The Rolling Stones - All Down The Line (live in Texas, 1972, Mick Taylor on slide guitar) + insightful NPR article

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Article excerpt below the video.

https://www.npr.org/2010/11/05/130731369/looking-back-at-the-rolling-stones-live-in-texas-1972

Looking Back At The Rolling Stones, Live In Texas 1972

November 5, 20101:51 PM ET
Milo Miles


Of the films that feature The Rolling Stones in concert, there are two that matter. One is Gimme Shelter, but that Altamont documentary isn't really about the Stones, is it? The other one was more talked about than seen over the years, but you can finally enjoy Ladies and Gentlemen ... The Rolling Stones on your own flat-screen TV rather than in the hit-and-miss quadraphonic setup in which it was originally released in a few theaters.

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Ladies and Gentlemen ... The Rolling Stones reflects an early-days concept of what a rock show should be — an almost punk-like spareness to the stage set, 15 songs in a punchy 82 minutes, and a furious, almost deranged set of final numbers. It's also clear by now that this was the most varied and cohesive set of players for the group — the sidemen were Bobby Keys on saxophone, Jim Price on horns and Nicky Hopkins on piano. But the crucial regular band member was guitarist Mick Taylor, looking like a pre-Raphaelite cherub dropped into a nest of gargoyles. Unlike his ultimate replacement, Ron Wood, Taylor did not sound or solo like Keith Richards — he was gritty enough, but also a subtle, lyrical bluesman.

For The Rolling Stones, I think the most fundamental change of all since 1972 is that bluesmen aren't what they used to be. Once, the blues was the voice of outsiders who wouldn't sugarcoat love or tell you lies about work and success. Because the Stones were bold when they turned the language of blues-based rock to contemporary youth and events, they seemed like fearless, ravaged realists. But if the Stones never became aristocrats, they did become plutocrats and supreme show-biz insiders.

The blues faded as a living music language, and though they tried and tried and searched everywhere, the Stones never found as durable a style as the blues to tell hard truths or at least deliver indelible threats like "Midnight Rambler." But in Ladies and Gentlemen ... The Rolling Stones, Mick, Keith and the boys were fluent in the blues like nobody else.

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Emphasis added.