The Rolling Stones - A Second Helping of Goats Head Soup - Non-Album Tracks (1973-1974)

It's been a long time since I've posted a stray tracks album from the Rolling Stones. I've been working my way through their career chronologically. The last album I posted was from the "Exile on Main Street" ere ending in 1972.  The next album they released was "Goats Head Soup" in 1973. I've had some issues with that album. It has some great songs, and some duds. So I considered making an alternate version of it by replacing the weaker songs. But I kept collecting material and eventually realized I had enough material for a stray tracks album from that time period. So I've made that instead.

Note that this deals with both the era of "Goats Head Soup" and also their next album, 1974's "It's Only Rock and Roll." In my opinion, the Stones got distracted by money and fame in the mid-1970s. So the number of quality outtakes was declining in 1973 and 1974. Then there were even fewer for the next couple of years, until a flood of material leading up to the "Some Girls" album in 1978. Thus I've had to combine material from the two albums to make up one solid stray tracks album.

Earlier in 2020, a deluxe version of "Goats Head Soup" was released. Unfortunately, it missed releasing a lot of quality outtakes. There are only three songs here from that. One of them, "Scarlet," is actually a 1974 outtake, so they stretched things to include it. Luckily, there are some high quality bootleg versions of still unreleased outtakes from 1973 and 1974, like "Fast Talking, Slow Walking," "Drift Away," and "Living in the Heart of Love." "Drift Away" is a cover of the hit song by Dobie Gray. 

Four of the songs here aren't actually Rolling Stones songs. But in my opinion, they sure sound like them. I've included three songs from Ronnie Wood's 1974 solo album, from right before he joined the Stones. Except two of the versions of those songs included here, "Am I Grooving You" and "Sure the One You Need," were performed live by the First Barbarians, a short lived group with both Ronnie Wood and Stones guitarist Keith Richards. Another song, "I Can Feel the Fire," is the version from the Wood solo album ("I've Got My Own Album to Do"). This one features prominent lead vocals by the Stones' lead vocalist Mick Jagger, so it also sounds very much like a Stones song to me. 

The final song not by the Stones is "Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)." This was done in 1973 by Mich Jagger, but wasn't officially released until it made it onto "The Very Best of Mick Jagger" in 2007. A lot of famous musicians played on it, including Al Kooper, Jack Bruce, and Harry Nilsson. It was produced by none other than John Lennon, though he didn't play on it. It's a cover of an obscure soul song. In my opinion, it's better than most of the Stones songs from this time period.

I'm calling this album "A Second Helping of Goats Head Soup" entirely due to the album cover I chose to use. This originally was supposed to be the cover for "Goats Head Soup." But retailers were skittish about it, so the band went in a totally different direction. This was included as an insert for early editions of the album. Personally, I think it's a much better cover, so I wanted to use it. Since it literally shows goats head soup, I figured I needed a name that addressed that but wasn't exactly "Goats Head Soup," since that was used already. That's why I added the "Second Helping" part.

"Waiting on a Friend" is added as a bonus track. It's only a bonus track, because that song was eventually released in 1981, on the "Tattoo You" album. But this version was recorded in 1973. It's different enough to be interesting, but it also sounds good enough to have been released. It's a shame it wasn't included on "Goats Head Soup," since it would have made the album a lot stronger.

01 All the Rage (Rolling Stones)
02 Come to the Ball (Rolling Stones)
03 Separately [Instrumental] (Rolling Stones)
04 Criss Cross (Rolling Stones)
05 Fast Talking, Slow Walking (Rolling Stones)
06 Through the Lonely Nights (Rolling Stones)
07 Too Many Cooks [Spoil the Soup] (Mick Jagger)
08 Sure the One You Need (First Barbarians (Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood))
09 Drift Away (Rolling Stones)
10 Am I Grooving You (First Barbarians (Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood))
11 Scarlet (Rolling Stones with Jimmy Page)
12 Living in the Heart of Love (Rolling Stones)
13 I Can Feel the Fire (Ronnie Wood with Mick Jagger)

Waiting on a Friend [Original Version] (Rolling Stones)

https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/7FYStWIz34

See the explanation above about the album cover art. The only change I made was to add the text to it.