This Rolling Stones Album Is Rough Around the Edges in the Best Way

Revel in these bluesy live recordings.

The Rolling Stones on a rooftop, 17th June 1964. Left to right: Brian Jones (1942 - 1969), Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts.Archive Photos/Getty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Album Review

The Rolling Stones
On Air
Polydor

The Rolling Stones came full circle in 2016, returning to their blues roots with the newly recorded covers collection Blue & Lonesome, in the process producing the band’s best album in decades. Supplying the perfect prequel, the thrilling two-disc On Air revisits their early days, compiling 32 scruffy live performances from the BBC archives circa ’63-‘65. Apart from a few originals that show Mick and Keith honing their songwriting chops, including “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” this rowdy set captures a crew of eager young’uns saluting the African-American artists who first inspired them, delivering lively takes on songs by Chuck Berry (“Roll Over Beethoven”), Bo Diddley (“Mona”), Muddy Waters (“I Can’t Be Satisfied”) and Barbara Lynn (“Oh! Baby (We Got a Good Thing Goin’)”), among many others. While none of these versions outstrip the originals, the lads’ heartfelt enthusiasm is irresistible.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate