The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers Turns 50

‘Sticky Fingers’, the ninth album for The Rolling Stones, turns 50 this week. ‘Sticky Fingers’ was released on 23 April, 1971.

‘Sticky Fingers’ came midway through arguably the most creative era of The Rolling Stones. In 1968 the band released ‘Beggars Banquet’, 1969 was ‘Let It Bleed’ then ‘Sticky Fingers’ in 1971 followed by ‘Exile On Main Street’ in 1972. Those four album have continued to make up at least half a Rolling Stones setlist ever since.

‘Sticky Fingers’ was the first studio album without founder Brian Jones. Mick Taylor had replaced Jones’ following his death in 1969. Taylor had appeared on two tracks on ‘Let It Bleed’ and the live album ‘Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out’ but this was his first album as a fully fledged Stone.

The first single from ‘Sticky Fingers’ was ‘Brown Sugar’, a song Mick Jagger wrote in Braidwood, New South Wales, Australia while he was filming ‘Ned Kelly’ in July, 1969.

‘Brown Sugar’, ‘You Gotta Move’, ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Sister Morphine’ were the first tracks recorded. They were done in December 1969 at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama.

‘Sister Morphine’ was co-written by Marianne Faithfull, Mick Jagger’s girlfriend at the time. ‘Wild Horses’ was released first by Gram Parsons, who heard an early version of the song. His version came out in May, 1970 on the ‘Burrito Deluxe’ album by the Flying Burrito Brothers’, 11 months before the Stones version.

‘Sticky Fingers’ was notable for its Andy Warhol designed zipper cover. In some part of the world the cover had an actual zipper but in Australia the zipper cover was banned and a printed version was used instead. The model on the cover was Warhol movie star Joe Dallesandro.

‘Sticky Fingers’ contained some remarkable music including the epic ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ and the raucous ‘Bitch’.

‘Sticky Fingers’ became the first (and only) Stones album to go to number one in both Australia, USA and UK.

Critics are divided between ‘Sticky Fingers’ and ‘Exile On Main Street’ as the greatest Stones album.

Sticky Fingers Tracklisting

“Brown Sugar”
“Sway”
“Dead Flowers”
“Wild Horses”
“Sister Morphine”
“You Gotta Move”
“Bitch”
“Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”
“I Got the Blues”
“Moonlight Mile”

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