I'm still sort of stuck on the Stones. I watched some You Tube stuff last night, checking out some of their songs, kind of breaking down what Keith Richards and Mick Taylor were doing back in 1970. Some great stuff, but really beyond analysis. It's kind of like trying to dissect a cat to figure out how it ticks. By the time you get through analyzing all the parts, all you're left with is a dead cat.
Some of the best Stones songs are just too damn simple. They should not work, they should not be great. In their case, a great band, a great song, is truly the sum total of the parts, it's the collected energy where the magic resides. The accumulation of little pieces somehow adds up to a greater thing.
This brings me to the forgotten man, a guy who has played with the Rolling Stones since 1993, Daryl Jones. Daryl nicknamed "the Munch" replaced the original Stones bassist Bill Wyman (Bill couldn't take it anymore!). Daryl has also played with some of the greats including Miles Davis, Eric Clapton and Madonna (!) I was interested to see if Daryl was going to get any screen time in Scorcese's movie. He did, as he should. The guy is a killer bass player.
Of course some of those original bass lines written by Bill Wyman or Keith Richards are indelible. Daryl really gives the current Stones lineup a great foundation. Some of the songs in the movie really move, some of that is because of the touch of "the Munch!" I mean after playing with Miles, there ain't nothing these English boys can throw at him that's gonna throw him!
Daryl is billed as a "sideman" but he really should be billed as a Stone, except that would probably bump him up to a higher pay grade. Remember Jagger majored in Economics - it ain't gonna happen!