As the sixties started swinging, the British Invasion took full force, with four mop-topped young men, The Beatles, dominating the international airwaves first. However, it didn’t take long for other British bands to find popularity across the pond, with The Rolling Stones acting as the prime example.
The 1960s saw the band become international rockstars, with few musical outfits adhering to the expectations of the ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ lifestyle quite like the Stones. While honing a successful career as musicians, the members also engaged in their fair share of sexual trysts, hedonistic partying and significant substance abuse, with Brian Jones succumbing to the overwhelming lifestyle after drowning – heavily intoxicated – in a swimming pool.
Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine the members of the Stones actually sitting down and writing music due to their wild legacy, yet they’ve consistently churned out chart-topping songs for decades. While the band’s sound has evolved over the years, their roots lay in classic rhythm and blues, with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards first bonding over blues artists when the childhood friends reunited as teenagers.
Their early influences include Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, even borrowing their name from the latter’s song ‘Rollin’ Stone’. Various members of the band also played in blues outfits before forming the Stones, using this as inspiration when recording their self-titled debut album, which predominantly features blues covers
However, this blues influence never waned as they progressed into mainstream success. In 1981, the band released the album Tattoo You, featuring the song ‘Black Limousine’. It is directly inspired by several blues musicians, including Jimmy Reed and Hop Wilson.
The track is based on Reed’s song ‘You Don’t Have To Go’. The musician was an incredibly influential blues artist who significantly shaped the early rock and roll stylings of figures such as Elvis Presley. Ronnie Wood has a writing credit on the song, with the guitarist discussing his inspirations back in 2003.
He revealed that the slide guitar riff was inspired by “some Hop Wilson licks from a record that I once owned”. Wilson was a highly proficient steel guitar player during the 1950s and 1960s, yet his profile remains relatively low. Still, for musicians like Wood, the Texan artist provided vital inspiration.
He also noted the influence of Big Moose, explaining, “I’ve never heard of [him] before or since… He was an old slide guitar guy who had one particular lick that he would bring in every now and again.” Big Moose, also known as Johnny Walker, played the bass guitar and piano. The musician might not be well remembered on his own, but he contributed to the work of many notable artists, such as Stones’ favourites Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters.
Wood elucidated: “I thought, ‘That’s really good, I’m going to apply that’ – and so subconsciously I wrote the whole song around that one little lick, building on it, resolving it and taking it round again.”
