The 25 Best Live Rock Recordings - No. 5: Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!: The Rolling Stones In Concert

No. 5 - The Rolling Stones - Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out (London Records, 1970)

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Sometimes it requires, no, demands “The Greatest Rock And Roll Band In The World.”

In 1969, The Rolling Stones operated within their greatest period, when Mick Taylor was the lead guitarist. Taylor replaced the failing founding member Brian Jones, between Jones’ last recorded appearance on Beggar’s Banquet (London Records, 1968 - recorded 17 March – 25 July 1968) and the release of Let It Bleed (London, 1969 - recorded 10/1969 - 10/1969). Jones subsequently died from drowning on 3 July 1969 before the completion and release of Beggar’s Banquet.

Taylor’s impact on the band was immediately realized in his contributions to the non-album single, “Honky Tonk Women,” recorded in June 1969 and released in the United Kingdom the day after Brian Jones’ death, 04 July 1969. The early period of the band effectively ended then. Taylor was assimilated into the band and present for the entire recording of Let It Bleed. The Mick Taylor period was born and would exist through the releases of Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones, 1971), Exile On Main St. (Rolling Stones, 1972), Goat’s Head Soup (Rolling Stones, 1973) and It’s Only Rock And Roll (Rolling Stones, 1974).

Between Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers, the Rolling Stones mounted their American Tour 1969, consisting of 24 shows beginning on 7 November 1969 and ending on 6 December 1969. Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!: The Rolling Stones In Concert was recorded live in Baltimore (Baltimore Civic Center) and New York City (Madison Square Garden) on November 26-28, 1969. This was about 2 weeks previous to the ill-fated Altamont Free Concert on December 6, 1969, where 18-year-old Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by members of the band's Hell's Angels security entourage. The Rolling Stones were touring in support of Let It Bleed which was officially released the day before the Altamont debacle. If rock and roll ever had an innocence to lose it was lost at this ill-fated concert, where the honeymoon from the 1967 "Summer of Love" accelerated to its inevitable and violent conclusion in this concert.

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What is the measure of a great live music recording? That answer would be intellectual brevity, spontaneity, and a reckless, swaggering invention. The best live albums are from those bands just hitting their stride yet still hungry to succeed. In 1969, the Rolling Stones were strutting up to the end of that turbulent decade, ready to swan-dive, elegantly wasted, and flipping us off, into the next. Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! is the fulcrum supporting the Rolling Stones' most creative period when Mick Jones was part of the band. This period of creativity eclipses all bands contemporary with the Stones during that tumultuous period.

The original LP release consisted of:

• “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (Nonalbum single)

• “Carol” (Chuck Berry cover)

• “Stray Cat Blues” (Beggars Banquet)

• “Love in Vain” (Let It Bleed)

• “Midnight Rambler” (Let It Bleed)

• “Sympathy For The Devil” (Beggars Banquet)

• “Little Queenie” (Chuck Berry cover)

• “Honky Tonk Women” (Nonalbum single)

• “Street Fighting Man” (Beggars Banquet)

Staggering were these performances: the nuclear Horatio Alger kiss-off “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” the feral “Stray Cat Blues,” the terrifying “Midnight Rambler” and “Sympathy For The Devil” all left a scar on listeners scarcely able to comprehend. Unrealized at the time was the fact that the LP was a mighty torso lacking much material. This was remedied with the release of 2009’s Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones In Concert 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (ABKCO Records).

More than a simple bone thrown at aging Baby Boomers to separate them from their pension, this reissue improves on the original release by filling in glaring gaps in the show. From the quintet itself there is the original 10-song release, opening with the multi-layered introduction and a whirlwind "Jumpin' Jack Flash." Midway through the set is the terrifying and definitive "Midnight Rambler," perhaps the group's greatest concert piece, the show ending with "Honky Tonk Women" and "Street Fighting Man." A great live release considering the circumstances and technology of the early 1970s. Now, add to this five previously unreleased tracks reaching back to Out Of Our Heads (Decca, 1965)("I'm Free") and Aftermath (Decca, 1966) ("Under My Thumb") to Beggars Banquet (Decca, 1967) ("Prodigal Son") and ahead to Sticky Fingers ("You Gotta Move").

These "unreleased" songs have been bootlegged since their recording but enjoy a grand sonic cleansing here. Guitarist Keith Richards' 1930s model National Steel-body resonator hums evenly in the December air on "Prodigal Son" and "You Gotta Move." "Under My Thumb" begins its threatening evolution from a marimba-colored ditty to the menacing, misogynistic anthem it would become on 1982's Still Life (Virgin). "I Can't Get No Satisfaction," that Muddy Waters rip-off, comes clean as dangerous rock and roll. Guitarist Mick Taylor burns with fills. These pieces are reprised on the DVD along with some backstage films. A fine addition to the canon, but only the beginning.

Warming the New York crowd up before the Stones were B.B. King and Ike and Tina Turner. All the music contained on CD3 of the box set is previously unissued and it's what fully justifies this release. King's most famous live recordings, Live at the Regal (ABC, 1965) and Live at Cook County Jail (MCA, 1971) bookend this performance and find King at the height of his considerable powers before he began paring his guitar solos to the bare essentials as Count Basie did with his piano playing. King's tone is full and rich. It is the tone that launched a million urban white guitarists. There would have been no Eric Clapton had there not first been B.B. King.

King's set included his mainstays, "Everyday I Have the Blues" and "How Blue Can You Get." His performance is seamless, one piece dissolving into the next, and his guitar turns fiery and then tender. The band is tight and the energy level is high. That energy was picked up by Ike and Tina Turner, whose seven-song set surveyed the musical landscape of the period, mining Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and the Beatles. This is not the slick Tina Turner, sans Ike, of the 1980s. This is the raw element fresh out of Nutbush. Her performance of "Son Of A Preacher Man" comes halfway between Dusty Springfield's landmark recording in 1968 and Aretha Franklin's reconsideration in 1970, eclipsing them both by light years. If only Janis had recorded this song.

Tina Turner's searing performance of Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long" is a downright chilling retrospective of her well-publicized marital problems with Ike. Nevertheless, her performance is not merely sexy, it is nakedly carnal in a way that makes Donna Summer's 1975 "Love To Love You Baby" sound like a convent hymn. All of this music is essential listening to understand American Music and the role British bands played in educating America about her treasures long disregarded because of the institutional racism of the period.

“I was born in a crossfire hurricane
And I howled at my ma in the drivin' rain
But it’s all right now…”