48 years ago today, five years to the day after releasing Sticky Fingers, the Rolling Stones release Black and Blue. It’s far from their greatest album, but it’s one I return to every now and then. Here’s my original copy, with that beautiful custom label with the photo of the moon above Sanibel Island in Florida:

The standout songs on Black And Blue rank amongst the Stones’ best, among them “Hand of Fate,” “Fool to Cry” “Crazy Mama,” and the sublime “Memory Motel.” Black And Blue is well-known as the lead guitarist audition album, recorded with potential replacements for Mick Taylor who quit the band a year earlier. Both Rory Gallagher and Jeff Beck jammed with the Stones, but weren’t interested enough to put their solo careers on ice. Beck said “in two hours I got to play three chords. I need a little more energy than that.” Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton’s names were mentioned as well. American guitarists Wayne Perkins and Harvey ‘The Snake’ Mandel auditioned and have appearances on Black And Blue, along with the man who got the job, Ronnie Wood. The group didn’t appear to think too highly of the album, not performing much from Black And Blue over the years. Their cover of Eric Donaldson’s 1971 reggae hit “Cherry Oh Baby” made the setlists at the time, but other tracks like “Hand of Fate” and “Memory Motel” wouldn’t be played live until the ’90’s. It took till 2022 before “Fool to Cry” made an appearance:

All in all, Black And Blue is a more than decent album. Another album, however, released on the very same day in 1976, has become one of the most influential recordings in history. Its impact may not have been predicted based on the commercial acceptance, peaking at #111 in Billboard and selling approximately 6,000 copies in it’s first year. It took 38 years, until 2014, for it to achieve Gold status. If you haven’t figured it out yet, the album we’re writing about:

Ramones, their debut album, released April 23, 1976, has become the Rock and Roll ‘Shot heard ’round the world.’ 14 songs, clocking in at a total 29:04, with 13 originals and a cover of Chris Montez’s “Let’s Dance.” Perfection. The group recorded the album over one week at Plaza Sound, on the 8th floor of the building above Radio City Music Hall. Three days for the tracks, four days for the vocals, with a cost to Sire Records of $6,400. The cover photo, snapped by Roberta Bayley in a community garden between the Bowery and 2nd Street, costing $125, was first published in Punk, a music fanzine. The group were huge Beatles fans, naming the band in homage to Paul McCartney who used the name Paul Ramon when The Beatles played in Hamburg. The Ramones were such fans that they incorporated recording techniques used by The Beatles, from mic placements to doubling the lead vocals. They also went with a four-track mix reminiscent of early Beatles, with the bass on the left, rhythm guitar on the right, drums and vocals down the middle.

The reviews were overall glowing. John Rockwell of The New York Times wrote “the effect in the end amounts to an abstraction of rock so pure that other associations get left behind.” Robert Christgau wrote in The Village Voice “”For me, it blows everything else off the radio: it’s clean the way the New York Dolls never were, sprightly the way The Velvet Underground never were, and just plain listenable the way Black Sabbath never was.” CREEM Magazine called Ramones “the most radical album of the past six years. It is so strikingly different, so brazenly out of touch with prevailing modes as to constitute a bold swipe at the status quo.” In England, the impact was seismic. Nick Kent said in the New Musical Express “this record poses a direct threat to any vaguely sensitive woofer and/or tweeter lodged in your hi-fi.” The subject matter of the songs included everything from drug use, to Nazism, violence, and male prostitution. The album birthed a genre: Punk Rock. Bands such as Black Flag, The Clash, Misfits, Generation X, and The Damned have all cited the impact. Punk legend Tony James said “everybody went up three gears the day they got that first Ramones album. Punk Rock—that rama-lama super fast stuff—is totally down to the Ramones.” Every song on the album has been covered. Among those to pay tribute with covers: Metallica, U2, Pete Yorn, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Rob Zombie. In 2012, Ramones was selected for preservation by The National Recording Registry, calling the album “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant.” Indeed.

Here they are just five days before the release, April 18, 1976 at Max’s Kansas City, playing “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” and “53rd & 3rd”:

I asked artist Leslie Goldman about The Ramones. She saw them nearly 70 times, and drove a member of her family nuts by playing her Ramones albums just a few times over and over…and over. Leslie came up with a selection of songs she considers among their best, though not necessarily their best-known work. So, Today’s Playlist is a Leslie/SomethingIsHappening compendium of The Ramones, in honor of their debut album released 48 years ago today:

For more on Leslie Goldman’s amazing work and practice, check out her site Wild Cherry Art: http://wildcherryart.com

#Ramones #RollingStones #PaulMcCartney #Beatles #PunkRock #CBGB #TheDamned #Misfits #GenerationX #Metallica #BlitzkriegBop #CREEM #WildCherryArt