Mad, bad and dangerous to know was the first leader of the Rolling Stones. Even though my introduction to their music came during what could be called the Jimmy Miller period, I was always curious about the charismatic blond in the foreground of early Stones pics. I loved and will always love the early Stones sound – the Brian period.
So, please allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite Stones pastimes, looking at Brian Jones’ guitar work and trying to figure out what he did and why. Everyone is familiar with Brian’s slide work, but who plays all that tasty backing guitar on Aftermath that doesn’t sound like anything Keith did before or since? Why did Brian more or less abandon playing guitar? There isn’t space here to discuss these questions in depth, but they’re worth pondering. In the meantime, let’s look at some of my favorite tracks.
Brian played the hypnotic lead on the Stones’ first self-penned hit, “The Last Time,” (early 1965) most probably because he wrote it or Keith couldn’t play it effectively. The lick is pure blues sexiness, oozing confidence. No guitarist who wrote this riff would allow any other guitarist to play it on an original recording that he was also playing on! Brian got no credit.
One of my favorite Brian Jones performances is his slide guitar on the live version of Hank Snow’s “I’m Movin’ On,” (early 1965) from the U.S. compilation LP, December’s Children. It’s a huge, greasy, rich sound that drives the band in an unrelenting charge forward. It’s too bad that he didn’t take a solo – Mick steps in with his simple harmonica, bleating away ala Keith Relf, in much the same way that Relf stepped all over some of Jeff Beck’s live performances. No one ever mentions this situation when Beck’s almost losing his mind before his departure from that band is discussed. But in the case of “I’m Movin’ On,” not having a Brian Jones slide solo doesn’t detract from the power and originality of the sound.
On “19th Nervous Breakdown,” (released early 1966), Brian is again playing a repeated riff with a thick, clean, twangy sound ala Last Time but in a lower register. The tone is the polar opposite of Keith’s fuzzed out, chordal lead licks. It seems that maybe Brian shied away from distortion. But his clean sound cuts through and drives the song rhythmically.
Critics tend to dismiss Got Live If You Want It! (mainly recorded late 1966), but I imagine that this is what the Stones sounded like during that time. This is a full-throttle, mod sound. Keith’s distorted, blurry lead guitar dominates the upper middle of the mix, but wait, what’s holding the furious, amphetamine blast together? Brian’s rhythm guitar is what. It fills out the sound without sacrificing any velocity. One also gets a taste of what Brian might have sounded like on a more extroverted lead guitar with the live rendition of “The Last Time.” His overdriven sound is smoother and stronger than Keith’s.
When Keith wrote “Satisfaction” and it became a worldwide smash, it all but sealed Brian’s fate as the ex-leader of the Stones. This watershed moment would seem to be the beginning of the end of Brian’s obsession with blues guitar. In Peter Whitehead’s film of the Stones’ 1965 Irish tour, Charlie Is My Darling, you can clearly see Brian’s dismay as Keith takes charge of the writing and rehearsal sessions. But Brian was a team player. He changed his own role by exploiting his talent as a multi-instrumentalist on tracks too famous and numerous to mention here. When I hear those old tracks, drenched in RCA Studios reverb, I still wonder sometimes, what might have been.