Private Universe

Rolling Stones on the Rocky Road to Dublin

For their album The Long Black Veil the Irish band the Chieftains invite a bunch of guest musicians to play and sing with them: Sting, Sinead O'Connor, Van Morrison, Mark Knopfler, Tom Jones... The whole album is a lot of fun, but one of the highlights is when the Rolling Stones and the Chieftains play the traditional Irish tune "Rocky Road to Dublin" together on the album. Have a listen:



The liner notes for this track (by Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains) say, "Perhaps the most enjoyable of all our recording sessions. More an ad lib "hooley" than anything we had planned. At one time I thought I was in control. Clearly I wasn't. Each time I tried to end the session, the song just went on and on, with our friends in the studio getting up to dance." Moloney is on the tin whistle on this track (high, chirpy, flute-ish sound).

It definitely has a sound like the Stones are barely restrained. Note 1:05-1:22, when Keith Richards attempts to stage a coup. The Chieftains manage to yank everyone back to "Rocky Road to Dublin" long enough to finish it.

The tune is over at about 1:57 (of a five minute recording!), and there is a gloriously messy stretch before any new direction emerges. It lasts about 40 seconds, during which everyone continues to noodle, but no one really starts playing a tune.

I wonder if this is the time when Moloney repeatedly tried and failed to wrap up the session. Towards the end of the 40 seconds it sounds very disjointed, and if I had been in control of the session I would have been panicking. 40 seconds with no direction, and the tape rolling, is an eternity. But the room is full of experienced professional musicians, and they all keep playing, tolerating the messiness, and trusting each other and the music, that it will go somewhere eventually.

At about 2:38 one of the fiddlers thinks "Fuck it" and confidently picks up another traditional tune called "The Boys of Ballisodare." Everyone follows like a school of fish changing direction. I'm thinking that this tune was chosen on the spot, when the fiddler decided "if no one else is going to make a choice, I will!"

I wonder if the Rolling Stones had ever played "The Boys of Ballisodare" before. If they hadn't, that makes it really funny that someone tells Keith Richards to "take it" at 3:43. (At least, someone seems to say "all right, take it!" and then there is an electric guitar solo that I presume is Keith.) It's a pretty simple tune, and they just played the A part twice, the B part twice, and returned to the A part right before his solo, so he could have had time to get it in his head. It's probably no big deal if you are Keith to learn a tune and then improvise a solo on it on the spot.

That dacka dacka percussion that starts at about 3:00 is an Irish dancer named Jean Butler.

I am highly entertained by the YouTube comment that says "bit heavy on the instrumentation." Did he miss the fact that this is the goddamn Rolling Stones? "Hey, would you guys stop rocking so hard? Try to sound more traditional..." yeah, right.

Labels: music

posted by Jaime_sama @ 9:25 AM