Blue & Lonesome (Rolling Stones album)
The Rolling Stones' first all-covers blues album.
Blue & Lonesome, the Rolling Stones' twenty-third studio album, came out on 2 December 2016. It is a full blues record made up entirely of cover songs, ending an 11-year wait since their last studio release. The album won the Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album in 2018.
Quick Facts
- Artist
- the Rolling Stones
- Released
- 2 December 2016
- Recorded
- 11, 14–15 December 2015
- Studio
- British Grove, London
- Genre
- Electric blues
- Chicago blues
- blues rock
- Label
- Polydor
- Producer
- Don Was, The Glimmer Twins
Facts from the source article.
Track listing
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Just Your Fool | Buddy Johnson | 2:16 |
| 2 | Commit a Crime | Howlin' Wolf | 3:38 |
| 3 | Blue and Lonesome | Little Walter | 3:07 |
| 4 | All of Your Love | Magic Sam | 4:46 |
| 5 | I Gotta Go | Little Walter | 3:26 |
| 6 | Everybody Knows About My Good Thing | Miles Grayson, Lermon Horton | 4:30 |
| 7 | Ride 'Em on Down | Eddie Taylor | 2:48 |
| 8 | Hate to See You Go | Little Walter | 3:20 |
| 9 | Hoo Doo Blues | Otis Hicks, Jerry West | 2:36 |
| 10 | Little Rain | Ewart G. Abner Jr., Jimmy Reed | 3:32 |
| 11 | Just Like I Treat You | Willie Dixon | 3:24 |
| 12 | I Can't Quit You Baby | Willie Dixon | 5:13 |
| Total length | 42:36 | ||
Track listing from the source article.
Did You Know?
- The album won Album of the Year at the 2017 Jazz FM Awards.
- The Rolling Stones also won the Blues Artist of the Year Award at the same event.
- The album was the band's first Grammy win since the 1995 show.
Background
Blue & Lonesome came together in just three days of recording during December 2015. By April 2016, the Rolling Stones had confirmed a fall release for the project, with Keith Richards promising a heavy dose of Chicago blues. Eric Clapton ended up on two tracks, having been recording his own album in the same space when the band asked him to sit in. The record is a full collection of blues covers, pulling from legends like Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter. It marks the first Stones album since Dirty Work where Mick Jagger doesn’t play guitar, sticking instead to vocals and harmonica, and the first since It's Only Rock 'n Roll without a lead vocal from Richards.
Promotion
On 6 October 2016, the Rolling Stones changed their tongue and lips logo from red to blue. A video for "Hate to See You Go" was released on 8 November 2016. A video for that track, featuring actress Kristen Stewart driving a blue 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback through Los Angeles, appeared on 1 December 2016.
Release and reception
The album debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart with 106,000 sales in its first week, the second-highest opening sales week for an album in the UK in 2016, and was certified Platinum on 3 February 2017. In the US, it reached number four on the Billboard 200 with 123,000 album-equivalent units. Kitty Empire of The Observer called it "a labour of love", while Alexis Petridis of The Guardian said the Stones sound "more alive than they've sounded for years". Robert Christgau described it as "a sodden thing", and Greil Marcus wrote that "except for Mick Jagger everyone sounds bored."
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