Beggars Banquet

Did You Know?

• The album's title was thought up by British art dealer Christopher Gibbs.
• The original front and back cover art, photographs by Barry Feinstein depicting a bathroom wall covered with graffiti, was rejected by the record company, delaying the album's release for months.
• Previously unseen images from a photoshoot for the album's gatefold were exhibited at the Blink Gallery in London in November and December 2008.

Recording and production

Recording engineer Glyn Johns said the album signalled the Rolling Stones' coming of age, with material far better than anything they had done before. Producer Jimmy Miller described Keith Richards as a real workhorse during the sessions, largely because Brian Jones was infrequently present due to drug use and emotional problems. Jones contributed to eight tracks, playing sitar and tanpura on "Street Fighting Man", acoustic slide guitar on "No Expectations", harmonica on three songs, acoustic guitar and backing vocals on "Sympathy for the Devil", and Mellotron on two others. Mick Jagger later said Jones's slide guitar on "No Expectations" was the last time he contributed something of significance. Richards played nearly all lead and rhythm guitar and also played bass on three tracks; Bill Wyman appears on the rest. Charlie Watts played drum kit on all but two tracks and other percussion elsewhere. Nicky Hopkins and percussionist Rocky Dijon also contributed. The basic track of "Street Fighting Man" was recorded on an early Philips cassette deck at Olympic Sound Studios, with Richards on a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar and Watts on an antique portable practice drum kit. "Prodigal Son", a cover of Robert Wilkins's Biblical blues song, was originally credited as a Jagger/Richards composition on initial pressings but later corrected. A party celebrating the album's completion at Vesuvio's nightclub was reportedly upstaged when Paul McCartney attended with an acetate copy of "Hey Jude".

Release and promotion

Beggars Banquet was released in the United Kingdom by Decca Records on 6 December 1968 and in the United States by London Records the following day. It reached number three on the UK Albums Chart and number five on the Billboard 200. On 11–12 December 1968 the band filmed The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, intended partly to promote the album, but the film was shelved until 1996.

Critical reception

The album received a highly favourable response from critics, who considered it a return to form. Author Stephen Davis wrote that it was a sharp reflection of the convulsive psychic currents of the Western world. The political correctness of "Street Fighting Man" sparked intense debate in the underground media. French director Jean-Luc Godard's filming of the sessions for "Sympathy for the Devil" contributed to the band's image as Left Bank heroes of the European Maoist underground. Time described the Stones as England's most subversive roisterers since Fagin's gang in Oliver Twist and noted the album's turn to raw R&B and country music. Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone said the band's regeneration marked the return of rock'n'roll, while the Chicago Sun-Times called it the band's rawest, rudest, most arrogant, most savage record yet. Melody Maker's initial review dismissed the album as mediocre, arguing that the Stones are Mick Jagger and his presence makes the LP. Geoffrey Cannon of The Guardian wrote admiringly of Jagger's ability to engage the listener on "Sympathy for the Devil". Robert Christgau ranked it the third-best album of the year in Jazz & Pop's critics poll and later wrote in Esquire that it is unflawed and lacking something.

Reissues

In August 2002, ABKCO Records reissued the album as a remastered LP and SACD/CD hybrid disk, correcting a mastering error that had caused the original to be heard at a slower speed for over thirty years; the remastered version is about 30 seconds shorter. Also in 2002, the Russian label CD-Maximum unofficially released a limited edition with bonus tracks, which was also bootlegged on a German counterfeit-DECCA label. The album was reissued in 2010 in Japanese-only SHM-SACD and SHM-CD versions, on vinyl in 2013, for its 50th anniversary in 2018, and as a Record Store Day edition on 22 April 2023.