Beggars Banquet

Glyn Johns, the album's recording engineer and a longtime collaborator of the band, said that Beggars Banquet signalled "the Rolling Stones' coming of age. ... I think that the material was far better than anything they'd ever done before. The whole mood of the record was far stronger to me musically." acoustic guitar and backing vocals on "Sympathy for the Devil", and Mellotron on "Jigsaw Puzzle" and "Stray Cat Blues". In a television interview, Mick Jagger recalled that Jones' slide guitar performance on "No Expectations" was the last time he contributed something "of significance" to the band. Other than Jones, the principal band members appeared extensively, with Richards providing nearly all of the lead and rhythm guitar work, as well as playing bass on two others, in the place of Bill Wyman, who appears on the rest. Drummer Charlie Watts plays the drum kit on all but two tracks, as well as other percussion on the tracks that do not feature a full drum kit. Additional parts were played by keyboardist and frequent Rolling Stones collaborator Nicky Hopkins and percussionist Rocky Dijon, among others. The basic track of "Street Fighting Man" was recorded on an early Philips cassette deck at London's Olympic Sound Studios, where Richards played a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar, and Watts played on an antique, portable practice drum kit. "Prodigal Son", a cover of Robert Wilkins's Biblical blues song, was originally credited as a Jagger/Richards composition on initial pressings of the album, but was subsequently corrected on later pressings. Celebrating the completion of the album, Jagger held a party at Vesuvio's nightclub in Central London. Paul McCartney attended with an acetate copy of "Hey Jude". The song upstaged Beggars Banquet and, in author John Winn's description, "reportedly ruin[ed]" the party. == Packaging ==

According to Keith Richards, the album's title was thought up by British art dealer Christopher Gibbs. The album's original front and back cover art, photographs by Barry Feinstein depicting a bathroom wall covered with graffiti, was rejected by the band's record company, which delayed the album's release for months. On 7 June 1968, a photoshoot for the album's gatefold, with photographer Michael Joseph, was held at Sarum Chase, a mansion in Hampstead, London. Previously unseen images from the shoot were exhibited at the Blink Gallery in London in November and December 2008. == Release and promotion ==

Beggars Banquet was first released in the United Kingdom by Decca Records on 6 December 1968, and in the United States by London Records the following day. Like the band's previous album, it reached number three on the UK Albums Chart, but remained on the chart for fewer weeks. The album peaked at number five on the Billboard 200. On 11–12 December 1968 the band filmed a television extravaganza titled The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus featuring John Lennon, Eric Clapton, the Who, Jethro Tull and Marianne Faithfull among the musical guests. One of the original aims of the project was to promote Beggars Banquet, but the film was shelved by the Rolling Stones until 1996, when their former manager, Allen Klein, gave it an official release. ==Critical reception==

Beggars Banquet received a highly favourable response from music critics, who considered it a return to form for the Stones. Time described the Stones as "England's most subversive roisterers since Fagin's gang in Oliver Twist" and added: "In keeping with a widespread mood in the pop world, Beggars Banquet turns back to the raw vitality of Negro R&B and the authentic simplicity of country music." Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone considered that the band's regeneration marked the return of rock'n'roll, while the Chicago Sun-Times declared: "The Stones have unleashed their rawest, rudest, most arrogant, most savage record yet. And it's beautiful." Less impressed, the writer of Melody Makers initial review dismissed Beggars Banquet as "mediocre" and said that, since "The Stones are Mick Jagger", it was only the singer's "remarkable recording presence that makes this LP". Geoffrey Cannon of The Guardian found that the album "demonstrates [the group's] primal power at its greatest strength" and wrote admiringly of Jagger's ability to fully engage the listener on "Sympathy for the Devil", saying: "We feel horror because, at full volume, he makes us ride his carrier wave with him, experience his sensations, and awaken us to ours." In his ballot for Jazz & Pop magazine's annual critics poll, Robert Christgau ranked it as the third-best album of the year, and "Salt of the Earth" the best pop song of the year. In April 1969, for Esquire, he wrote that Beggars Banquet is "unflawed and lacking something", in contrast to the Beatles' latest self-titled album, which "is flawed and great anyway". Reappraisal In a retrospective review for Wondering Sound, Ben Fong-Torres called Beggars Banquet "an album flush with masterful and growling instant classics", and said that it "responds more to the chaos of '68 and to themselves than to any fellow artists ... the mood is one of dissolution and resignation, in the guise of a voice of an ambivalent authority." Colin Larkin, in his Encyclopedia of Popular Music (2006), viewed the album as "a return to strength" which included "the socio-political 'Street Fighting Man' and the brilliantly macabre 'Sympathy for the Devil', in which Jagger's seductive vocal was backed by hypnotic Afro-rhythms and dervish yelps". Writing in 2007, Daryl Easlea of BBC Music said that, although in places it fails to maintain the quality of its opening song, Beggars Banquet represented the Rolling Stones at their sharpest. Beggars Banquet has appeared on professional listings of the greatest albums. It was included in the "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings published in ''Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies'' (1981). In 2000, it was voted number 282 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2003, it was ranked at number 57 on Rolling Stones list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, ranked at number 58 in a 2012 revised list, and ranked at number 185 in a 2020 revised list. Also in 2003, the TV network VH1 named Beggars Banquet the 67th greatest album of all time. The album is also featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 1999, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. ==Reissues==

In August 2002, ABKCO Records reissued Beggars Banquet as a newly remastered LP and SACD/CD hybrid disk. This release corrected a flaw in the original album by restoring each song to its proper, slightly faster speed. Due to an error in the mastering, Beggars Banquet was heard for over thirty years at a slower speed than it was recorded. This had the effect of altering not only the tempo of each song, but the song's key as well. These differences were subtle but important, and the remastered version is about 30 seconds shorter than the original release. Also in 2002 the Russian label CD-Maximum unofficially released the limited edition Beggars Banquet + 7 Bonus, which was also bootlegged on a German counterfeit-DECCA label as Beggars Banquet (the Mono Beggars). It was released once again in 2010 by Universal Music Enterprises in a Japanese-only SHM-SACDversion and on 24 November 2010 ABKCO Records released a SHM-CD version. On 28 May 2013 ABKCO Records reissued the LP on vinyl. In 2018, the album was reissued for its 50th anniversary. Record Store Day Edition appeared on the British market on Saturday, 22 April 2023. ==Track listing==

Sources: The Rolling Stones • Mick Jagger – lead vocals , hand drum , backing vocals , harmonica , maracas • Keith Richards – electric guitars , acoustic guitars , electric slide guitar , bass guitar , backing vocals , opening lead vocals • Brian Jones – acoustic slide guitar , acoustic guitar , harmonica , Mellotron , sitar , tambura , backing vocals • Bill Wyman – bass guitar , double bass , backing vocals , shekere • Charlie Watts – drums , claves , tambourine , tabla , backing vocals Additional personnel • Nicky Hopkins – piano , Mellotron, Farfisa organ • Rocky Dzidzornu – congas , cowbell • Ric Grech – fiddle • Dave Mason – shehnai • Michael Cooper, Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg – backing vocals • Watts Street Gospel Choir – backing vocals • Barry Feinstein – photography and art design ==Charts==