Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed [180g Vinyl LP] (50th Anniversary)

The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed [180g Vinyl LP]

Details

• Format: Vinyl LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered, 50th Anniversary Edition, Stereo
• Catalogue Number: 8584-1
• Barcode: 0018771858416
• Genre: Rock / Blues Rock / Rock & Roll / Country Rock
• Label: ABKCO
• Originally Released: 5 December 1969
• Reissue Released: 1 November 2019
• Pressing: 180 Gram Vinyl
• Condition: New & Sealed

Description

Let It Bleed is the eighth UK studio album by The Rolling Stones — Mick Jagger (vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano, organ), Keith Richards (guitar, bass, vocals), Brian Jones (autoharp, percussion), Bill Wyman (bass) and Charlie Watts (drums) — released on 5 December 1969 on Decca Records in the UK and London Records in the US, and one of the most celebrated and critically enduring albums of the rock era. Recorded primarily at Olympic Sound Studios in London — with additional sessions at Elektra Studios in Los Angeles — between November 1968 and November 1969 and produced by Jimmy Miller (Traffic, Blind Faith), it was made during one of the most turbulent periods in the band's history. Brian Jones — who appears on only two tracks, playing autoharp on "You Got the Silver" and percussion on "Midnight Rambler" — left the band in June 1969 and died less than a month later, on 3 July 1969. His replacement, Mick Taylor (formerly of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers), played guitar on "Country Honk", "Live with Me" and "Honky Tonk Women" (the latter recorded during the same sessions). The album was released three days after the tragedy at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival — at which the Stones had performed while security, provided by the Hells Angels, resulted in four deaths — giving the record's darkness an unbearable contemporary resonance.

The album entered the UK Albums Chart at number one and reached number three on the US Billboard 200, and has since come to be regarded as among the very greatest rock recordings ever made. It is rated at number 41 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time — one of only three albums in the magazine's top 50 to have been made by the Stones, alongside Exile on Main St. and Sticky Fingers. Its dominant influence is American roots music: the gospel of "Gimme Shelter" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want", the Chicago blues of "Midnight Rambler", the Hank Williams-inflected country of "Country Honk" and the Robert Johnson standard of "Love in Vain" (here arranged with country rock instrumentation). David Fricke, whose liner notes accompany this pressing, has described it as the album on which the Stones most completely captured the spirit of their era — both its violence and its beauty.

The record opens with "Gimme Shelter" — a portentous, slow-burning piece of apocalyptic rock on which Merry Clayton's guest vocal, recorded at midnight after Jagger's call to her home, is one of the most viscerally powerful performances in the catalogue, her voice audibly straining on the climactic repetitions of "rape, murder". "Midnight Rambler" — the album's most extended piece at over seven minutes — is a Chicago blues suite that moves through multiple distinct sections, including an extended percussion breakdown, with Jagger's harmonica and delivery creating a genuinely menacing atmosphere across its full length. "You Can't Always Get What You Want" — closing Side B at over four minutes — opens with the London Bach Choir before building through acoustic guitar, piano and horn to one of the most anthemic climaxes in rock history; it has served as the closing song at Rolling Stones concerts for over fifty years. The album also contains "Love in Vain" — Robert Johnson's 1937 blues standard, here given a country-inflected acoustic arrangement — and the hard rocking "Live with Me", featuring Leon Russell on piano and Bobby Keys on saxophone, both of whom would become long-term Stones collaborators.

This 50th Anniversary reissue on ABKCO presents the 2019 remaster by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering — Ludwig's eleven Grammy wins and long history with rock and blues recordings making him a natural choice for a catalogue of this stature — with lacquers cut by Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios, pressed on 180 gram black vinyl, Made in the EU. The sleeve carries the original Robert Brownjohn gatefold cover design, with the iconic cake — baked by Delia Smith — and the hype sticker in gold and black on the shrinkwrap reading "50th Anniversary Edition 180g LP". Includes a plain inner sleeve and a digital download card for all 9 tracks in MP3 format (320 kbit/s) via redeem.thesoundofvinyl.com.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Gimme Shelter
2. Love in Vain
3. Country Honk
4. Live with Me
5. Let It Bleed

Side B

1. Midnight Rambler
2. You Got the Silver
3. Monkey Man
4. You Can't Always Get What You Want

Credits

• Mick Jagger – Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica, Piano, Organ
• Keith Richards – Guitar, Bass, Vocals
• Brian Jones – Autoharp (You Got the Silver), Percussion (Midnight Rambler)
• Mick Taylor – Guitar (Country Honk, Live with Me, Honky Tonk Women)
• Bill Wyman – Bass
• Charlie Watts – Drums
• Jimmy Miller – Producer, Percussion
• Glyn Johns – Chief Engineer
• George Chiantz ("Irish O'Duffy") – Engineer
• Bruce Botnick – Assistant Engineer
• Jerry Hansen – Assistant Engineer
• Merry Clayton – Guest Vocals (Gimme Shelter)
• Leon Russell – Piano (Live with Me)
• Bobby Keys – Saxophone (Live with Me)
• London Bach Choir – Choir (You Can't Always Get What You Want)
• Bob Ludwig – Mastering (Gateway Mastering)
• Sean Magee – Lacquer Cut (Abbey Road Studios)
• Robert Brownjohn – Cover & Liner Design
• David Fricke – Liner Notes
• Label – ABKCO