How the Rolling Stones Finally Got It Together and Made a Great New Album | Rolling Stone

 “We weren’t trying to re-create some retro record or retro sound or even retro playing,” Jagger says. “It’s supposed to sound like it’s recorded this year, which it more or less was.”

The record’s guest list reads like popular music’s Hall of Presidents: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Lady Gaga, and even self-exiled Stones bassist Bill Wyman, who returned for one of Watts’ final recordings. The album ends, however, with only Jagger and Richards performing Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ Stone,” the blues staple that inspired the band’s name. Somehow in their 61 years, they’d never recorded the song. The way they tell the story, it’s an album that could only have happened now.

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How the Rolling Stones Finally Got It Together and Made a Great New Album

Mick, Keith, Ronnie, and Stevie (Wonder, that is) break down the star-packed Hackney Diamonds, an album the Stones only could have made now

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

MARK SELIGER*

LAST YEAR, MICK Jagger started feeling restless. Seventeen years had passed since the Rolling Stones had released an album of original material, and though they’d toured regularly — and made the difficult choice to soldier on after the devastating 2021 death of drummer Charlie Watts — the on-and-off sessions they’d held for a potential new LP over the past decade hadn’t produced much they could use. When the Stones’ tour ended in Berlin last August, Jagger decided he’d had enough. So he pulled Keith Richards aside.
“I told Keith, ‘I think some of the tracks are good, but most of them are not as good as they should be'” Jagger recalls on a phone call from Italy. “‘I think we should give ourselves a deadline [to finish the album], and then we should go out and tour the album.’ And then he looked at me, and he said, ‘Yeah, OK. That sounds like what we used to do.'” Jagger pauses and laughs. “I’m sure Keith would tell a completely different story.”
“The thing started with Mick saying, ‘It’s important now that we make a record,'” Richards says on a call from New York. “I’ve always thought that, but I said, ‘Well done, Mick.'” Richards laughs. “So he said, ‘We should blitz this thing and go for it.’ I said, ‘If you think you have enough material that you want to sing, then I’m right there behind you.’ If the singer likes to sing what he’s singing, that’s 90 percent of the game.” 

Jagger suggested a deadline of Valentine’s Day 2023, a finish line Richards told him was “a bit optimistic.” 
“I said, ‘I know it’s optimistic, but we’ve got to give it a date,'” Jagger says.
The sense of urgency made the difference. 

• Hackney Diamonds, due on Oct. 20, spans the many styles the Stones have mastered in their six decades, from hard rockers (“Angry”) to four-on-the-floor disco rockers (“Mess It Up”) to country honks (“Dreamy Skies”). 
• The band included two tracks recorded with Watts before his death, and the rest feature Steve Jordan, a drummer who’s toured with the Stones and played with Richards since the Eighties.

“We weren’t trying to re-create some retro record or retro sound or even retro playing,” Jagger says. “It’s supposed to sound like it’s recorded this year, which it more or less was.”

The record’s guest list reads like popular music’s Hall of Presidents: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Lady Gaga, and even self-exiled Stones bassist Bill Wyman, who returned for one of Watts’ final recordings. 

• The album ends, however, with only Jagger and Richards performing Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ Stone,” the blues staple that inspired the band’s name. 
• Somehow in their 61 years, they’d never recorded the song. The way they tell the story, it’s an album that could only have happened now.

Moving forward without Charlie Watts, one of rock & roll’s all-time great drummers, was far from easy. “Anything I do is a tribute to Charlie Watts,” Richards says. “It’s impossible for me to lay anything down without automatically thinking that Mr. Watts is laying the backbeat down.” 

Watts’ presence on the album was important to the Stones. 

• “If you’ve got Charlie Watts on it, man, that’s it,” Richards exclaims. 
• “I so miss that, man.” 
• But working with Jordan, whom Watts introduced Richards to, felt natural. “Steve actually moves the stage when he plays the drums,” guitarist Ron Wood says on a call from Barcelona. 
• “He’s very earthquake-y.” 

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