Keith Richards once said of his Rolling stones bandmate/life partner/rival Mick Jagger that “He’s rock, I’m roll.” One never wants to doubt the wisdom of a man who snorted his dad’s ashes, but one might argue that the opposite is true. Richards, in every possible sense of the word, is rock. Solid. Unchangeable. He goes where his momentum takes him without a care in the world. Jagger, always shifting and always trying to keep up with the times, is the roll.
The best example of this comes from their relationship with reggae music. Jagger hasn’t just loved the genre for decades, he’s also tried to get involved with it. It’s not for nothing that the Stones’ 1972 album Goats Head Soup was recorded in Jamaica and since then, he went on to sign Wailers guitarist Peter Tosh to his own Rolling Stones Records and even own a house in Ocho Rios.
Richards is also an admitted fan, but in terms of his own band’s relationship with the genre, Jagger puts it best. “We started to play reggae beats, and the rest of them picked it up. I’m sure Keith would say something different.” Nonetheless, Jagger’s devotion to the genre is honest, even if it can be a little cringe.
See his apocalyptically stoned performance of ‘Don’t Look Back’ with the aforementioned Tosh on The Old Grey Whistle Test for proof. As this list of his favorite reggae songs of all time show, he absolutely knows his stuff, an eclectic mix of reggae standards and deep cuts. One might also see how he cheated on the list. The number one entry is a combination of three Bob Marley songs.
To be fair, picking a favorite Bob Marley song is like picking a favorite child. They’re all intensely lovable in their own way, and acting like any of them are “objectively better” just ruins it slightly. However, like picking a favorite child, many people can, and Jagger’s three are pretty undeniable.
First up is ‘Get Up, Stand Up’, comfortably one of the most iconic songs in the genre. Much like how any discussion of the greatest Stones songs has to include a ‘Satisfaction’ or a ‘Sympathy For The Devil’, it’s an inarguable entrant to any list of Marley’s greatest moments, no matter how overplayed it may be.
Next up are two tracks that may actually be justified in merging into one. The deathless ‘War’ and the stirring ‘No More Trouble’ are two songs with the same soul. So much so that Marley and The Wailers mashed them up all the time in concert, see the one featured on the 1978 live album Babylon By Bus (casually one of the best live albums ever made, by the way).
No doubt about Jagger’s taste in that case. In fact, his fandom for the great man was so intense that he ended up forming a band with his son! It’s true, he and Marley’s youngest son Damian were part of Dave Stewart’s supergroup SuperHeavy along with Joss Stone and film composer A.R Rahman. Unfortunately, the less said about their actual music, the better, but that’s Jagger all over. Always looking for something new and exciting, no matter what the outcome might be.
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