In the spring of 1992, Mick Jagger was in Los Angeles preparing his third solo album with Rick Rubin. Jagger’s two previous efforts outside of the Rolling Stones, 1985’s She’s The Boss and 1987’s Primitive Cool, had been little loved and fast forgotten. (Excerpt from Loudersound, to read the full article click here)
In May 1992, Rick Rubin ( Jagger’s producer of the two previous efforts outside of the Rolling Stones), coaxed Jagger down to the King King to check out the Red Devils.
Jagger was impressed enough get up and jam with them, performing blazing versions of Bo Diddley’s Who Do You Love?, which was a staple of the Stones’ early sets, and Little Walter’s Blues With A Feeling.
"The Red Devils used to play in this club in L.A. on Monday nights. And I (Mick Jagger) found it interesting because it was really small and they sounded really good — if you closed your eyes, you could be in Chicago in 1958 or something. … It was good fun, like being back in 1963 and singing blues on Tuesday night.”
Jagger seemed in his element, as though returned to his youth. The following month, Rubin took him and the Red Devils into Ocean Way Recording studios in Hollywood.
“It was a one-day marathon,” recalled the Devils’ guitarist, Dave Lee Bartel. “We cut 13 tunes in 14 hours, all old blues songs, with Mick singing live.”
These tracks were done in three or four takes, and among them were raucous renditions of blues standards like Muddy Waters’ Forty Days And Forty Nights and Bukka White’s Shake ’Em On Down. Jagger sounded as engaged as he’d been in years – his voice raw but impassioned – and Rubin left convinced he’d got his album in the can.
Soon enough, Jagger determined that the Red Devils tracks sounded too rough for release and pursued a more commercial sound. He recruited high-priced session men such as keyboardist Benmont Tench and drummer Jim Keltner, spending months with Rubin honing a slicker set of songs.
Released early the following year, Wandering Spirit went Gold in the US but it barely resonated. It would be Jagger’s last solo album of the 90s and he returned instead to the Stones’ bosom.
