Rolling Stones' 'Black and Blue' Super Deluxe Box Set: Review

There’s a moment deep in the 1975 “Blues Jam” the Rolling Stones recorded with Jeff Beck , a bonus track to the new super deluxe Black and Blue box set, where the six-string genius stops playing Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, and Keith Richards –style blues and starts fiddling with his instrument’s volume knobs to resemble a crying cat. It sounds transcendent and unlike anything else the Stones recorded, and that is likely why they didn’t hire the virtuoso to replace Mick Taylor, who’d quit a few months earlier over a lack of satisfaction with songwriting credits, among other gripes. Beck was just too good, too inventive for Stonehood, and, as history proved for both Beck and the Stones, he was never cut out to be a Stone anyway since he largely refused to join any band that would have