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1-4 December; 15 December 1969; March - May 1970:
Place: Muscle Shoals, Alabama, USA; Rolling Stones Mobile, Stargroves,
Newbury; Olympic Sound Studios, London, England.
Producer: Jimmy Miller. Andy Johns, Chris Kimsey.
Engineer: Glyn Johns, Jimmy Johnson.
Track status: UK LP STICKY FINGERS: 23 April 1971: No 1 - 25 weeks
USA LP STICKY FINGERS: 23 April 1971: No 1 - 26 weeks
Shortly after the end of the US tour in Florida,
the Stones decided to record two recently written compositions and
one cover at the infamous home of southern soul music, the Muscle
Shoals Studio in 'sweet home' Alabama. An engineer was asked to
check it out in advance to ensure it reached a good standard. You
Gotta Move is the cover; a short, simplistic tune written by a blues
gospel artist 'Mississippi' Fred McDowell. It had been part of the
set-list for the tour and as such was familiar. The song contains
a languid steel slide guitar and the singular pounding of a bass
drum. Bill Wyman plays electric piano. The gospel image is intensified
as the whole band sing along camp-fire style. An out-take does not
have the over-dubbed bass drum and has more backing vocals. Despite
the apparent simplicity of the tune, it took the Stones numerous
attempts before the final master was made. This is the first mention
of Andy Johns, Glyn Johns brother who worked as a tape operator
at Olympic during the late 'sixties had worked with Free, Mott The
Hoople, Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, Stevie Winwood before his
career took off in 1970 with engineering and mixing Led Zeppelin
III. He went on to record with the Stones but in particular engineered
the EXILE sessions in France. Talking of engineers, another future
Stones producer was credited on this track. Chris Kimsey was an
assistant engineer at the time and his first major project was working
on this before later in the year with Ten Years After again collaborating
with Andy Johns. He was to make a more fundamental contribution
in the late 'seventies and early 'eighties.
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