Rolling Stones 16015
Producers: The Glimmer Twins
Track rack listing: Dance (Pt. 1) / Summer Romance / Send It to Me / Let Me Go / Indian Girl / Where the Boys Go / Down in the Hole / Emotional Rescue / She’s So Cold / All About You
July 26, 1980
7 weeks
High on the success of Some Girls, Keith Richards flew to the Bahamas in January 1980 to begin work on the Rolling Stones’ follow-up album at Compass Point Studios. While Richards laid down the groundwork for Emotional Rescue in the Bahamas, the rest of the Stones returned to Pathe Marconi in Paris to cut the bulk of the album. Engineer Chris Kimsey was once again on hand, this time with the additional title of associate producer. “I had more responsibility and helped choose the songs, rather than just sitting behind the board,” he says.
The success of Some Girls allowed the Stones to stretch out in the studio. “The material on Emotional Rescue was a little more diverse than what had come before,” says Kimsey. “It was a little, more soul-oriented and laid-back, and a lot more relaxed than Some Girls.” Yet there were similarities. “Because we went back to Paris, Emotional Rescue was almost like a continuation of Some Girls,” says Kimsey.
But while the Stones had plenty of time to write the songs for Some Girls, they went to work on Emotional Rescue only six months after the completion of its predecessor. “That’s why the songwriting is a little more experimental,” says Kimsey.
Before the band began working on the album, Richards’s drug charges had been resolved. On October 28, 1978, he pleaded guilty to heroin possession, received a one-year suspended sentence, and was ordered to play a special concert for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. The gig, featuring the Stones and the New Barbarians (a spin-off featuring Richards and Ron Wood), took place on April 22, 1979.
Back in the studio, Wood, the newest Stone, was taking a more active role. He even received a rare co-writing credit on “Dance (Pt. 1).” Kimsey recalls, “It was a big thing for Ronnie to try to get it on there. He had to do it rather carefully and cautiously. There was a pact between Mick and Keith that everything had to be ‘Jagger and Richards,'” says Kimsey, “but that slowly changed over the years.”
The album ranged from the plaintive ballad “All About You,” featuring Richards on lead vocals and trademark Stones rockers like “She’s So Cold” and “Let Me Go” to the soul-flavored title track. “Emotional Rescue,” which reached number three on the Hot 100, features Jagger singing in a falsetto. “I always found it a bit twee,” says Kimsey, “but it was a novel idea. There were a lot of experimental things on that album going on.”
As was the case with Some Girls, some of those experiments were left off the album but later turned up on Tattoo You. The album’s release was soured when tensions began to rise within the group. Richards wanted to tour, but Jagger wasn’t interested. Bassist Bill Wyman announced that he planned to leave the group in 1982 on the group’s 20th anniversary (he actually remained for another decade after that). And then in February 1980, Wood lived up to the Stones’ rebel image when he was arrested for cocaine possession in the Dutch Antilles.
Again, none of these issues hurt record sales. Emotional Rescue followed the same path to the summit as Black and Blue. Like that album, Emotional Rescue entered the chart at number eight and then climbed to Number One the following week. And in another telling comparison, Emotional Rescue, like Black and Blue, wasn’t one of the Stones’ finest efforts. “I don’t think they thought it was as good as Some Girls,” says Kimsey. “I know I didn’t.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of July 26, 1980
1. Emotional Rescue, The Rolling Stones
2. Just One Night, Eric Clapton
3. Glass Houses, Billy Joel
4. The Empire Strikes Back, Soundtrack
5. Empty Glass, Pete Townshend