The Rolling Stones: The Rolling Stones Now! (US album) - 1965

The second of The Rolling Stones' US only album releases and, like 12 x5, what a damn good one it is too! Seven songs were sourced from UK release The Rolling Stones #2.

Everybody Needs Somebody To Love was the shorter (2:57) version of the much longer one that had appeared on The Rolling Stones #2 album, apparently this was the result of an error at the record processing factory! Solomon Burke's song would seem to have been tailor-made for The Stones. It was a fine example of the whole British Blues Explosion thing circa 1964-65. Mick Jagger gives the song an ad hoc, almost "live" feel that is completely convincing, despite what several naysayers have subsequently said. This was still a young band, remember. Taking that into account, their achievements were quite remarkable.

I love Jagger's vivacious take on the Lieber/Butler country blues, Down Home Girl, a song The Stones had been covering for quite a while by now. Yes, his attempt at a US country accent is pretty ropey but there is still something lively and irresistible about the song and the delivery. It has a real loose joie de vivre to it. Classic early Stones blues/boogie. I love those lines about turnip greens and cottonfields too, very atmospheric.

Chuck Berry's material was also something that suited The Stones down to the ground, and You Can't Catch Me was a real duck-walking classic and one that lyrically inspired John Lennon to write Come Together. He got in a bit of trouble for possibly plagiarising the "here come old flat-top" shuffling bit, didn't he? The song has a great, shuffling groove to it that I love.

Jagger tells his little girl she needs to forget him and she will never break his Heart Of Stone, exploiting the whole "bad boy" thing. Don't let your daughter go near a Rolling Stone, for he has a heart of stone. The song leans heavily on traditional blues in its slow melody. It has a fine, deep bassline too. It showed that The Stones could do moody slowies as well as breakneck rockers. It is one of those tracks from the period that I prefer listening to in its stereo format. The song was released as a single in the US but not in the UK.

What A Shame. A song that also sounds superb in stereo, this early Mick and Keith number possesses a complete corker of a lead-off upbeat bluesy guitar riff. It is catchy as hell. Bill Wyman's throbbing bass s wonderful too. Add some harmonica too and you have a seriously good early Stones blues. Those boys had the blues, didn't they? Yes, they covered lots of other people's stuff, but don't ever devalue their own blues compositions.

Taken from the UK version of the group's debut album Mona (I Need You Baby) is a particularly infectious, shuffling and rhythmic number - check out that cheese-grater percussion rhythm. Doncha just love it? Bruce Springsteen must have done, as he virtually based his 1975 song She's The One around it. 

The group's cover of a 1941 Roy McKinley hit, Down The Road Apiece was a wonderful, vibrant number that I have always loved. It sounds bloody great in stereo too. The line "you remember that rubber-legged boy?" suits Jagger's newly-acquired backwoods drawl perfectly. The song is full of rockin' bluesy atmosphere, all about mama frying chicken in bacon grease and so on. I love the energetic and enthusiastic way The Stones attacked these blues numbers, for many, including myself, this was the first blues/r'n'b they heard.

The enthusiastic, upbeat bluesy Jagger/Richards rock-pop of Off The Hook is the next step in the group's development. Granted, they were, to a great extent, imitating the music that inspired them, but they were doing it well, and learning how to craft a song. Their development as songwriters was remarkably rapid, if you think about how much progress was made in how short a time. It is another long-time favourite of mine. 

Pain In My Heart. A more successful soul cover than Under The Boardwalk had been was the group's take on this Otis Redding slow soul ballad. It cooks slowly and surely with a soulful bluesiness. Jagger's vocal is impressive too.

From the UK release of Out Of Our Heads came this rollicking, good-time cover of a song from little-known blues guitarist Barbara Lynn. Oh Baby (We Got A Good Thing Goin') has become a bit of a deep cut, showcasing as it did The Stones' mature, often obscure musical taste. They knew their stuff, for sure. I really like this one, I have to say. It is a bit rock 'n' roll-ish.

Little Red Rooster. A surprise number one UK single for The Stones in that it was a classic, slow-grinding Willie Dixon blues, with nothing remotely pop about it at all. It was a gamble to release it as a single but boy, it worked. It only seems to be available in its original mono recording, but what a sound it gives us - full, warm, bassy and possessing a wonderfully clear percussion sound throughout. I just love the sound on this with a vengeance. Paul McCartney once said that The Stones were "just a blues covers band" - well, if they kept covering the blues as well as this, no-one was complaining, were they? They covered the blues far more convincingly than The Beatles covered rock 'n' roll or Motown. 

Beginning with a fast-paced rockabilly drum sound, Surprise, Surprise is a little-known Mick and Keith piece of pop-rock. It has that youthful energy to it that means that, although it is admittedly a pretty lightweight song, it still has a toe-tapping vibrant appeal. I can't help but enjoy it.

Just like the 12 x 5 US release, this album doesn't suffer from any poor song selection. It also has a great sound quality to it. I loved it for a long time without realising that it was a US-only release back in 1965.