I’m rid­ing a mighty big band­wag­on when I tell you that Exile on Main Street is my favorite Stones record. It’s like cham­pi­oning the virtues of Sgt. Pepper’s or Dark Side of the Moon. Real­ly, those are great albums? Wow, who knew. But here’s the thing… my favorite Stones songs—“Street Fight­ing Man,” “No Expec­ta­tions,” “Get off of My Cloud” (hell, I even love “Shattered”)—do not appear on Exile. It is a per­fect (dou­ble) album with­out one per­fect sin­gle on all of its 18 tracks. Exile is a string of beau­ti­ful­ly flawed pearls—gospel sketch­es, coun­try weep­ers, bar­room stom­pers, bare-bones blues. And this is why I think that any band approach­ing the album with ideas about cov­er ver­sions should just go ahead and play the whole damn thing.

This is what Pussy Galore, one of my favorite New York scuzz-rock bands, did in 1986, with a cas­sette-only release that “sounds like it was record­ed in the tank of a Low­er East Side toi­let.” If that seems like hyper­bole, you have no idea how trashy, and thus, in a way, how per­fect­ly apt, their take on the 1972 clas­sic is (find out here). But now let’s take the case of Phish, who offer their own live ver­sion of Exile (above) from their 2009 “Fes­ti­val 8” tour. I’ve nev­er been much of a Phish fan, I’ll aver, but I must also cop to a grudg­ing respect for them. Part­ly that’s due to their respect for music not their own. Per a long­stand­ing tra­di­tion, Phish dons a dif­fer­ent musi­cal “cos­tume” every Hal­loween show, play­ing a full album from a band they admire. For exam­ple, we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured their 1996 live cov­er of the Talk­ing Heads’ clas­sic Remain in Light. Does it work? Not entire­ly, but their love for the mate­r­i­al shines through.

They seem much more at home with the Stones, and the almost note-for-note live set is a hell of a lot of fun to watch, I have to say. Phish is not by any stretch a hip band, and they avoid any kind of exper­i­men­ta­tion in this lov­ing trib­ute. But that’s kind of what makes it great. While the unpre­ten­tious enthu­si­asm, tight musi­cian­ship, and pro­fes­sion­al­ism might seem to mark this as the antithe­sis of what L.A. Times Ran­dall Roberts calls Pussy Galore’s “crim­i­nal­ly unprac­ticed rock and roll stunt,” what unites them both is that both groups “obvi­ous­ly loved the orig­i­nal album,” whether their take on it is man­gled par­o­dy or well-rehearsed, fun-lov­ing rock out.

The orig­i­nal Exile is, yes, a mas­ter­piece. It’s also a great con­ver­sa­tion piece. Ask any die-hard Stones fan about its record­ing and you’re sure to hear anec­dote after deca­dent anec­dote (as ful­ly doc­u­ment­ed in the 2010 film Stones in Exile). The band record­ed the album in 1971 at Kei­th Richards’ rent­ed vil­la, Nell­côte, in the South of France, where they’d relo­cat­ed to evade tax­es in Britain. Dur­ing months of all-night ses­sions, thou­sands of dol­lars of hero­in flowed through the house, along with vis­i­tors like William S. Bur­roughs, Ter­ry South­ern, and Stones’ coun­try-rock muse Gram Par­sons (who man­aged to get him­self thrown out). It’s a true tes­ta­ment to the band’s for­ti­tude and razor-sharp cre­ative focus that their extend­ed stay in a rock star play­ground pro­duced such a bril­liant­ly eco­nom­i­cal record, instead of the bloat­ed mess it could have been.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Phish Play the Entire­ty of the Talk­ing Heads’ Remain in Light (1996)

Jean-Luc Godard Films The Rolling Stones Record­ing “Sym­pa­thy for the Dev­il” (1968)

Kei­th Richards Wax­es Philo­soph­i­cal, Plays Live with His Idol, the Great Mud­dy Waters

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

In 1964, when this per­for­mance was giv­en, the tenor sax­o­phon­ist Dex­ter Gor­don was in the sec­ond year of his Euro­pean exile.

Gor­don had risen to promi­nence in the ear­ly 1940s, after join­ing the Lionel Hamp­ton band at the age of 17. He was one of the pio­neer trans­la­tors of the bebop idiom to the tenor sax. And he was an ear­ly influ­ence on the play­ing of John Coltrane and Son­ny Rollins.

“Dex­ter made a great con­tri­bu­tion to the bebop lan­guage,” Rollins once said. “In fact, I think he defined it dur­ing a cer­tain peri­od. He tran­scribed a lot of the stuff that Bird was doing, and brought that approach to the tenor with­out being a copi­er. He was an impor­tant fig­ure in bring­ing peo­ple along. Coltrane at one time sound­ed like Dex­ter, and I still hear that lin­eage.”

But by the 1950s Gor­don was addict­ed to hero­in. He checked him­self into the hos­pi­tal sev­er­al times but always fell back. In 1960 he was arrest­ed in Los Ange­les on drug charges and spent three months in prison. When he got out he had trou­ble find­ing gigs. Even though he had com­plete­ly kicked his habit by 1962, New York police refused to issue him a cabaret card to play in the city’s night­clubs. An offer to play in Europe changed his life. “I  went for three months and stayed for 14 years,” Gor­don told Peo­ple mag­a­zine in 1986. “I came alive over there.”

Gor­don had clear­ly hit his stride again by July 29, 1964, when this scene was record­ed for Dutch tele­vi­sion in Amers­foort, Hol­land. Gor­don is play­ing the 1939 Bob Hag­gart and John­ny Burke stan­dard, “What’s New?” His Euro­pean quar­tet includes George Gruntz on piano, Guy Ped­er­sen on bass and Daniel Humair on drums. The per­for­mance is avail­able as part of the Jazz Icons DVD, Dex­ter Gor­don: Live in ’63 & ’64. In the lin­er notes, Gor­don’s for­mer pro­duc­er Michael Cus­cu­na describes him as being in peak form when this film was made: “His tone res­onates with pow­er and beau­ty, his chops enable him to exe­cute what­ev­er occurs to him and his ideas flow seam­less­ly.”

Gor­don learned from his idol Lester Young that it was a good idea to know the lyrics of a song if you want to under­stand its essence. One of Gor­don’s idio­syn­crasies was to recite a few lines from the lyrics before play­ing the song. In this scene, the six-foot, six-inch-tall sax­o­phon­ist steps up to the micro­phone and, in his deep bari­tone voice, recites the open­ing lines to “What’s New?” before launch­ing into a beau­ti­ful instru­men­tal ver­sion. Sum­ming up Gor­don’s dis­tinc­tive play­ing, a biog­ra­ph­er at the New Grove Dic­tio­nary of Jazz writes: “His rich, vibrant sound, har­mon­ic aware­ness, behind-the-beat phras­ing, and his predilec­tion for humor­ous quo­ta­tions com­bine to cre­ate a unique style.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Advice From the Mas­ter: Thelo­nious Monk Scrib­bles a List of Tips for Play­ing a Gig

The Nazis’ 10 Con­trol-Freak Rules for Jazz Per­form­ers: A Strange List from World War II

Watch 1959: The Year that Changed Jazz

Yes­ter­day we fea­tured videos visu­al­iz­ing Igor Stravin­sky’s now hun­dred-year-old The Rite of Spring. They came from acknowl­edged mas­ter of music visu­al­iza­tion Stephen Mali­nows­ki, inven­tor of the Music Ani­ma­tion Machine. Have a look at Mali­nowski’s Youtube page and you’ll find oth­er videos show­cas­ing how his soft­ware, by trans­lat­ing musi­cal sounds into instinc­tive­ly under­stand­able graph­ics, allows us to bet­ter grasp the intri­cate work­ings of famous pieces. Today, let’s go back not just one hun­dred but about three hun­dred years, to Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach’s Bran­den­burg Con­cer­tos, the inge­nious intri­ca­cy of which has, since the Baroque peri­od, only won more and more devo­tion from musi­cal schol­ars.

At the top, you can hear, and more impor­tant­ly see, the first move­ment of Bach’s fourth Bran­den­burg con­cer­to. Just above, you’ll find its sec­ond move­ment, below, its third. (This video presents the move­ment whole.) Watch as you lis­ten, and you can expe­ri­ence through shape and col­or (I can only imag­ine the kick synes­thetes get out of this sort of thing) the way that the con­cer­to’s var­i­ous voic­es, meant for vio­lins, vio­la, cel­lo, vio­lone, and bas­so con­tin­uo, trade off, over­lap, inter­act, giv­ing each move­ment, and the whole piece, its shape. Though Bach’s musi­cal accom­plish­ments can some­times seem impres­sive to the point of feel­ing for­bid­ding, Mali­nowski’s graph­i­cal scores offer a way into com­pre­hen­sion, espe­cial­ly for the visu­al­ly inclined.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stravin­sky’s The Ride of Spring, Visu­al­ized in a Com­put­er Ani­ma­tion for its 100th Anniver­sary

The Genius of J.S. Bach’s “Crab Canon” Visu­al­ized on a Möbius Strip

Visu­al­iz­ing Bach: Alexan­der Chen’s Impos­si­ble Harp

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

George Har­ri­son of the Bea­t­les was an accom­plished gui­tar play­er with a dis­tinc­tive solo­ing style. So you might think that with a song as per­son­al and gui­tar-cen­tric as “While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps,” he would do his own play­ing. In fact, the song fea­tures gui­tar play­ing by Eric Clap­ton.

It was record­ed on Sep­tem­ber 6, 1968, dur­ing the acri­mo­nious White Album ses­sions. Har­ri­son had been strug­gling off and on for over a month to get the song right. He first tried it with his own play­ing on a Gib­son J‑200 gui­tar along with an over­dubbed har­mo­ni­um. He lat­er exper­i­ment­ed by run­ning the gui­tar solo back­wards. Noth­ing seemed to work.

So final­ly Har­ri­son asked his friend Clap­ton for a lit­tle help. When Har­ri­son walked into Abbey Road Stu­dios with Clap­ton, the oth­er Bea­t­les start­ed tak­ing the song seri­ous­ly. In a 1987 inter­view with Gui­tar Play­er mag­a­zine, Har­ri­son was asked whether it had bruised his ego to ask Clap­ton to play on the song.

No, my ego would rather have Eric play on it. I’ll tell you, I worked on that song with John, Paul, and Ringo one day, and they were not inter­est­ed in it at all. And I knew inside of me that it was a nice song. The next day I was with Eric, and I was going into the ses­sion, and I said, “We’re going to do this song. Come on and play on it.” He said, “Oh, no. I can’t do that. Nobody ever plays on the Bea­t­les records.” I said, “Look, it’s my song, and I want you to play on it.” So Eric came in, and the oth­er guys were as good as gold–because he was there. Also, it left me free to just play the rhythm and do the vocal. So Eric played that, and I thought it was real­ly good. Then we lis­tened to it back, and he said, “Ah, there’s a prob­lem, though; it’s not Beat­ley enough”–so we put it through the ADT [auto­mat­ic dou­ble-track­er], to wob­ble it a bit.

For the impres­sion of a per­son weep­ing and wail­ing, Clap­ton used the fin­gers on his fret­ting hand to bend the strings deeply, in a high­ly expres­sive descend­ing vibra­to. He was play­ing a 1957 Gib­son Les Paul, a gui­tar he had once owned but had giv­en to Har­ri­son, who nick­named it “Lucy.” You can hear Clap­ton’s iso­lat­ed play­ing above. And for a reminder of how it all came togeth­er, you can lis­ten to the offi­cial ver­sion here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les: Unplugged Col­lects Acoustic Demos of White Album Songs (1968)

A Young Eric Clap­ton Demon­strates the Ele­ments of His Gui­tar Sound

Hear the 1962 Bea­t­les Demo that Dec­ca Reject­ed: “Gui­tar Groups are on Their Way Out, Mr. Epstein”