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13-18 May 1968: Place: Olympic Sound Studios, London,
England.
Producer: Jimmy Miller.
Engineer: Glyn Johns.
Track status: UK LP BEGGARS BANQUET: 6 December 1968: No 3 - 12
weeks
USA LP BEGGARS BANQUET: 7 December 1968: No 5 - 13 weeks
Rolling Stones with Nicky Hopkins, Dave Mason.
A certain maturity is displayed in this musical
interpretation of a 'down in Virginia' country music song, played
unusually in waltz-time. Dear Doctor was very much a comical song
which all the band contributed to, suggesting suitable lyrics. Again,
it was an easy song to record in a booze-up type atmosphere. Mick
Jagger practises his newly acquired affected drawl and illustrates
an amusing scene of despair and happiness. A wedding is set for
a poor unfortunate to a bow-legged, sow of a woman. Bourbon cannot
drown the feeling of the wedding day and as he searches in his wedding
suit pocket for the ring he finds a note which says the sow has
run off with his cousin. There follow tears of relief - the doctor
can put away his stethoscope; the blood pressure is now under control.
The story was typically fashioned around the irony of the blues,
a depressing but most up-lifting music form, a strange dichotomy
derived from ethnic roots. The musical quality on the original album
version is superb. Listen to the harmonica, the tack piano and the
stunning 12 string acoustic guitar - one of the contributors was
Dave Mason on guitar. There are about three out-takes, one with
a slightly different faster tempo, different lead vocals and without
backing vocals and one take with less piano. Another, Mick Jagger's
vocals employ a straight approach rather than the high pitched delivery
to the 'Darling I'm so sorry to hurt you' verse.
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