Rolling Stones heading for first UK #1 in 20 years

Rock perennials The Rolling Stones are heading for their first #1 album in the UK in 20 years with Blue & Lonesome.

In the early part of the chart week, the album of blues covers has shifted almost 66,000 combined sales ahead of Michael Ball & Alfie Boe’s Together, in second place, according to the Official Charts Company. At third spot is Elvis Presley’s The Wonder Of You right before Little Mix’s Glory Days.

If Blue & Lonesome maintains its sales rate until Friday, when the UK charts are published, it will be their 12th chart-topper in their home country.

Being in the lead mid-week does not automatically mean a #1. Kate Bush was thought to score her first #1 in 30 years but was beaten by Little Mix. But Bush had mid-week only had a slim lead of 5000 units.

The Rolling Stones’ last UK #1 with a new release was Voodoo Lounge in 1994. A re-release of Exile On Main Street from the early ‘70s went to the top in 2010. Their last set of new material, A Bigger Bang from 2005, only reached #2, missing out by just eleven units to James Blunt’s Back To Bedlam.

The title of Blue & Lonesome comes from the 1959 song by Little Walter, whose Just Your Fool, I Gotta Go and Hate To See You Go are also covered on the set.

The other tracks are Howlin’ Wolf’s Commit A Crime and Just Like I Treat You, Magic Sam’s All Of Your Love, Little Johnny Taylor’s Everybody Knows About My Good Thing (the youngest song, from 1971), Eddie Taylor’s Ride ‘Em On Down, Lightnin’ Slim’s Hoo Doo Blues, Jimmy Reed’s Little Rain and Otis Rush’s I Can’t Quit You Baby.

The album pays homage to the US blues artists whose imported records the teenage Stones listened avidly to while shaping up their sound under original leader, the late Brian Jones. The Stones would play many of these songs during sound checks and album rehearsals to loosen up.

Universal Music Australia has released the set locally in a number of formats: CD, digital download, double heavyweight vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with album download card and a deluxe edition which comes with a CD album, 75-page mini-book about the making of the album and band postcard prints.

Guesting on the album is Eric Clapton, a long-time friend who played on their 1968 track Sympathy For The Devil. Clapton was asked to join them after Brian Jones’ death in 1969 but he suggested Mick Taylor instead.

Blue & Lonesome was recorded in London in April in three days. They had four months earlier begun to record an album of self-originals by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards with long-time producer Don Was

But according to Ronnie Wood, it came out of the blue when they went on “a blues streak” in the studio and cut eleven tracks in 72 hours. “When we heard them back after not hearing them for a couple of months, we were, ‘Who’s that?’ ‘It’s you.’ It sounded so authentic.”

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Keith Richards observed, “In a way it reminds me of 1962. On the other hand, we probably play them a little different now, probably with more confidence. We have the sound down better now.

“When we started in England, there wasn’t anybody who knew how to record this stuff, so that took quite a while to organize. It was only when we came to America and got into American studios that we really started to hit our stride.”

2016 seems to indicate a strong end for the Rolling Stones. US business magazine Forbes ranked them at #8 in its World’s Highest-Paid Musicians of 2016. This was due to their grossing $66.5 million from just 27 stadium shows in America, earning more than current pop darlings as Justin Bieber and Katy Perry.