Easy on Yourself.
Jagger has said of Satisfaction: "It was the song that really made The Rolling Stones, changed us from just another band into a huge, monster band... It has a very catchy title. It has a very catchy guitar riff. It has a great guitar sound, which was original at that time. And it captures a spirit of the times, which is very important in those kinds of songs... Which was alienation."
Richards claimed that the song's riff could be heard in half of the songs that The Rolling Stones had produced, saying that "there is only one song -- it's just the variations you come up with."
The song has become a staple at Rolling Stones shows. They have performed it on nearly every tour since its release, and concert renditions have been included on the albums Got Live if You Want It!, Still Life (American Concert 1981), Flashpoint, Live Licks, and Shine a Light.
[Sol Sol
Sol La Te...]
The song opens with the guitar riff, which is joined by the bass halfway through. It is repeated three times with the drums and acoustic guitar before the vocal enters with the line: "I can't get no satisfaction". The title line is an example of a double negative resolving to a negative, a common usage in colloquial English. Jagger sings the verses in a tone hovering between cynical commentary and frustrated protest, and then leaps half singing and half yelling into the chorus, where the guitar riff reappears. The lyrics outline the singer's irritation with the increasing commercialism of the modern world, where the radio broadcasts "useless information" and a man on television tells him "how white my shirts can be - but he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me." Jagger also describes the stress of being a celebrity, and the tensions of touring. The reference in the verse to not getting any "girl reaction" was fairly controversial in its day, interpreted by some listeners (and radio programmers) as meaning a girl willing to have sex. Particularly shocking to some people was a reference to a girl having her period (being "on a losing streak").
The song closes with a fairly subdued repetition of the song's title, followed suddenly by a full shout of the line, with the final words repeated into the fade-out.
In its day the song was perceived as disturbing because of both its sexual connotations and the negative view of commercialism and other aspects of modern culture; critic Paul Gambaccini stated: "The lyrics to this were truly threatening to an older audience. This song was perceived as an attack on the status quo."
When the Rolling Stones performed the song on Shindig! in 1965, the line "trying to make some girl" was censored.
Forty years later, when the band performed three songs during the February 2006 Super Bowl XL halftime show, Satisfaction was the only one of the three songs not censored as it was broadcast.
Mick Jagger – lead vocals, backing vocals
Keith Richards – electric guitars, backing vocals
Brian Jones - acoustic guitar
Charlie Watts – drums
Bill Wyman - bass guitar
Jack Nitzsche - piano, tambourine
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Jagger told Stephen Schiff in a 1992 Vanity Fair profile: "I wasn't trying to be rebellious in those days; I was just being me. I wasn't trying to push the edge of anything. I'm being me and ordinary, the guy from suburbia who sings in this band, but someone older might have thought it was just the most awful racket, the most terrible thing, and where are we going if this is music?... But all those songs we sang were pretty tame, really. People didn't think they were, but I thought they were tame."
The group released several successful albums including December's Children (And Everybody's), Aftermath, and Between the Buttons, but their reputations were catching up to them. In 1967, Jagger and Richards were arrested on drug charges and were given unusually harsh sentences: Jagger was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for possession of four over-the-counter pep pills he had purchased in Italy. On appeal, Richards' sentence was overturned and Jagger's was amended to a conditional discharge (he ended up spending one night inside Brixton Prison)after an article appeared in The Times, written by its traditionally conservative editor William (now Lord) Rees-Mogg, but the Rolling Stones continued to face legal battles for the next decade. Around the same time internal, struggles about the direction of the group had begun to surface.
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Paint It, Black is a song by The Rolling Stones, released on Friday 13 May 1966 as the first single from their fourth album Aftermath.
It was originally titled Paint It Black without a comma. Keith Richards has stated that the comma was added by the record label, Decca.
The song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, though Brian Jones contributed to the song's signature riff. Bill Wyman claims in his books that the song was a collective effort of the group, a 'Nanker-Phelge' one, but mistakenly credited to Jagger/Richards at the end.
The single reached number one in both the United States and the United Kingdom charts in 1966.
The song began with Wyman playing organ at a recording session, in parody of the group's former co-manager Eric Easton, who had been an organist. Charlie Watts accompanied the organ by playing a vaguely Middle Eastern drum part; Watts' drum pattern became the basis for the final song. Brian Jones contributed the song's signature sitar riff (having taught himself to play after a visit with George Harrison), and Jagger contributed the lyrics, seemingly about a man mourning his dead girlfriend. Both electric and acoustic guitars and the background vocals are provided by Richards. The piano is played by Jack Nitzsche.
The bass was also overdubbed by Bill Wyman playing on the bass pedals of a Hammond B3 organ.
Mick Jagger – lead vocals
Brian Jones – sitar
Keith Richards – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Bill Wyman – bass, Hammond B3
Charlie Watts – drums
Jack Nitzsche – piano
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After Brian's death and their move in 1971 to the south of France as tax exiles, Jagger and the rest of the band changed their look and style as the 1970s progressed. For the Rolling Stones' highly-publicised 1972 American tour Jagger wore glam-rock clothing and glittery makeup on stage. Later in the decade, they ventured into genres like disco and punk with the album Some Girls (1978). Their interest in the blues, however, had been made manifest in the 1972 album Exile on Main St. His emotional singing on the gospel-influenced Let It Loose, one of the album's tracks, has been described by music critic Russell Hall as having been Jagger's finest ever vocal achievement.
After the band's acrimonious split with their second manager, Allen Klein, in 1971, Jagger took control of their business affairs and has managed them ever since in collaboration with his friend and colleague, Rupert Löwenstein. Mick Taylor, Brian Jones's replacement, left the band in December 1974 and was replaced by Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood in 1975, who also operated as a mediator within the group, and between Jagger and Richards in particular.
While continuing to tour and release albums with the Rolling Stones, Jagger also began a solo career. In 1985, he released his first solo album She's the Boss produced by Nile Rodgers and Bill Laswell, featuring Herbie Hancock, Jeff Beck, Jan Hammer, Pete Townshend, and the Compass Point All Stars.
In 1987, Jagger released his second solo album, Primitive Cool. While it failed to match the commercial success of his debut, it was critically well received.
Wandering Spirit was the third solo album by Mick Jagger and was released in 1993. It would be his only solo album release of the 1990s. Jagger aimed to re-introduce himself as a solo artist in a musical climate vastly changed from what had witnessed the release of his first two projects.
Following the successful comeback of the Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels (1989), which saw the end of Jagger and Keith Richards' well-publicised feud, Jagger began routining new material for what would become Wandering Spirit. In January 1992, after acquiring Rick Rubin as co-producer, Jagger recorded the album in Los Angeles over seven months until September 1992, recording simultaneously as Richards was making Main Offender.
Released in February 1993, Wandering Spirit was commercially successful, reaching #12 in the UK and #11 in the US, going gold there.
Contemporary reviewers tend to consider Wandering Spirit a high point of Jagger's latter-day career achievements.
On 26 September 2007, Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones made $437 million on their A Bigger Bang tour, which got them into the current edition of Guinness World Records for the most lucrative music tour.
Jagger has refused to say when the band will finally retire, stating in 2007: "I'm sure the Rolling Stones will do more things and more records and more tours. We've got no plans to stop any of that really."
Jagger's relationship with band mate Keith Richards is frequently described as "love/hate" by the media.
Richards himself said in a 1998 interview: "I think of our differences as a family squabble. If I shout and scream at him, it's because no one else has the guts to do it or else they're paid not to do it. At the same time I'd hope Mick realises that I'm a friend who is just trying to bring him into line and do what needs to be done."
[8943 Roger Waters / 8943 Jagger / 8942 Harrison]
