Talk:Beggars Banquet/Archive 1

Brian's contributions / Vandalism
This article, as many Rolling Stones/Brian Jones articles keep being vandalized, mainly by crazy Brian Jones fans who try to make everybody see the genius and greatness of Jones. Used Dan56 keeps reverting my edits concerning the personell of this album, even though I give five strong references. The references inlude Bill Wyman, Martin Elliott, James Karnbach.

Brian Jones does NOT play slide guitar on Jigsaw Puzzle, as the five references point out, and as the 30-odd outtakes point out. Please stop stating Jones did! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heteren (talk • contribs) 07:15, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Brian's contributions
This is what Brian is most likely to have played on Beggars Banquet:

Sympathy for the Devil - Near inaudible acoustic guitar and backing vocals... this can all be seen in the One Plus One footage.

No Expectations - slide guitar

Dear Doctor - It is either Brian or Dave Mason on harmonica. Dave is sometimes credited with playing acoustic guitar on this track, but there is only one heard on the outakes and the released version, but if he is supposed to have been present then perhaps he plays the harmonica.

Parachute Woman - Brian plays the harmonica(mixed fairly low) throughout the song, but Mick Jagger plays the loud wailing end part. Brian's playing can still be heard at this point as well though.

Jigsaw Puzzle - The strange whining sound heard on the left channel is Brian playing a MKII Mellotron with the flute sound plus lashings of echo.

It has been mentioned elsewhere that this is a moog synthesizer played by Bill Wyman, but The Rolling Stones did not buy one until September 1968(see link below) which was used by Mick on the soundtrack for the Kenneth Anger film Invocation of my Demon Brother the same moog was also used on the soundtrack for the film Performance and can actually be seen in the film.

[IMG]http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f395/sundaramusic/The%20Rolling%20Stones/stonesmoogpurchase.jpg[/IMG]

Street Fighting Man - Brain plays both sitar and tamboura, there is clear sonic evidence of multi tracking with regards to these instruments.

The sitar can be heard on the right channel mixed in the with the distorted acoustic guitars. It sounds like it was recorded as per Keith's description through the philips tape machine.

[IMG]http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f395/sundaramusic/Philips%20cassette%20recorder%201967/DSC03013.jpg[/IMG]

"The basic track of that was done on a mono cassette with very distorted overrecording, on a Phillips with no limiters. Brian is playing sitar, it twangs away. He's holding notes that wouldn't come through if you had a board, you wouldn't be able to fit it in. But on a cassette if you just move the people, it does. Cut in the studio and then put on a tape. Started putting percussion and bass on it. That was really an electronic track, up in the realms." - Keith Richards, 1971

listen closely and you can hear the the sitar from very early on before the singing begins at 00.5 secs The sitar also plays the same melody as the piano after the chorus's. It can actually be heard throughout the entire track if you listen close enough.

The tamboura is on the right channel, appearing during the chorus's and the piano motifs which follow them.

Prodigal Son - Brian plays the harmonica that you can hear in the background.

Stray Cat Blues - MKII Mellotron with the (saxophone, trombone, trumpet) mixed brass sound. He is heard from the just after the first chorus(on the right channel) playing jarring chords similar to his playing on We Love You, then more reserved playing for the fade out.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..

Brian does not play the slide heard on Jigsaw Puzzle or Salt of the Earth, that is without a doubt Keith Richards playing. Nicky Hopkins or Dave Mason play the MKII Mellotron on Factory Girl, using the rarely heard mandolin sound, yes that is a mellotron! Rick Grech of Family(who Dave was producing at the time) plays Violin on the song.

So, Brian is possibly on 8 of the 10 tracks on Beggars Banquet!

.................................................................................................... No matter what Keith Richards says: the sitar played by Jones is a tamboura. It is much like a sitar, but it has no drone strings and no frets, so you can not play a melody with it. And that's exactly what you hear: drones at the end of every chorus and at the fade out. The shehani is played by Dave Mason:

It was a very strange time in France. But not only in France but also in America, because of the Vietnam War and these endless disruptions.... I wrote a lot of the melody and all the words, and Keith and I sat around and made this wonderful track, with Dave Mason playing the shehani on it live. It's a kind of Indian reed instrument a bit like a primitive clarinet. It comes in at the end of the tune. It has a very wailing, strange sound.

- Mick Jagger, 1995

About the slide guitar of Jigsaw Puzzle: To my ears it is signature Keith. The only support that I have for this, is the statements by Bill Wyman, Jimmy Miller and Mick Jagger that Brian only played harmonica, some "keyboard" and acoustic guitar on the album, but clearly no electric guitar. Also, there's about 30 takes of outtakes from the March 1968 session, and Keith is experimenting with the slide melody that shows up on the final released version. And again, it sound way too freaky to be Brian. Brian was a slide master, and I just don't see him playing such a rough slide. Someone who'se not a great slide player would play something like this: great but freaky. But nobody has proof written in stone. Also, it certainly is NOT a lap steel slide. You can hear the slide touching the strings when you listen through headphones, so it simply can't be a lap steel. Last, the whining sound is a Moog synthesizer (you can clearly hear that), and Wyman has stated various times that he was the one "playing" it. The notes are way too long to be from a recorder, you simply would choke halfway.

The slide in Stray Cat Blues: there is NO slide. So, Keith doesn't play it, Brian doesn't. There is no slide.

Keno's site is an amateuristic website made by a non-musician. The website is poised with mistakes. Much, much better sites are http://www.nzentgraf.de and http://www.timeisonourside.com.

By the way, I am not a Keith Richards fan, I am a Stones fan since 1983.

(Heteren 15:41, 15 February 2006 (UTC))

ps stop abusing this site with your psychotic rants. You allready have been thrown off of all Stones message boards, stop spoiling this site as well.

attention: Keith Richards and Stones fans
You can deny all you want that Jones' wasn't involved in Beggars Banquet, however the evidence is right there:

-a sober, relaxed and content Jones is clearly seen in the "Sympathy For The Devil" film, chatting and smoking with Richards and actively contributing to the song; he isn't lying around on the floor, or slumped in his chair or "out of it". He was active contributor throughout the sessions for Beggars Banquet. After the lacklustre reaction to "Their Satanic Majesties Request", Jones urged Jagger and Richards to get back to their blues roots and focus on big rock riffs.

-after his first drug bust in 1967, Jones vowed to avoid drugs and was extremely paranoid if those around him had drugs in their possession: he spent a night in jail and was shaken by the experience; the police continually harrassed him and he could not fathom spending another night in prison

-Jones is all over Beggars Banquet; the Jones "touch" does not appear on "Let It Bleed", however Beggars is completely different: it is, in fact, Jones playing a recorder with a delay effect throughout "Jigsaw Puzzle"; it is, in fact Jones playing a steel lap guitar on the same song - this has been acknowledged by Glyn Johns; Jimmy Miller wanted Jones involved on this album and suceeded in doing so; the slide playing is not sloppy whatsoever on "Jigsaw Puzzle" - it is a mirror of Jones' playing style on "Little Red Rooster" - there is no way in hell that Keith Richards could play either song. Richards has admitted that he is a poor slide player and that he never enjoyed playing it.

-Keith Richards said in his 1971 interview with Rolling Stone magazine that Jones played a sitar on "Street Fighting Man" - deal with it.

Now just deal with it: Brian Jones fans are editing this page, supporting our information with the facts, facts from books, quotes and statements by people who were there.

If you can't accept that, too bad.

Oh and go talk to Keno at http://www.keno.org/Home.html

He knows MORE about the Stones than any of us.

Yeah Keno knows all. Sure. And while you're at it, have him check the dates for the BJ article. There's mention there of him sitting in on sessions for this recording a year later. I'd do the research myself but I can't be bothered - the Stones just aren't important enough. Cheers.

Comment
Can someone divide the tracks into the sides. For example, Track 1 on Side A, so on.--Theblackgecko 21:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Why not the toilet bathroom album cover image?
--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 00:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering this myself, as I am led to believe that the bathroom cover is the official one and R.S.V.P. is the initially rejected cover that is missing from below. Certainly, the edition I own has the bathroom scene. 82.41.10.26 (talk) 16:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

History section...
How do I know a word of it is true? No citations, a fair amount of non-NPOV, why should I believe it? Buster 17:34, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
 * We don't know, I'm afraid. There's no references. -- Mikeblas (talk) 07:50, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The name?
Isn't the name of the album a bit strange? I figured it should be Beggar's Banquet / Beggars' Banquet according to proper grammar. Does anyone know the story behind this? -- DeclinedShadow(Talk) 21:45, 16 August 2008 (UTC+2)

I guess it refers to "Die Dreigroschenoper" aka Beggar's Opera. Most famous is the Bertolt Brecht version. The opera is a satire about the segregation in society, which is why, I guess, the Stones used the name. Mr Oolf (talk) 16:08, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

30 second run-length change in re-master
"Due to an error in the mastering, Beggars Banquet was heard for over thirty years at a slower speed than it was recorded. This had the effect of altering not only the tempo of each song, but the song's key as well. These differences were subtle but important, and the remastered version is about 30 seconds shorter than the original release."

This is but a 1.23 per-cent difference. This would shift A=440 to A=434.6, or about 15 cents flat; a minor third (very roughly). But all this is in the same relation internally throughout the instruments, so it pretty much sticks together; especially seeing as how, since not all songs are going to be in the same key, that this 15 cents is not constant across the album. It's like playing with the pitch control on your turntable -- a very subtle difference.

And the 1 1/4 percent change in song lengths (around 1/2 a second per minute of song) is going to be even less of a big deal.

So... not sure it's really worth mentioning except as a bit of marketing by the label. Especially in light of the fact the commercial radio stations squish and stretch songs to a much greater extent than this on a regular basis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Its1110 (talk • contribs) 03:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 09:21, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

There are unlinked song pages
My screenshot from last year shows links for every song except Prodigal Son, and those pages still exist if you type in, for example, "Jigsaw_Puzzle" to the URL. Not sure why the links have been removed. The Jigsaw Puzzle page has the yellow marking about its imperfections but it has a lot of good information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevintimba (talk • contribs) 06:35, 14 January 2020 (UTC)