ON THIS DATE (34 YEARS AGO) August 29, 1989 - The Rolling Stones: Steel Wheels is released. # ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 4/5 # Allmusic 3/5 # Rolling Stone (see original review below) Steel Wheels is the 19th British and 21st American studio album by The Rolling Stones, released on August 29, 1989. It reached #3 on the Billboard 200 Top Albums chart and #2 on the UK Albums chart. It features the single "Mixed Emotions", a partially biographical reference to Jagger and Richards' recent woes that proved to be a major hit single in the US, reaching #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The whole album was a joyous feeling, it was "This is the time to do it". Keith Heralded as a major comeback upon its release, the project is notable for the patching up of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' relationship, a reversion to a more classic style of music and the launching of the band's biggest world tour at the time. It is also long-time bassist Bill Wyman's final studio album with the Rolling Stones, preceding the announcement of his departure in January 1993. Following the release of 1986's Dirty Work and Jagger's active pursuit of a solo career, relations between him and the Stones-committed Richards worsened considerably. While Jagger released the tepidly received Primitive Cool in 1987, Richards recorded Talk Is Cheap, his solo debut, which would be released in 1988 to rave reviews. The two years largely apart appeared to have healed the wounds sufficiently to begin resurrecting their partnership and their band. Meeting in January 1989, just preceding the Stones' induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the chemistry between Jagger and Richards easily outshone whatever differences they had and after composing some 50 songs in a matter of weeks, Ronnie Wood, Wyman and Charlie Watts were called in to begin recording what would become Steel Wheels, beckoning Undercover co-producer Chris Kimsey to perform the same role. Recording in Montserrat and London during the spring months, Steel Wheels was designed to emulate a classic Rolling Stones sound. The one notable exception was "Continental Drift," an Eastern-flavored piece, with The Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar, recorded in June 1989 in Tangier, coordinated by Cherie Nutting. With much of the past disagreements behind them, sessions for Steel Wheels were fairly harmonious. __________ ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW Nothing reinvigorates Sixties icons like having something to prove. In the past few years the reverence typically shown both the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan has worn perilously thin. The Stones' last two albums, Undercover and Dirty Work – not to mention Mick Jagger's solo recordings – ranged from bad to ordinary, and Keith Richards's bitter public baiting of Jagger suggested that this particular twain might never again productively meet. In Dylan's case, the most obvious message conveyed by the shoddy, almost willfully unfocused nature of his recent work – specifically Knocked Out Loaded and Down in the Groove – was that he had simply stopped caring about making records. Now, in the summit of love of the past, the Stones and Dylan have weighed in with albums that signal renewed conviction and reactivated sense of purpose. Steel Wheels rocks with a fervor that renders the Stones' North American tour an enticing prospect indeed, while Oh Mercy explores moral concerns and matters of the heart with a depth and seriousness Dylan has not demonstrated since Desire. Deep-sixing nostalgia, the Stones and Dylan have made vital albums of, for and about their time. It's not hard to read "Mixed Emotions," the most assured Stones single since "Start Me Up," as Jagger's measured, characteristically pragmatic – and guardedly conciliatory – reply to the verbal pounding he took in the round of interviews Richards gave after the guitarist released his solo album, Talk Is Cheap, last year. "Button your lip baby," counsels Jagger over a swinging guitar groove in the song's opening line, before offering to "bury the hatchet/Wipe out the past." In a bid for some understanding from his band mate, Jagger sings, "You're not the only one/With mixed emotions/You're not the only one/That's feeling lonesome." The feral rocker "Hold On to Your Hat" seems to sketch some of the problems of excess that threatened to drive Jagger out of the Stones. "We'll never make it," Jagger sings angrily, as Richards unleashes a flamethrower riff. "Don't you fake it/You're getting loaded/I'm getting goaded." Never to be outdone, Richards ends the album on a lovely, elegiac note with his ballad "Slipping Away," about his own brand of mixed emotions. "All I want is ecstasy/But I ain't getting much/Just getting off on misery," the Glimmer Twins harmonize on the song's chorus, and then Richards returns to sing the concluding verse. "Well it's just another song," he sings. "But it's slipping away." Jagger's and Richards's conflicting emotions fuel full-tilt rock & roll on "Sad Sad Sad" and "Rock and a Hard Place," while "Continental Drift," with its north-African feel, and the elegant "Blinded by Love" extend the Stones' musical reach further than it has gone in some time. Jagger miraculously avoids camp posturing in his singing, and the rest of the band – Richards, Ron Wood, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, augmented by keyboardists Chuck Leavell and Matt Clifford, a horn section and backup singers – plays with an ensemble flair more redolent of the stage than the studio. Jagger, Richards and their coproducer, Chris Kimsey, strike an appropriate balance between upto-date recording sheen and the Stones' inspired sloppiness. All the ambivalence, recriminations, attempted rapprochement and psychological one-upmanship evident on Steel Wheels testify that the Stones are right in the element that has historically spawned their best music – a murky, dangerously charged environment in which nothing is merely what it seems. Against all odds, and at this late date, the Stones have once again generated an album that will have the world dancing to deeply troubling, unresolved emotions. But fans have a right to their desires, too, and frequently an artist's defensiveness about the narrowness of audience taste is really a response to work even the artist fears is second-rate. The best defense of exacting audience demands is the straightforward fact that these great expectations derive from the artist's own work. Another is that those demands are sometimes met by work that is both challenging and satisfying – as these splendid new albums prove. ~ Anthony DeCurtis (September 21, 1989) TRACKS: All songs by Jagger/Richards, except where noted. Side one "Sad Sad Sad" – 3:35 "Mixed Emotions" – 4:38 "Terrifying" – 4:53 "Hold on to Your Hat" – 3:32 "Hearts for Sale" – 4:40 "Blinded by Love" – 4:37 Side two "Rock and a Hard Place" – 5:25 "Can't Be Seen" – 4:09 "Almost Hear You Sigh" (Jagger/Richards/Steve Jordan) – 4:37 "Continental Drift" – 5:14 "Break the Spell" – 3:06 "Slipping Away" – 4:29 #rollingstones #charliewatts #mickjagger #keithrichards #billwyman #steelwheels