The Rolling Stones – Black and Blue - Music CD

Review

A few months ahead of its 50th birthday comes this 5-LP box set celebrating The Rolling Stones album, Black and Blue. As with so many of the classic album reissues on vinyl, the success is in the presentation—the remastering, the pressing and packaging, the extras. Without a single caveat, this weighty collection honoring the Stones’ 13th studio slab is spectacular.

The place to start is with the fidelity. The Stones turned over the original tapes to Steven Wilson, the highly in-demand, modern maestro of the remix, to revisit the proper album—one that finds the legendary band at, possibly, its most diverse. Wilson’s remix, as hoped, is sheer sonic brilliance. Never have these tracks sounded sharper, more cohesive, and more dynamic than on this new mix. Follow that with Matt Colton’s top-flight mastering—the Grammy-winning engineer worked with the Stones previously on Hackney Diamonds—and Black and Blue in this 2025 incarnation, on whisper-quiet wax, is the one to have.

Back in 1976, Black and Blue was known in Stones circles as the “audition” album; the first after the departure of guitarist Mick Taylor, who’d sparkled on a string of efforts- Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street, to name three- many consider among rock’s finest. So, it wasn’t a hole to fill. It was a crater.

With guest spots at the B&B sessions by a few notable axe-men—from Jeff Beck and Harvey Mandel to Wayne Perkins and Robert A. Johnson—the talent pool was Olympian. In the end, the band went with Beck’s bandmate from his Rod Stewart days, Ronnie Wood, and the rest is Rolling Stones history. Looking back now, it seems inevitable that Wood would get the gig, yet this set includes some of the jams with the runners-up that tantalize the imagination. A take of Beck’s “Freeway Jam” is as intriguing to hear as it is historic, if ultimately bolstering the conclusion that Wood was the best fit.

As for the three LPs and Blu-ray that contain live performances from ‘76- the vinyl from a hometown residency at Earls Court; the video from a TV broadcast of a Paris show—it’s more peak-Stones magic. Again, the addition of Wood is hand-in-glove, weaving as he would so well for the next five decades with Keith Richards, complementing- with the just the right attitude and attire—the gargantuan stage presence of Mick Jagger, and, most importantly, playing guitar like an ace. Toss in some previously unreleased cuts and a coffee-table-ready book, and this is a box set that gets it exactly right.

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— Larson Sutton, jambands.com

Product Details

The Rolling Stones - Black and Blue (CD-A) Featuring a new 2025 mix by Steven Wilson, Black and Blue from 1976 is the album that inducted Ronnie Wood into the Rolling Stones - featured on 3 tracks and joining the band for the world tour and the next 50 years! - By blending their influences from reggae and funk music with their rock and roll swagger, here come the greatest rock band of them all, with strutting funk riffs of 'Hot Stuff' and foot-stomping rockers like 'Hand of Fate' mixing company with the memorable ballads of 'Fool To Cry' and fan favourite 'Memory Motel'.