The Perfect Beat: Arthur Baker's Baker's Dozen

Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

13. The Rolling StonesBeggars Banquet

There could have been five more choices from The Stones, like Exile On Main Street, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, but you know when I look at the tracklist on this, I remember every song, ‘No Expectations’, ‘Salt Of The Earth’, ‘Factory Girl’, ‘Street Fighting Man’, so okay, boom, you know you can’t argue with that. I don’t really care what’s on Sticky Fingers, although there are great things on there, but I mean… this album, it just told a story and is this rootsy country rock blues. This record kind of gets slept on in a way.

I worked with Jagger on a track years later and he didn’t end up using my version, but for years I was saying that The Stones should do an acoustic album, and eventually they did, but the bottom line is, them just playing guitars and harmonica and Mick singing would have been it for me – that sound. They were almost Southern rock blues, and were influenced so much by music that would have emerged from the South.

It’s funny to end on The Stones because they’re still going, there’s always more that can be done. That’s how I feel. There’s a demo version of a Dylan song on one of his box sets that I’d love to work on. My dream scenario is to get Al Green to ad lib on that track. I’m gonna try to make that happen, I don’t think they’ll get in a room together. But I think if I could license the demo, I could make it happen.

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