What instrument does Brian Jones play in The Rolling Stones song ‘Paint It Black’?
Prior to 1966, The Rolling Stones had been a hard-edged, blues-tinged rock and roll outfit. They were changing the sound of the 1960s just as much as their peers, from the iconic fuzz-toned riff on ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ to the sped-up country sound of ‘The Last Time’. But they hadn’t yet ventured into the territory of Indian music as The Beatles or The Kinks had.
With hits like ‘Ticket to Ride’ and ‘See My Friends’, the Stones’ rivals had introduced the raga-style drone into rock music. And in December 1965, The Beatles went one step further by including classical Indian instrumentation on their song ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’. But Brian Jones saw their hand and raised it.
When it came time to record the latest Rolling Stones single at Hollywood’s RCA Studios in March 1966, he invited acclaimed Indian-American musician Harihar Rao into the studio. The track was already shaping up nicely before Rao arrived at the session. Bill Wyman’s thick, droning bassline added a South Asian flavour to proceedings while mimicking the revs of a car engine, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were humming a hypnotic version of the song’s main riff.
‘Paint It Black’ was set to push the boundaries of psychedelic rock beyond anything that had been done before. Still, Rao had a gift for Jones that would round out the song’s acid rock sound.
So, what was the gift?
He presented his fellow multi-instrumentalist with a sitar, the same classical Indian string instrument that George Harrison had played on ‘Norwegian Wood’. Jones had already been studying the instrument under Rao’s tutelage and had spoken to Harrison about using it in a recording. Now seemed like the perfect moment to apply what he learnt.
In no time, Jones had created a sitar part for ‘Paint It Black’, rubber-stamping the song as an instant raga-rock classic. It wouldn’t be the last time he’d play the instrument on a Rolling Stones number either, as he revived it for the rabble-rousing anthem ‘Street Fighting Man’ on the band’s 1968 album Beggars Banquet. There, he doubled down on the Indian instrumentation by also playing the tambura, a smaller string instrument. The two parts should sound thoroughly out of place in a clarion call for the British Revolution but somehow fit the cacophony of noise designed to symbolise “fighting in the street”.
The parts were among the last Jones ever played on a Stones song, recorded just over a year before he died. The ease with which he picked up instruments which worked in radically different musical modes and required a markedly different technical approach from Western guitars to play them is a testament to just how skilful a musician he was. Since his passing, the band have never been able to replace the vast array of sounds he could bring to the table.
