Originally released in 1972, now re-cut by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, Exile On Main Steet is released as part of RS No. 9 Carnaby Red series. The album features the singles ‘Tumbling Dice’, ‘Sweet Black Angel’, ‘Happy’ and ‘All Down The Line’.
Rolling back to where rebellion began. The latest limited edition Stones Red LP release is the iconic double album Exile on Main Street.
Coming instore to RS No.9 Carnaby on Friday 9th May from 9am and online at 5pm – an essential piece of The Rolling Stones history, remastered and ready to spin again over 50 years since its original release.
Limited to just 2,000 copies worldwide.
During the very early days of the band, it was a collective process between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who built up a formidable reputation as songwriters under the name of ‘The Glimmer Twins’. However, as the years passed, they would write together in the same room less and less.
It was Jagger who hand-lettered Exile’s titles and credits, using pens and paper Van Hamersveld
had sent him. “And then those pieces of paper I pasted down, with tape, so that’s how you get that rough look. It doesn’t come from a typographer — it comes from Mick Jagger, with a pen in his hand.” (K.R.)
A dizzying cast of characters passed through the doors and passed out beneath the chandeliers of the 16-bedroom former Nazi stronghold, including film stars (James Caan, Faye Dunaway), musicians (Gram Parsons, Bobby Keys, Nicky Hopkins), cult novelists (William Burroughs, Terry Southern) and an endless parade of local Marseilles groupies, drug dealers and even a troupe of Bengali drummers.
For a six-month stretch, the Stones swapped partners, ingested every available drug, set fires and nearly drove each other mad while crafting rock’s most decadent record, 1972’s “Exile on Main Street.”
“It was like a royal court where the nobles were sleeping with each other’s women,” says Greenfield, who spent two weeks living at Nellcote — and a third just hanging around — while on assignment for Rolling Stone that May. He wasn’t the only one to notice the band’s exploits.
“Everyone screwed everyone else’s wives and girlfriends,” Johns says. “That’s just the way it was, and you didn’t think too much about that.”
Jam sessions went on for days, with hundreds of takes of rambling songs that were never finished. It ended with a drug bust and Richards was banned from France for two years. The recording were made in the underground bunkers of the villa and the Stones were divided into a myriad of rooms, tells Richards that "the drums were put a room far away, the sax of his friend Bobby Keys and others were scattered somewhere. To reach them you had to follow the electric cables."
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