The “most seismic” moment in The Rolling Stones back catalogue, according to Steve Jordan
Steve Jordan has the ultimate front-row seat to The Rolling Stones. Currently serving as the band’s drummer, he’d had the unique experience of being a fan first and then a member second. Having been raised on the band and then joining their ranks, his perspective on their music is the ultimate inside-outside take, with one song especially standing out as a vital moment in their career.
“I was more of a Beatles fanatic than a Stones fanatic at that age,” Jordan admitted of his youth back in the 1960s, “You had to choose between them. You couldn’t be a fan of both bands. It was forbidden. But the good songs broke through that.”
But then the release of one song totally flipped that, capturing the Stones at a strange moment in their history but an utterly reinventive moment in their music. It was 1969 – literally the day after their original guitarist and founding member Brian Jones had died. The music world was in mourning, especially fans of the band. But the band themselves seemed committed to staying busy as they released ‘Honky Tonk Woman’.
Jones doesn’t play on the track as by the time of recording in June of 1969; he had already been fired from the group due to his worsening behaviours and addictions.
Typically, though, the loss of a founding member of a band is a fatal blow. Very few groups can bounce back from a loss like that, as it demands a total rearrangement and reinvention. On the day after Jones’ deat,h though, the Stones already made that statement as Jordan called this track nothing short of “seismic”.
“I first became a real fan of the Stones when I heard “Honky Tonk Women,’” he said. “I thought that was an incredibly funky track. It was like funk. I said, ‘Wow, this is funky now. Wow, the fusion of the guitars with the drums …’ That’s when I became a Charlie Watts fan.”
In particular, it’s the instrumentation of the track that got him. “It’s really Keith Richards and Charlie Watts and Jimmy Miller on the cowbell,” he said. “That’s what you’re hearing.” To him, that’s what caught his attention and what made the group stand alone amongst their peers as a truly innovative group, as the shine was taken away from the singer and put onto the band. “Even before Mick comes in, you hear Keith, Charlie, and the cowbell,” he added, “And it’s all over. End of discussion, end of story. Boom. That’s the seismic moment for me with the Stones.”
It was a clear statement from the band that they wouldn’t be stunted or curtailed by this loss. While they would obviously mourn their friend, ‘Honky Tonk Woman’ made it clear that the band itself was not dead but was continuing to get stronger.
