The iconic American singer that Mick Jagger could never enjoy: “I wasn’t impressed”
The entire relationship between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards has always felt like watching two brothers in a band.
They had known each other since they were kids, well before The Rolling Stones got together, but even if they had each other’s backs throughout every era of their career, it’s not like they saw eye-to-eye on everything. They had their own ideas of what a great song was supposed to sound like, and there were more than a few times where their influences tended to go in vastly different directions.
Then again, a lot of Jagger’s greatest instincts usually involved following whatever was going on in music at any given time. He was never afraid of chasing trends, and while that did result in a few ill-advised choices, like when they attempted to go in an electronic direction, Richards was usually able to hear out his singer and see where a song went if they brought in the Dust Brothers to work on one of their records.
But Richards felt that there was a certain sweet spot when it comes to The Stones’ classic material. They were all in love with old-school rock and roll, and while they could occasionally take things down a notch with a mellow ballad, some of the best songs that they’ve ever made follow the same model that they did when they were kids, figuring out those early blues tunes for the first time.
If they were getting into a mellow mood, though, it didn’t take Richards long to start gravitating towards country music. Those old country records from the likes of George Jones were enough to break people’s hearts every single time they came on, but Jagger was always a little bit lenient on the genre. He didn’t think that he could pull off that kind of country twang without sounding sarcastic, and even when Richards showed him the classics, he still didn’t seem to fully get it.
Roy Rogers was already one of the biggest names in American music before rock and roll had even come along, but Jagger felt that it was a completely different world from what he was used to listening to, saying, “I distinctly remember this conversation I had with Keith (when we first knew each other). We lived in the same block and I asked Keith what he wanted to do when he grew up. He said he wanted to be like Roy Rogers and play guitar. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the Roy Rogers bit but the part about guitar DID interest me.”
And when you listen to some of the Stones’ country tunes, you can definitely feel that push and pull happening a lot of the time. Some Girls is already one of the most eclectic albums for pulling off disco and attempting to make a punk song on ‘Respectable,’ but it may have been a mistake giving Jagger the lead vocal on ‘Far Away Eyes’, especially when he ends up sounding like a stereotypical country bum listening to the radio.
If anything, Richards was the one more cut out for making those kinds of country songs. His voice was a bit rough around the edges whenever he sang, and since the sounds of Nashville didn’t rely on every singer being at the top of their game, hearing his country-style licks over a song like ‘Happy’ made perfect sense when Jagger was demoted to just singing backup vocals during the track.
There’s no way to discount the impact country music had on The Stones, but it wasn’t something every member played happily. They knew that Richards was in love with this style of music, but Jagger could never find it inside himself to love every country song that he brought to the table, no matter how much Gram Parsons tried to be their guide.
