The Wobbly Pocket of The Rolling Stones

Cafe Society
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The Pocket: within a music groove, the obviousness and follow-ability of the “main” beat. If the rhythm section has set up a groove everyone can follow, they are said to “have a great pocket.” The music equivalent of “throwing a catchable ball.”

The Rolling Stones wobbly Pocket: The Stones famously have a hit-or-miss relationship with a groove. When they are on, there are few better. When they are off…you notice.

Here’s their first song on the Scorsese live doc Shine a Light - they open iwth Jumpin’ Jack Flash: - YouTube

That’s a bit of a hot mess, eh? :wink:

What happens when the pocket wobbles? Typically, it is Keith thinking he is “haiku Ray Charles.” Unlike most bands, Charlie the drummer keys off Keith, not the bassist. (Hetfield does this with Ulrich, too, in Metallica). If Keith is establishing a strong groove and holding it down, every follows along. But if he tries to do something cute, it can fall apart. I believe that Charlie is following Keith to establish the groove for that performance, but Keith wants to do something flash before Charlie has fully picked up the cue, so he is still hesitating behind Keith. And…a mess for a bit.

In that clip above, Keith is starting off trying to be all macho, and tries to add a bit of flash. Around 11 seconds in, he drags the beat - a small version of Ray Charles holding back on the second “America” the way only he can - and then hits that open chord and pops his pick hand out. He’s flourishing - but now the groove is incoherent. So when Ron Wood’s lead bit pops in, it sounds a bit random.

After than, Keith is throwing expressionist chord jabs in a few random spots - it takes a good minute into the song before you start to really get a solid JJF feel. But again, around 1:30, Keith hits a random chord. Dude. You’ve impressed Scorsese; please establish the groove the way only you can.

It was worse when Bill Wyman was in the band, because he would play a bit ahead of the beat (I have a theory that Wyman was a bit butt-hurt that Charlie liked Keith better, so Bill would try to anticipate the beat as a way to trying to show he could drive it, too!! ;)). If Bill came in ahead, Keith dragged, and Charlie then followed Keith, it could get ugly.

Other musicians have thoughts on the Stones’ and their wobbly pocket?

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Use THIS one: The Rolling Stones - Jumpin Jack Flash Beacon 2007 - YouTube

That first one is a wonderful Prince performance but for a different thread.

Sorry!

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I hadn’t noticed these things, but I get what you’re saying – thanks for the observations. Would you say that Mick Taylor was more adept at “catching” Keith’s creative forays and keeping a pocket established, which sometimes would help Charlie out? (Not that the jazz-skilled Charlie needs “help” much, but I mean this just in the sense you describe). Are there any moments on, say, Ya-Yas where this might be noticed? Perhaps somewhere in “Rambler” or “Sympathy”? Or perhaps Keith wasn’t yet as “adventurous” back in '69.

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Or, to throw another theory out…

Charlie and Bill had a good thing going but once Wyman retired Charlie could never get in groove with the replacement bassist Darryl Jones.

Now get me, Jones knows what the hell he’s doing around a bass. Ain’t no doubt about that. But he’s always been a salaried performer and not an official member of the band. Heck, in that clip you posted Jone is way in the background and hard to see. Watts might have trouble finding him to groove with.

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I am on a phone, so don’t want to get fancy, but w/r/t Taylor, I would go find the live version of Tumblin Dice off The Belgian Affair. Taylor in top form and by far my favorite version. Yeah, listen to him play a triplet over so much it becomes part of the groove landscape and Keith plays off it.

As for Jones, no, he’s better for Keith because he typically plays a tad behind. The misses aren’t as big with him.

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Nice, thanks…I have access Beligian Affair, and I’ll check it out.

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You’re giving a lot of thought to this I see.

To me they are stars and play like that (messy). They don’t have to recreate the record because that was long ago and they are an event now.

I have never thought JJF worked live, because it is an acoustic song. It’s always a mess to me. Too much bludgeon and not enough of the feel of the record. I thought it was great that Ronnie brought in the guitar lines that seemed to be missing on other live versions, but there are some notes that are off, it sounds like and he doesn’t give it a lot of thought. He doesn’t follow the line through with the organ notes that sound right from the original coda.

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Dude. Serious question: if an opinion is both whining and a condescending dismissal, should anyone give it a moment of thought?

Yes, I am giving it a lot of thought. If I need to explain why the Stones are worthy AND fun to geek out on, please go to another thread. Fun geekiness. Discussing something interesting and cool. It’s a good thing. Try it sometime.

Keith Richards is a lot like Prince - they have this persona that has NOTHING to do with their musicianship. Always interesting to see who is paying attention to what.

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Just an observation. i thought I added something, You shouldn’t get red. Carry on and enjoy yourself.

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I was always under the impression that Charlie was the quintessential metronomic drummer. I would think everyone follows him.

To me Keith’s variance on the original guitar rhythm shouldn’t be throwing Charlie off, but Ronnie’s lead seams way out of sync. I’m also hearing an electronic(?) crash cymbal, or something akin to it, that’s off the beat also.

Maybe it got fubared in the sound editing. I give Charlie the benefit of the doubt.

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I mentioned this in another thread: in an interview Charlie Watts gave to Creem (Lisa Robinson, I believe wrote the piece), he mentioned one of the reasons Mick Taylor left the Stones was the fact that Keith insisted on playing almost all of the guitar parts on the album’s himself: so the many of the parts you credit Taylor with are actually overdubs by Keith.

As to being “in the pocket” as the OP stated: when they’re on… there’s no one better. Examples: listed to Midnight Rambler and Sympathy For The Devil… toward the end of both songs, the drums and bass are just slightly behind, and when they catch up, it’s magical.

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A slight aside apropos of very little, but Jagger seemed to resent it quite a bit when Wyman left the band. I saw a brief clip around that time when someone stuck a microphone in Mick’s face and asked him who he thought would be the Stones’ next bass player. Jagger sort of snickered and said, *“I don’t know, maybe I’ll play bass. I mean, how hard could it be?” *

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Well, WordMan did specifically mention a live version. I rather doubt Keith managed to play all the parts on that ;).

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I Googled Keith leads the Stones groove and found this site: Keith IS the Stones

A bunch of quotes from Keith and others about what he does. Here are a couple:

[QUOTE= Tom Wheeler, music critic, Guitar Player Magazine]
Richards’ role in the group has been analyzed countless times. The consensus: Without Keith Richards there wouldn’t BE a Rolling Stones. Ron Wood explains, In other bands they follow the drummer; the Stones follow Keith, and they always have. While some have asserted that Keith Richards IS the Rolling Stones, the guitarist himself is the first to stress that any band member’s indispensability is a two-way street: The musicians are there to serve the band. All that matters is whether something furthers the overall sound. This cardinal principle saturates over two dozen albums as well as the band’s kinetic perfomance onstage. It spawned not only the musicians’ unqualified commitment to the group sound, but also the band’s distinctive mixing technique, in which the vocals - often loosely doubled rather than neatly harmonized - are nearly drowned in the storm of guitars, bass and drums. Keith’s vision is rooted in a keen awareness of the power of the guitar - acoustic or electric - not only as a rhythm or solo instrument, but as a musical paint brush capable of immense sonic canvases…
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Bill Wyman]
Keith is a very confident and stubborn player, so he usually thinks someone else has made a mistake. Maybe you’ll play halfway through a song and find that Keith had turned the time around. He’ll drop a half- or quarter-bar somewhere, and suddenly Charlie’s playing on the beat, instead of on the backbeat - and Keith will not change back. He will doggedly continue until the band changes to adapt to him. It doesn’t piss us off in any way, because we all expect it to happen. He knows in general that we’re following him, so he doesn’t care if he changes the beat around or isn’t really aware of it. He’s quite amusing like that.
[/QUOTE]

Bolding mine.

ETA: bctg, agreed. Those are great examples. The Belgian Affair version of Tumblin’ Dice mentioned above, too, which I can link to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dks3VUDEbb4

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True… though it turns out that the Ya Yas album is both: live, but with quite a few studio overdubs (mainly vocals, but some guitars and bass as well. No drums, though, AFAIK.)

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One often hears that Jagger led the Stones’ creative direction in the 1970s, though, when Richards was too strung out to be of much use to anyone, and that Richards hated a lot of the experimentation of those years.

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John Denver’s autobiography talks about his problem with the pocket. At the height of his popularity he put together an A list backing band. They were all much more experienced musicians than John. He’d get excited performing and get off the beat. Then the drummer had to decide if he should follow John or the band. It really bugged those guys. Denver never said in the book how they resolved it. Gotta be a bit awkward to be the star and the band behind you has better musicians.

The Stones are different since it was basically the same group of men that started together and gained experience together.

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Certainly from a songwriting standpoint, Jagger found him impossible to work with.

I think the point to all of this, in layman’s terms, is that Keith has to have it his way, and will get pissy if it ain’t. That seems to include the writing of the songs, the establishment of the groove while playing, etc. He is good enough as a writer, riffer, player and tastemaker that everyone, eventually even Mick, goes along.

Reading that quote from Wyman, where Keith will miss a beat and then stay on that groove until folks adjust to him is hilarious. If you want to hear what it sounds like, listen to the beginning of Start Me Up. After the first riff, they “turn the beat around,” i.e., purposely make the backbeat the 1 and 3 for a measure. (It’s a Thing - used for emphasis sometimes.) Charilie would have to do that behind Keith, on the fly, to sync back up if Keith got off. That would not be “a Thing” - that would be Charlie saving the day and having a solid enough beat to pick up after Keith. It would sound messy in the middle of a song.

Studio recordings vs. Live: yes, this is about live performances. They typically edit out their wobbly pocket in the studio (and sometimes in live recordings, like some dubs in Ya Ya’s). And yeah, Keith played bass on a lot of tracks - no doubt for control, but also because he would be on a 3-day jag and alone in the studio/basement at 4am…

John Denver: there are ways to address it, if the musicians communicate. A journeyman sideman should be able to speak respectfully but clearly with the star; a star who can perceive an issue should lean on their sideman to help them out.

It can be something as simple as “whenever you are circling back around for a big Chorus and are getting excited, only play downstrokes on the main beats. And make eye contact with Phil.” (the drummer, bassist, whatever - more as a reminder than anything). It is do-able unless the star is so immersed in their performance that they tune everything out.

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What makes it even funnier in retrospect is a scene in the movie Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll, Richards’ documentary on Chuck Berry, which I assume you’ve seen. If you have*, you’ll remember Chuck Berry trying to pull very similar shit while performing with Richards - trying to change the key mid-song, if I remember right. Keith wryly shakes his head and no and later explains how Berry is so used to always getting his way that he was surprised to have someone tell him no. At the time I was amused a little at Berry’s pretension and respecting Richards’ steady professionalism. Hilarious now to think Richards was often guilty of the same sort of stuff.

  • If you haven’t, you certainly should.
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Hehehe, that kind of sounds like hell. People get off all the time. I’ve personally skipped an entire half of a chorus. But, usually the band will work as a whole to get it back*. I can see demanding the band follow you more in the case of Denver than Richards. He’s the star performer who’s literally hiring the other guys, while singing and playing at the same time. In the case of the Rolling Stones, Wyman and Watts are full members, not employees. It seems to me that it’d be easier for Keith to drop a beat or pull a double beat and get back with the program.

Oh well, band politics.

*Good lord, whatever you do, don’t stop. Until you stop, you’re merely a band playing a bad song that doesn’t work. When you stop, you’re the same band, but you can’t even play that song.