The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet from 1968 is one of the seminal albums in rock history. Arguably it not only marks the advent of the ‘mature’ sound of the Rolling Stones but lays out a new blueprint for an approach to blues-based rock music that would endure for several decades.

From its title to the dark themes that pervade some of its songs, "Beggars Banquet" reflected and helped define a moment marked by violence, decay, and upheaval. It marked a move away from the artistic sonic flourishes of psychedelic rock towards an embrace of foundational streams of American music – blues, country – that had always underpinned the music of the Stones but assumed new primacy in their music after 1968. This move coincided with, and anticipated, the ‘roots’ moves that many leading popular music artists made as the 1960s turned toward a new decade; but unlike many of their peers whose music grew more ‘soft’ and subdued as they embraced traditional styles, the music and attitude of the Stones only grew harder and more menacing, and their status as representatives of the dark underside of the 60s rock counterculture assumed new solidity. For the Rolling Stones, the 1960s ended and the 1970s began with the release of this album in 1968.

"Beggars Banquet and the Rolling Stones’ Rock & Roll Revolution: They Call My Name Disturbance" was released in hardcover and kindle through Routledge in December of 2019. On August 2nd, Routledge will release the book in paperback through routledge dot com.

Editor Russell Reising is Professor of American Literature and Asian Studies at University of Toledo, has published widely on topics in American literature, literary criticism, popular music, and psychedelia, and he edited “Every Sound There Is”: The Beatles’ Revolver and the Transformation of Rock and and “Speak to Me”: The Legacy of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, both from Ashgate.

Purchase a copy through Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/Beggars-Banquet-and-the-Rolling-Stones-Rock-and-Roll-Revolution-They/Reising/p/book/9781032082431


Songs Discussed In This Episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2vx93jiS83pftwV1Mqcuwc?si=c1a2143301544c05


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