Three generations of Chicago blues Greats blow a Windy City gust through decades of Rolling Stones songs on Chicago Plays the Stones. Featuring Buddy Guy, Billy Boy Arnold, Billy Branch among many others and featuring special guests Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
They’ve been celebrating this music since the ‘60s, but the Rolling Stones really amped up their adulation of the songs and giants of Chicago blues with their acclaimed 2016 album Blue and Lonesome. The gritty, urban, amplified and electrifying sound of Chicago blues was tapped by the original rock ‘n’ rollers of the ‘50s and even more so by the Rolling Stones starting in the mid-’60s. Blues titans like Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy recognized and benefitted from the Stones’ outspoken adoration of them and their Windy City brethren, and a long-lasting cross-continental kinship was born.
This is what spawned the idea of Chicago Plays the Stones – even before the Stones announced the coming of Blue and Lonesome. Producer Larry Skoller and co-producer/arranger Vincent Bucher had already been working up Chicago-blues covers of Rolling Stones songs dating from the ‘60s to the ‘90s.
Pouring power and soulfulness into these songs are the one and only Buddy Guy (“Heartbreaker”) and young singer/harp wizard Omar Coleman (“I Go Wild”). Also crossing generations are Sonny Boy Williamson student/Bo Diddley right-hand man/Chicago legend in his own right Billy Boy Arnold (“Play with Fire”) and wicked singer/guitar slinger Carlos Johnson (“Out of Control”). Even the most famous Stones smashes receive Windy City breaths of fresh air, sounding energized and alive even as they hearken back to the Chess Records heyday, including “Satisfaction” (Ronnie Baker Brooks), “Sympathy for the Devil” (Billy Branch), “Miss You” (Mike Avery), “Gimme Shelter” (Leanne Faine), “Angie” (John Primer) and “Beast of Burden”(Jimmy Burns).
Special guests “sittin’ in” is a time-honoured tradition in Chicago blues, and those guests here are none other than Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Mr. Jagger lends his voice, harmonica and enthusiastic stamp of approval to Buddy Guy and the band’s rendition of “Heartbreaker.” Mr. Richards bestows his rhythm guitar work on “Beast of Burden” alongside the classic voice of Jimmy Burns. Long-time Muddy Waters guitarist Bob Margolin joined members of the Grammy-nominated Living History band to provide the backbone for Chicago Plays the Stones, digging into the compositions while keeping things nice, loose and heavily bluesy in the most Chicago of ways. And thus, the kinship between the Stones and Chicago – and between rock and blues – lives on