The Rolling Stones - Black and Blue - Alternate Version (1976)

Here's the beginning of a kind of Rolling Stones album I want to post. From the band's beginnings in the early 1960s until their 1974 album "It's Only Rock and Roll," I feel all their music was good and their albums were solid. But beginning with "Black and Blue" in 1976 until now, I feel their albums have been hit and miss. So I've made my own versions of each of those albums, removing the weak songs and replacing them with outtakes that I like better. Thus, instead of posting more stray tracks collections for the band like I did for their earlier stuff, I'll be posting these alternate album versions instead.

By the way. there are two exceptions to later albums that need improving: "Some Girls" in 1978 and "Tattoo You" in 1981. Both of those are great all the way through, so I'll be skipping over them. But with "Some Girls," there's a ton of outtakes. In fact, there's so many that I'll be posting more than one album just to deal with those.

Note that when I make or rearrange albums, I'm making them first and foremost for my listening enjoyment. Posting them at this blog to share is a secondary consideration. Each person has their own opinion on which songs are the best or the worst. Your feelings may differ, in which case you should make your own versions. This caveat especially applies to this album, because opinions on it differ wildly. Some people think it's great, other people think it's terrible, and some just find it average. 

"Black and Blue" was a big hit, going to number one in the US and Britain. But, in my opinion, the big sales were mostly due to them coasting on their reputation. Guitarist Keith Richards has called this their "marking time" album, and I agree. I feel they lost their enthusiasm of the 1960s and early 1970s, and they just put out an album in 1976 because it was expected for them to put one out every so often. Their lead guitarist Mick Taylor had quit the band after their last album, so they used the recording sessions for this album as tryouts for a new lead guitarist. Ronnie Wood ultimately won the job, but some other guitarists can be heard on the final versions of some songs.

For this album, the Stones tried some new things, dabbling with disco, funk, and reggae. Some like those songs the best, and some like them the least. I belong in the latter camp. I've removed three songs from the official album: "Hot Stuff," "Hey Negrita," and "Cherry Oh Baby." The first two are the disco and funk ones. I enjoy songs in those genres if they're really good, and in fact the Stones tackled those genres much better on their next album, "Some Girls." But I consider those two songs failed experiments that are more just grooves that don't go anywhere than actual songs. 

As for "Cherry Oh Baby," I don't have any big problem with it except that it's a cover song of a reggae classic by Eric Donaldson, and I'm much more familiar with the original, as well as a later version by UB40. When I hear the song, I want to hear those versions instead of the Stones one. I think at the time most people outside of Jamaica wouldn't have been aware of the original, and the UB40 version hadn't happened yet, so the Stones version would have been appreciated more. But I can only look at it from my perspective now, so I gave that song the axe.

To replace those three songs, I've added three others. Ronnie Wood joined the band for this album. "I Got Lost When I Found You" is a song from his 1975 solo album "Now Look." In my opinion, it sounds exactly like a Stones song, and it fits well here. 

"Come On Sugar" (sometimes known as "Let's Do It Right") is an outtake. It's a funky groove song just like two of the songs that I omitted, but I think this one is better. It probably helps that it has Jeff Beck on guitar. 

"Built That Way" is another outtake, and a typical Stones rocker. This had never been bootlegged until about a week ago, as I post this now. The bootleg recording had a big problem though in that the lead vocals were buried in the mix. I tried to use the sound editing program Audacity to bring the vocals forward. This sort of editing technique almost never works for me (it's a crapshoot that depends on how much the vocals are centered in the stereo mix compared to the instruments), but in this case I got lucky and it worked. So I made my own edit where the instrumental intro, solo, and outro sections are exactly same as on the bootleg version, but the vocal sections are altered to make the vocals more prominent by pushing the rest of the instrumentation back.

"Fool to Cry" was the sole hit from this album. I never liked that song much, mostly because Mick Jagger sings falsetto for much of the song, and I'm not a fan of his falsetto style. So I was very happy to recently discover that there's an outtake of this song that beats the pants off the hit version. For starters, Jagger sings the song without falsetto, thank God. But also, this version is much more of a guitar workout. Wayne Perkins (one of the lead guitarists trying out for the band) is all over this version, making it almost a minute longer with his soloing. I like this version much better.

In my opinion, because the band wasn't feeling that creatively inspired, they often padded out the song lengths so they'd have enough music to fill up an album, with every song being at least four minutes long. Sometimes, this was justified, such as on the seven minute long "Memory Motel," or the six minute long alternate version of "Fool to Cry." But other times, the songs start to get boring. I've trimmed the endings of two of them, "Hand of Fate," and "Melody." In both cases, I removed less than a minute. But I think it makes a difference and stops those songs from dragging.

On top of all those changes, I also tinkered with the song order. I started out with a couple of rockers. To me, "Memory Motel" is the obvious closer. I think merely changing some of the song order helps a lot.

The original version of this album is 41 minutes long. This version is 38 minutes long. I was tempted to add in another song or two, but in this case I think less is more. Frankly, most of their other outtakes from this album are more disco and/or funk grooves that aren't even as good as the songs I omitted.

I hope that if you've given this album a pass in the past due to its poor reputation, you give this version a try. Like many people, I think the band's albums peaked from about 1968 to 1972. This version aims to be more in the style of those earlier albums. If, on the other hand, you really like their 1970s dabblings in disco and funk, this is not the version for you.

01 Hand of Fate [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
02 Crazy Mama (Rolling Stones)
03 Fool to Cry [Alternate Version] (Rolling Stones)
04 Melody [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
05 I Got Lost When I Found You (Ronnie Wood)
06 Come On Sugar [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
07 Built That Way [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
08 Memory Motel (Rolling Stones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15256569/TRollngS_1976_BlckBlueAlternte_atse.zip.html

I got lucky with the cover art. Given that I made an alternate of "Black and Blue," I'm tickled pink that I was able to find an outtake from the photo session for the cover of that album. This is very similar to the official cover, except the band members are smiling instead of looking serious. (Well, three of them are smiling.) I used the exact same text and font as the original, but I had to reposition the words and drastically enlarge them in order to fill up some otherwise empty space. 

I also brightened bassist Bill Wyman. Not only was he the smallest, standing way in back, he was shrouded in darkness. It looked bad if I altered that too much, but at least you can see his face now.