| Album Notes |
Decca UK LP
Released: 17 April 1964
UK: No.1 (12 weeks), charted 51 weeks
The first thing you notice, even before listening to the music, is that this is an album with no title, nor even the name of the band – just a photograph. That’s confidence! But at this point there was no other band in Britain that it could be, everyone else conformed to the stereotype of groups wearing suits, but not The Stones. Of the twelve tracks, nine are covers, there’s one original by Mick and Keith and two group compositions (including one with a little help from Phil Spector).
Recorded at Regent Sound in London, this is as close as you can get to a live album, but in a studio setting. There’s not a UK hit single to be heard, although Mick and Keith’s ‘Tell Me (You’re Coming Back)’ became their second US single, making No.24 on the Billboard chart as well as their first ever composition to appear as a Stones single – there would be a few more…
“Our first album reflected what we used to play at the Crawdaddy – a regular diet of Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters with some Slim Harpo. The album was the cream of the set.” - Keith
|