Maps of Music

Beggars Banquet (1968)

Where the lyrics of Beggars Banquet take you, and where it was really made.

The original cover, photographs of a graffiti-covered bathroom wall, was rejected by the record company, which delayed the album's release for months.

Key places

Where the basic track was recorded (1968)

Recording site Olympic Studios — The basic track of Street Fighting Man was recorded here on an early Philips cassette deck, with Keith Richards playing a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Beggars Banquet: seventh studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones
• Released 6 December 1968 by Decca Records in the UK and London Records in the US
• First Rolling Stones album produced by Jimmy Miller
• Miller's production became a key part of the band's sound through the late 1960s and early 1970s
• Marked a change in direction from the psychedelic pop of Between the Buttons and Their Satanic Majesties Request
• Roots rock and a return to the early blues rock sound dominate the record
• Latin beats, claves, tanpura, tabla, shehnai and conga rhythms appear across the album

Background

• Brian Jones had become unreliable in the studio because of his drug use
• Last Rolling Stones album released during Jones's lifetime
• Jones also contributed to two songs on Let It Bleed, which came out after his death
• Jumpin' Jack Flash came from the same sessions and was released in May 1968
• Keith Richards recorded nearly all rhythm and lead guitar parts
• Richards and Mick Jagger wrote all but one of the album's tracks together
• Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts formed the rest of the core rhythm section
• Nicky Hopkins played piano on many of the tracks

Recording

• Glyn Johns, the recording engineer, called it the Rolling Stones' coming of age
• Miller described Richards as a real workhorse, as Jones appeared only infrequently
• Jones contributed to eight tracks, including sitar and tanpura on Street Fighting Man
• Jagger recalled Jones's slide guitar on No Expectations as the last thing of significance Jones contributed
• Richards played bass on three tracks in place of Wyman
• Watts played the drum kit on all but two tracks
• The basic track of Street Fighting Man was recorded at Olympic Sound Studios in London
• Prodigal Son was first credited to Jagger and Richards, and the credit was corrected on later pressings

Cover

• Keith Richards said the title was thought up by British art dealer Christopher Gibbs
• The original cover photographs by Barry Feinstein showed a bathroom wall covered with graffiti
• The record company rejected the original art, which delayed the album's release for months
• Feinstein's photographs were later used on most vinyl, CD and cassette reissues
• The gatefold photoshoot took place on 7 June 1968 at Sarum Chase, a mansion in Hampstead, London

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in London in 1962 as an English rock band; their first stable line-up was Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts.
• Jones named the band after a Muddy Waters song; they were rooted in blues and rock and roll.
• Manager Andrew Loog Oldham encouraged them to write their own songs, and the Jagger–Richards partnership became their main creative force.

Members

• Current: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood (joined 1975).
• Former: Brian Jones (died 1969), Mick Taylor (1969–1974), Bill Wyman (1962–1993), Charlie Watts (1963–2021, died 2021).
• Steve Jordan became their drummer after Watts' death.

Career

• Hits included "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (1965), "Paint It Black" (1966) and "Start Me Up" (1981).
• Their 1969 Hyde Park show and Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. are key points of their career.
• Formed Rolling Stones Records in 1970, whose tongue-and-lips logo became their band logo.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989; the band has sold more than 250 million albums.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Time called the Stones England's most subversive roisterers since Fagin's gang in Oliver Twist
• Time said the album turned back to the raw vitality of R&B and the simplicity of country music
• Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone considered the band's regeneration a return of rock'n'roll
• The Chicago Sun-Times called it the band's rawest, rudest, most savage record yet, and beautiful
• Melody Maker's initial review dismissed the album as mediocre and credited Jagger's recording presence
• Geoffrey Cannon of The Guardian found the album showed the group's primal power at its greatest strength
• Robert Christgau ranked it the third-best album of 1968 in the Jazz & Pop critics poll
• In April 1969 Christgau wrote in Esquire that it was unflawed and lacking something

Reappraisal

• Ben Fong-Torres, in a retrospective for Wondering Sound, called it an album full of instant classics that responded to the chaos of 1968
• Colin Larkin, in his Encyclopedia of Popular Music (2006), saw it as a return to strength
• Greg Kot, writing for MusicHound in 1999, named Street Fighting Man and Sympathy for the Devil the weakest cuts
• Kot praised Stray Cat Blues as a highlight of the album's acoustic-tinged savagery
• Larry Katz of the Boston Herald called it both a return to basics and a leap forward
• Daryl Easlea of BBC Music (2007) said the album represented the Rolling Stones at their sharpest
• DeCurtis, in a 1997 Rolling Stone review, said the album launched a five-year period of the band's greatest records
• Martin C. Strong considers it the first album in the band's creative burst over 1968–72

Records

• UK Albums Chart: number 3, on the chart for fewer weeks than the previous album
• US Billboard 200: number 5, certified platinum
• Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999
• Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000): number 282
• Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums list (2003): number 57, number 58 in the 2012 revision, number 185 in the 2020 revision
• VH1 named it the 67th greatest album of all time in 2003

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The original cover was photographed by Barry Feinstein, and his photographs were later used on most reissues
• A 2002 ABKCO remaster corrected a speed error that had made the original sound slower than it was recorded
• The Rock and Roll Circus TV film was shot on 11-12 December 1968, one aim of which was to promote this album
• The film was shelved by the Rolling Stones until 1996
• Paul McCartney brought an acetate of Hey Jude to Jagger's party celebrating the album's completion, and the song upstaged the album

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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