Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. Well, when you're sitting back in your rose pink Cadillac making bets on Kentucky Derby Day.Ĭopyright © 2021 NPR. ROLLING STONES: (Singing) And I won't forget to put roses on your grave. INSKEEP: Critics today are a lot more forgiving as "Sticky Fingers" turns 50. ROLLING STONES: (Singing) And you can send me dead flowers every morning, send me dead flowers by the mail. The mere thought of the Stones doing straight country music is simply appalling, he wrote. Jon Landau wrote for Rolling Stone back then. He said "Sticky Fingers" was his favorite album of 1971. The legendary music critic Lester Bangs loved the band's new direction. ROLLING STONES: (Singing) Wild, wild horses couldn't drag me away. And for the "Sticky Fingers" album, they tried to branch out a bit into acoustic country music. INSKEEP: So that was their reputation in '71. HOWARD: So for you, it's all kind of an elegant ballet and you dismiss the responsibility. You know, it's not a question of violence as much as theater, you know? JAGGER: Well, yeah, but that's a sort of stage thing. MARGARET HOWARD: But nonetheless, you do end your performances - don't you? - by whipping the stage with your belt. I don't really get involved in fights and punch-ups and all that. I don't particularly like physical violence. MICK JAGGER: I'm not a symbol of physical violence. Here, Margaret Howard asked him about the Rolling Stones' association with violence. INSKEEP: That event was still in the news in 1971 when NPR went on the air and this new network played part of a BBC interview with Mick Jagger. The Stones took a lot of heat for their role in creating that atmosphere. The Hells Angels motorcycle gang was there to provide crowd control, but their violent interactions with the audience resulted in a near riot and the stabbing death of one fan.
#THE ROLLING STONES STICKY FINGERS FREE#
KING: "Sticky Fingers" was the first album the Stones released after a disastrous free concert at Altamont in Northern California. ROLLING STONES: (Singing) Sometimes I'm sexy, move like a stud, like kicking the stall all night. KING: The songs were often just as provocative - booze, drugs, sex all there. The first pressing of that album had an actual working zipper. Well, the album cover for "Sticky Fingers" featured a risque photograph from the mind of Andy Warhol of a male model in tight jeans seen only from the waist down. The "Sticky Fingers" album cover - back in 1971, albums were released physically with these things called covers. KING: NPR is celebrating 50 years on the air, so every once in a while, we're looking back to some of the other things that were born in 1971.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROLLING STONES SONG, "B****") Fifty years ago, the Rolling Stones released what is considered to be one of their best albums, "Sticky Fingers."