Unzipping Sticky Fingers: Rolling Stones’ Masterpiece Marked A True Turning Point

The Firsts

Craig Inciardi, curator and director of acquisitions at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum, cites the album’s series of firsts, in addition to its role in launching the band’s label.

“It’s the first complete record they make without Brian Jones, who had passed away in 1969, and it’s the first record that Mick Taylor, Brian Jones’ replacement, plays on the entire record,” he notes. (Actually, Taylor is absent from “Sister Morphine,” on which Ry Cooder appears.)

“It’s also the first time that Mick Jagger is credited with playing guitar on a Rolling Stones song: ‘Sway.’ … It’s also the first album that includes a song that Keith Richards didn’t play guitar on; that’s also ‘Sway,’” says Inciardi, who organized the rock hall’s “Rolling Stones: 50 Years of Satisfaction” retrospective.

There’s no Jagger harmonica this time, either. But Bobby Keys more than makes up for it; his free-flowing, bluesy sax solos on “Brown Sugar,” “Bitch” and “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” an impromptu jazz jam, stand among the most iconic in rock history.

The more muscular sound created by the addition of Keys and, on two tracks, trumpeter Jim Price, was part of a major sonic transition, according to Inciardi.

“They sound like a different band because they have Mick Taylor with them, who had the most fluid chops of any player. He played in a completely different style than Keith Richards. Previously, Keith and Brian Jones sort of weaved in and out of each other, whereas now, who played rhythm and who played lead guitar was much more obvious. There wasn’t this sort of ‘ancient art of weaving,’ as Keith Richards calls it,” Inciardi explains. “And one of the distinctive themes of the record – and during the entire time that Mick Taylor was in the band – is that his solos and riffs were all played off of Mick Jagger’s vocals. They weren’t a counterpoint to Keith Richards’ playing. So he sounds truly beautiful on the records. You wouldn’t necessarily say that about a lot of the music that they played without Mick Taylor.”

Musician and actor Jesse Dayton, who played Taylor’s custom-made Teye LaLlama guitar during the 2010 AmericanaFest Exile tribute in Nashville, comments: “The introduction of Mick Taylor was so raw and perfect and so meant to happen. And that became the sound of the band.”

Sticky Fingers also represents Richards’ full embracing of the open tuning style he learned from Cooder, and Gram Parsons’ country influence – for which the Stones showed their appreciation by letting Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers release “Wild Horses” a year before they did (on Burrito Deluxe).

“Wild Horses,” “Brown Sugar” and “You Gotta Move” were recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, another first, and were done without producer Jimmy Miller, who’d helmed both Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed, and would shepherd subsequent Sticky Fingers sessions at Jagger’s Stargroves mansion in Hampshire and London’s Olympic Studio. They’d hoped to record in Memphis while on tour in America, but had work permits only for performing. With Wexler’s help, they slipped unnoticed into Muscle Shoals, from which many of their beloved ’60s soul and R&B classics had emanated.

The Package

“Sticky Fingers had one of the best record covers ever,” says X co-founder John Doe. “One of the best – and most expensive, even though it’s kind of revolting … a revolting piece of genius.”

Revolting, maybe. Expensive, definitely. In a letter to Warhol, Jagger noted that the more complex the design, “the more fucked-up the reproduction and agonising (sic) the delays.” Then he added, “I leave it in your capable hands to do whatever you want.”

Their ability to grant that freedom was another manifestation of their corporate unshackling.

“That’s something that a regular record company would have never allowed them to do,” says Inciardi. “One, because of the cost and two, because now it doesn’t seem like that, but it was kind of controversial at the time.”

During a May Twitter session featuring fan-fed questions, moderator Edna Gunderson mentions to Jagger, “That was quite a provocative album cover, and a lot of people thought that was you.”

“Yeah, and I did nothing to dispel the rumor,” he answers. Whether he and Warhol planned it that way or not, he doesn’t say, but that famed publicity still of him holding the jacket in front of his own crotch makes it look as if those jeans were a perfect fit.

Warhol never revealed the model’s identity; the anonymous genitals are widely believed to be Factory artist Corey Tippin’s, though actor and Factory personality Joe Dallesandro claims that infamous outline is his. (Ironically, whoever it is likely was not wearing tighty-whiteys – or any undies – beneath that denim.) The Grammy-nominated sleeve was ranked No. 6 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 best album covers of all time.

The Music

“Sticky Fingers is the album that you find in your big sister’s vinyl collection that transports you to a place that’s not so innocent,” says singer-songwriter and Stones aficionado Tim Easton. “The cover, the songs, the swagger; hearing this as a young teenager affected me strongly. The holy trinity of sex, drugs and rock and roll is all here, and after hearing ‘Brown Sugar,’ I remember being nervous my dad was going to bust me for listening.

“I mean ‘Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good?’ That line, when you’re a 13-year-old, you’re like, what does that mean exactly? When you find out what it means, you’re a little bit intimidated. And you’re also ready to begin exploring. They definitely empowered sexuality.”

Inciardi says Jagger has claimed he wouldn’t write the song today; perhaps he now regards it as too over-the-top or un-PC. (Good thing he didn’t keep the original title, “Black Pussy”; it should be noted he fathered a child around that time with black actress Marcia Hunt.)

Doe, who prefers Beggars and Bleed to Sticky Fingers, says he’s glad Jagger admitted that.

“It’s really chauvinist,” notes Doe. “At the same time, he was probably just being sensational and trying to provoke a reaction … I felt the same way when I wrote ‘White Girl.’ That was my response to ‘Brown Sugar.’”

Inciardi also calls the record “darker,” adding, “If you listen to the song ‘Sway,’ it really conveys the exhaustion … just the state they were in at that point.”

Exhaustion, yet rejuvenation. Like almost everything the Stones did then, the beauty was in the risks, the contradictions. The audacity. The alchemy that allowed them to turn blues riffs and country tunings into something all their own, over and over.

Rolling Stone writer David Fricke, who appeared with Doe and Inciardi on the Grammy Museum’s 2014 South By Southwest panel, “It’s Only Rock And Roll: 50 Years of The Rolling Stones,” noted then, “The real power was that they created their own authenticity.”

Dayton, who, coincidentally, met the Stones while overdubbing guitar parts on a Waylon Jennings album, calls them “the first outlaw rock and roll band.”

They definitely embodied the unzipping, so to speak, that was always the heart of rock and roll. Sure, the reissue is mainly a cash grab by a band that hardly needs it. But it’s also a memento for those who, like Easton, still believe that “rock and roll actually does liberate you.”

“The ass-shaking liberation of the rock and roll that the Stones made,” he adds, “just gets stronger with time.”