The Rolling Stones – The Rolling Stones On Air

This should have been a classic release. BBC sessions are always great and this is no exception. The only real problem is the fake stereo! Why just why to record companies do this??? The fake stereo sounds fucking awful. Put it in mono when you play it and you’ll be so much happier, promise!!

Crank back the Rock Clock to '63 until '65 and you have some all "LIVE" Stones music recorded at the BBC...No stadium noise, just the straight forward Stones music pumping on all thirty-two cuts on this double VINYL package...Want early roots of the band? You got it all right here in a clean audio sound format...And they even throw up some stuff you would not think they would play like Bobby Troup's "Route 66"...Lay back and set these two LP's on your TT...Enjoy!

Definitely an amazing album documenting early live Stones. Impressed with Blue & Lonesome and Hackney Diamonds, I've been playing my Stones albums in chronological order. Nothing older than these radio broadcasts from the beginning.n

Bought from Sound of Vinyl for $11 shipping. Great sounding album. Flat, quiet, balanced.

A good addition to any Rolling Stones collection.

Surprised I was by last year’s release by The Rolling Stones, a return to their roots with the album Blue & Lonesome, and since they’ve never a band who was shy to capitalize on anything left over, even from the cutting room floor, here we are, presented with On Air, revealing a look at the band through their 1960’s BBC radio sessions.

All of the material is early, recorded between 1963 and 1965, at the height of Rolling Stone and Beatle-mania, just before the world was ushered into the realm of Sgt. Pepper, and all that would follow, meaning that what you’re getting in this package is a taste of The Rolling Stones at their blues and cover song best. While looking back, it’s makes me sad that television appearances were never considered as historically significant in any manner, to be broadcast once or twice, with the tape then being recorded over and used again, thus so much of the visuals from those heydays was lost for all time … but still, the BBC shows such as Top Gear, The Saturday Club and others remained as part of the BBC library, after all the BBC saves everything, and now we have a chance to listen back to some of the sounds that sparked the fires.

Most notable is that we’re provided with a glimpse into what The Stones sounded like live, after all, while the television shows allowed for lip-syncing, live radio did not, and it’s all delivered without the screaming audience, with several of the tracks recorded mere days before The Stones embarked on their first tour. Yet this wasn’t a one off deal, with The Stones recording over a two year time span, so one gets to hear them develop a style and presentation that would define who The Rolling Stones were for all time. What’s particularly perplexing to me is that there is no sequential order to what’s been laid down here, and it would certainly have been more significant to hear a linear timeline of chords, vocals, harmonies and guitars develop and change over those years.

I still haven’t made up my mind as to whether the process of audio source separation, which involves the un-mixing or de-mixing of the original transcript to give greater depth and balance by enhancing and rebuilding the tapes to give a more clean defined and substantial quality to their sound … perhaps some things should be left as they were and heard within that context, though this presentation undoubtedly delivers a more sonically fueled atmosphere.

Oddly enough, there are two versions of this outing, one containing 32 tracks, while the other a mere 18, though you will be treated to at least eight songs that The Stones never committed to record, and those are a delight.

Both The Beatles and The Rolling Stones had their beginnings, beginnings that are really not that significant for the most part, while The Beatles came into their own with Rubber Soul, it was the album Aftermath that stepped The Stones into their formal place in history, so, the cover material you’re getting here was certainly done better by others, yet there are some delicious defining moments that make this collection worth your while.

Review by Jenell Kesler