Review Summary: Despite being a transitional effort from the group, the record has enough confidence, care and sincerity to be classified as a classic of the genre.
In 1968, this album marked the beginning of the Golden Age for the group; having experimented enough with pop and psychedelic music, they were ready for the big return to their roots. Armored with the songwriting and arranging experience they gained two years ago, the Stones set foot to American music and created one of the first and most influential roots rock albums (if we exclude
Blonde On Blonde) of all time.
The most significant difference between this record and the subsequent “golden age” ones is the emphasis on the country and folk element of the roots rock genre. Even
Sympathy For The Devil, behind all the samba instrumentation, is a folk tune at heart; it was originally conceived as one and the up-tempo arrangement gives the song a unique flavor, as it easily balances between the intense and the ethereal.
And if the most energetic tune here already demonstrates the country/folk element, what’s to be said of the others? Gentle and delicate numbers abound on this record and even the most obscene rocker,
Stray Cat Blues, contains fair amounts of country in its structure. The main atmosphere here is relaxing, earthy and laid-back as opposed to, say,
Let It Bleed’s ferocious vibe and it works on every level possible.
Which leads me directly to the next point; the production and arrangement techniques found here are among the most inventive in the genre. To begin with, the electric guitar distortion used on the rockers is astounding; for instance,
Street Fighting Man benefits its minimalistic anger from the cleverly amplified acoustic guitars found on it, while
Stray Cat Blues mixes gruff, deep rhythm tones with sharp and biting leads in a seamless way.
Moreover, the acoustic guitars here, when not amplified, are delicate and charming to the extreme. The crystal clear strumming on
No Expectations is subtly mournful, the textured chord figures on
Jigsaw Puzzle beautifully abstract, the fingerpicking on
Factory Girl and
Dear Doctor painfully authentic. On a side note, aren’t the drums on this album captured wonderfully? Always full sounding, but at times hard-hitting and harsh, while other times jazzy and smooth. Producer Jimmy Miller has done outstanding work on this album.
Meanwhile, check out the bass playing on the album; where most bassists would just get lazy at the prospect of recording a roots-rock album, Bill
and Keith offer some astonishing bass lines here. Case in point,
Sympathy For The Devil, where Keith creates a thumping bass line with very inventive fills that surprisingly never overshadows the song, but instead keeps the whole groove afloat effortlessly. On the other hand, Bill is busy offering mind-bending counter-melodies on
Jigsaw Puzzle and you certainly don’t need my guidance to notice the intricate, subtle fills in
No Expectations.
Finally, the album boasts an incredible array of instruments, all used in the proper quantity; sparse claves and piano lines on
No Expectations, frenetic samba percussion on
Sympathy, relaxing fiddle and tabla on
Factory Girl, dreamy sitar on
Street Fighting Man ,mesmerizing mellotron passages on
Jigsaw Puzzle and
Street Fighting Man, harmonicas, everything! And yet the record feels incredibly stripped down in practice.
Of course, none of this would have worked without the stellar songwriting found in the songs; even the 12-bar blues
Parachute Woman, a music form that has left the “original melody” route since the late 50’s, delivers an extremely catchy melody on top of the bluesy guitar licks provided by Richards. As for the rest? Well, you can hardly go wrong with the siren-imitating vocals and the trademark chord schemes found on
Street Fighting Man, the terrific melodic development on a song like
Sympathy or the charming and infectious harmonies on
Dear Doctor. And I am just scratching the
surface.
Overall, this is as mighty a release as you can imagine. The Stones on
Beggar’s Banquet are at the crossroads; they mix their “pop” approach, when it comes to arrangements, with roots rock compositions and thus,
Beggar’s Banquet becomes the natural link between the “pop” and the “rock” period of the group. While it would be easy for such a mixture of different styles to fall apart immediately, the results tell us otherwise. This is a diverse, imaginative and sincere excursion into roots rock and it’s safe to say that no other band could ever hope to make this concept work as brilliantly as it does here.
