Alaska Employment Law

The Rolling Stones, Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out (Box Set)

Over the course of a career that really should have ended a very long time ago (in my considered opinion), the Rolling Stones have released about 10 live albums, most of which stink.  Flashpoint, in particular, stinks all the way up to the highest part of heaven.  But the first one, Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out, was very good indeed when it was released in September 1970 – rush released, really, because a bootleg version of a Stones concert in Oakland in November 1969 was selling like hotcakes.

Ya-Ya’s purports to be a live concert at Madison Square Garden in November 1969, but in fact it was pieced together from the November 28 and November 29 shows at MSG plus a song or two from the contemporaneous show in Baltimore, and then overdubbed, mostly in the lead guitar department – this was Mick Taylor’s first year, and the band was never better than it was in the Taylor years.  It’s a good overdub job, not especially noticeable.  Ten songs, though the Stones typically played 15 or 16 songs in their set on that tour.

The Box Set contains 4 discs:  (1) the original album, in not notably better sound; (2) an EP containing the five songs (”Prodigal Son,” “You Gotta Move,” “I’m Free,” “Under My Thumb,” and “Satisfaction”) typically played on the tour but left off Ya-Ya’s; (3) a DVD showing the Stones hanging around backstage (Keith even hangs out with Jimi Hendrix; who knew?) and then on stage, playing the five songs on the EP; and (4) best of all, a CD with two of the opening acts, B.B. King and Ike & Tina Turner.  Mr. King is in his 40s at this point, and Tina Turner is all of 29 years old.  Which is to say that B.B. is not just mailing it in, and Tina is smoking hot.  This disc alone is worth the price of admission to this set.  Legend has it that Jagger had wanted the original issue of Ya-Ya’s to be a double LP, with the second LP consisting of the opening acts, since he knew they were so good.  But I gather licensing problems intervened, and Decca really wanted to get the live album out on the streets.

It’s unfortunate that the new songs were not integrated into the original concert.  Since the original concert was a patchwork anyway, patching it some more would hardly have damaged its artistic integrity, and it would have been a fairer representation of the concert.  As the years have gone by, full-length versions of the two Oakland concerts from November 1969 have unofficially emerged, and critics generally think they’re better:  grungier, darker, just plain better.  Still, Ya-Ya’s is a damn good album, and the bonus features give it context.  ABKCO really could have helped us, though, by giving us two discs only (forget the DVD):   a concert disc with all 15 songs and a concert disc with B.B. and Tina.  Oh well.  Buy it, throw it on iTunes and make the correct playlist yourself, I guess.