The Rolling Stones and Philosophy_ It's Just a Thought Away - Luke Dick [64]
So, for thirty-odd years (and they certainly were odd years), the other four Stones were a constant, although their recording process often did not reflect the live line-up, even from the beginning. Some of the more memorable recordings may lack one or another member of the magic circuit. Keith is generally on all the good records, but Charlie and Bill aren’t always, although the results seem indistinguishable from the core group. That’s probably because the other drummers or bass players are generally playing “the sort of thing” Charlie or Bill would play, and not introducing a foreign element into the Stones’ sound, but reveling in being a contributor to that distinctive sound.
Yet, the permanent departure of Bill Wyman in 1992 seems to have weakened the circuit, if my perceptions are at all trustworthy. I’m not finding their stuff since then quite as satisfying, to say it as Whitehead might. The power still flows through, but I don’t think the Stones could have done what they did without the full rhythm section, and I would claim that the special something-or-other they possess as a trio, is the It that Is, when all three quanta become components connected in series—and the series is Keith-Charlie-Bill, in that order; data-synthesis-satisfaction. More on that in a minute.
And here I’m going to go out on a limb. I think that even without Mick Jagger, this would have been a famous rock band, if not at all the same band. The reason has to do with what happens when Keith, Charlie, and Bill strike a groove. Mick is more like the light bulb or the box fan (or any other dirty, pretty thing you might plug in) that actually draws the current and “works” when it is flowing. Mick isn’t pulling the power down from the air, he’s just using it on its way to the ground. He’s a symbol of what’s happening in the rhythm section, and he is, as a Stone, the presentation of the rhythm section’s causal effect on the world. Mick’s musicality, his delivery, his showmanship, even his athleticism, is pretty much fluff when he tries to plug himself into any other circuit. He can’t adorn just any musicians hooked up in series, at least not with the same depth and meaning. And unlike David Bowie, whom Mick has apparently always envied a bit (if Keith is to be believed), Mick is not a musical force unto himself. He has to have the Stones to strut his stuff and make us all believe it.
Some people can do the whole thing alone, like Elvis or Robert Johnson, or some can do it with almost anyone, like Chuck Berry. There’s no denying Mick Jagger is a natural front man, a visible presentation of what jumps across the abyss from being nothing to becoming “It,” from one moment to the next. Alone, Mick just isn’t very “important,” to use Whitehead’s word for it. But put him in front of Keith-Charlie-Bill, and at least one other guitar player who “gets It,” he becomes one of the most important interpreters of the existence and meaning of “It” who has ever lived. I don’t know whether he chafes at being dependent on that circuit or not, but I can certainly see that he isn’t the cause of the cool, even if he is just the right dirty, pretty thing to spring into view as soon as Keith hits the first chord. Don’t get me wrong. They aren’t The Stones without Mick, by any stretch, and I wouldn’t change a hair on their graying heads, but Keith-Charlie-Bill surely would have been a famous band without him.
And, as Whitehead says, the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts, even when all the parts are functional alone, as in the Beatles, and even though clearly each component has its own energy supply. But then sometimes you have the thing that only works when it’s hooked up in series, just so, like the Stones. So, structurally and functionally, The Stones are a bit like lithium, with three inseparable