“We wanted his approval”: The musician The Rolling Stones always wanted to impress
No artist thinks they are kings of all known genres when starting out. Most only play what they hear in their record collections, and that normally involves woodshedding different ideas to see what works in their early days. While The Rolling Stones have their sound down to a science these days and could justifiably not take orders from anyone, Mick Jagger said that the entire band always flocked to this honorary member for approval.
Because when you think about it, The Rolling Stones were still a bunch of kids when they first picked up instruments. The whole thing might have started in the mind of Brian Jones, but the minute that Jagger and Keith Richards joined the fold and began writing their own songs, there was no question of who were the clear leaders of the group.
But even though they loved the blues, there was always more to what the band could do. Outside of writing the typical pop ballad or badass rock and roll tune, Charlie Watts always had his roots in genres like jazz, and it didn’t take long to see that kind of sophistication being dressed up amongst the sleaziness of ‘Satisfaction’.
That wasn’t even the last obscure genre The Stones pulled from, with Richards falling in love with what he heard coming out of the country scene over in America as well. Those influences may have mattered greatly to the band when putting their tunes together, but no single person mattered more than Ian Stewart.
While he never was a proper Rolling Stone, Stewart operated as the musical older brother throughout their time together, often found sitting in on a handful of their records on piano and working as an advisor for their music in the early days. He may not have looked the part, but when it came to any kind of major musical decision, Jagger said that Stewart was the first person that they would call.
Whereas Jagger seems to carry himself like one of the most dangerous men in the music industry, he thought that Stewart was among the key figures in the background of The Stones, saying, “He really helped this band swing, on numbers like ‘Honky Tonk Women’ and loads of others. Stu was the one guy we tried to please. We wanted his approval when we were writing or rehearsing a song. We’d want him to like it.”
Stewart wasn’t even looking to work his magic through The Stones, either. The whole premise behind Led Zeppelin’s ‘Boogie With Stu’ is capturing a jam session they had done with him on piano, and considering the rest of the material on Physical Graffiti, there’s a lot more musical weight behind this tune because of how well Stewart anchors anything.
While many mainstream Stones fans probably couldn’t pick Ian Stewart out of a lineup, his presence in the band is about more than being a hired gun or a secondary player in the game. He was the musical glue for them in the early days, and even when they decided to fly, he was more than happy to get his ears on anything they released.
