Maps of Music

Let It Bleed (1969)

Where the lyrics of Let It Bleed take you, and where it was really made.

Mick Jagger first asked M. C. Escher to design the cover, but Escher declined, and the sleeve that resulted was a surreal sculpture built from a cake, a pizza and a bicycle tire.

Key places

Main recording studio (1969)

Recording site Olympic Studios — The majority of the album was recorded at Olympic Studios in London. Recording ran from February to early November 1969 and was done in sessions, not in one block. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Los Angeles overdub work (1969)

Recording site Sunset Sound — Additional work for the album was done in Los Angeles, and the Sunset Sound engineering team is credited for that work. The exact dates are not given. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Let It Bleed: eighth studio album by the Rolling Stones
• Released 28 November 1969 by London Records in the United States, and 5 December 1969 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom
• Follow-up to Beggars Banquet (1968), returning to the blues-oriented approach of the pre-Aftermath period
• Additional sounds draw influence from gospel, country blues and country rock

Background

• Released during the band's 1969 American Tour
• Brian Jones, the band's founder and original leader, grew increasingly unreliable in the studio because of heavy drug use
• Jones was fired in the midst of recording sessions for this album and replaced by Mick Taylor
• Jones contributed to only two songs, playing backing instruments
• Jones died within a month of being fired
• Taylor appears on two songs after recording some guitar overdubs
• Keith Richards was the band's sole guitarist during most recording sessions
• Recording began in earnest in February 1969 and continued sporadically until early November

Recording

• Majority of the album recorded at Olympic Studios in London
• Further work took place at Elektra Sound Recorders Studios in Los Angeles while the band prepared for the tour
• Originally scheduled for July 1969, the album was delayed until December 1969
• Jimmy Miller produced the album and also filled in on drums for Charlie Watts on one track

Cover

• Jagger asked M. C. Escher for a cover design; Escher declined
• Robert Brownjohn designed the cover, which shows a surreal sculpture
• The image shows the record played by the tone-arm of an antique phonograph
• The record-changer spindle supports stacked items in place of records
• The artwork was inspired by the album's working title, Automatic Changer

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in London in 1962 as an English rock band; their first stable line-up was Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts.
• Jones named the band after a Muddy Waters song; they were rooted in blues and rock and roll.
• Manager Andrew Loog Oldham encouraged them to write their own songs, and the Jagger–Richards partnership became their main creative force.

Members

• Current: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood (joined 1975).
• Former: Brian Jones (died 1969), Mick Taylor (1969–1974), Bill Wyman (1962–1993), Charlie Watts (1963–2021, died 2021).
• Steve Jordan became their drummer after Watts' death.

Career

• Hits included "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (1965), "Paint It Black" (1966) and "Start Me Up" (1981).
• Their 1969 Hyde Park show and Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. are key points of their career.
• Formed Rolling Stones Records in 1970, whose tongue-and-lips logo became their band logo.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989; the band has sold more than 250 million albums.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Rolling Stone critic Greil Marcus said the middle of the album has great songs, and that Gimme Shelter and You Can't Always Get What You Want seem to matter most
• Robert Christgau named it the fourth-best album of 1969 in his ballot for the Jazz & Pop critics poll
• Don Heckman, writing in The New York Times, called it a heavy, passionately erotic album of hard rock and blues influenced by African-American music
• Richie Unterberger, writing for AllMusic, said it extends the rock and blues feel of Beggars Banquet into harder-rocking territory

Reappraisal

• NME, in a retrospective review, said the album tugs and teases in various musical directions and called it a classic
• Gavin Edwards, in a five-star Rolling Stone review in 2004, praised Richards' guitar playing throughout the album
• Jason McNeil of PopMatters wrote that Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed are the two greatest albums the band has made
• Stephen Davis, in his 2001 Stones biography, said no rock record had so completely captured the sense of palpable dread of its era

Records

• UK Albums Chart: number 1, temporarily demoting the Beatles' Abbey Road
• US Billboard Top LPs: number 3
• US RIAA: 2x platinum
• Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums, 3rd edition (2000): number 40
• Q magazine, 100 Greatest British Albums Ever (2000): number 28
• Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003): number 32
• Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Jagger first asked M. C. Escher to design the cover; Escher declined, and Robert Brownjohn designed it instead.
• The cake parts of the cover construction were prepared by then-unknown cookery writer Delia Smith.
• The track listing on the back of the jacket did not follow the order on the album; Brownjohn altered it for visual reasons.
• Gimme Shelter is printed as Gimmie Shelter on the jacket, a spelling that stayed on most releases until 2019.
• Honky Tonk Women came out as a single in July 1969 while the album itself was delayed.
• Jones was found at the bottom of his swimming pool a month after being fired; the coroner's verdict was later revised to death by misadventure.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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