That’s another British prime minister the Rolling Stones have outlasted.
When the band first plugged in under that name at London’s Marquee Club on July 12, 1962, Harold Macmillan was in Number 10 dealing with the “little local difficulty” of sacking a third of his cabinet. Then came Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Wilson again, Jim Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May, and now the soon-to-depart Boris Johnson. Thirteen administrations, an even dozen US presidents, and six popes. And through it all the Stones themselves have just kept rolling along. Not bad for a band of misfits that everyone, including them, thought would last a year or two at most.
On the isolated vocal track below, Clayton’s vocal is supremely powerful. It moves from a cracking beauty to a swirling, triumphant guttural scream. It moves one’s soul with what seems like very little effort and in it you can hear other members of the band shouting in excitement. It’s a wonderful moment of a band capturing the fire-breathing year they hoped would burn to the ground.
