Stones and Steels

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

Finishing up a chapter on the Rolling Stones and country music (way out of my musicological element here!) The editors brought to my attention an early take of "Heart of Stone" with pedal steel (recorded in 1964, released a decade later on the LP Metamorphosis).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lemte9tBXyI

I went looking for info on who might have played steel. Since Jimmie Page is known to have played on the track, the best guess out there is that he played steel too. (Page did play some pedal steel later with Zeppelin.) This would fit with the extreme pitchiness in the solo (@ 1:49); sounds like someone doing a good imitation of c. 1964 E9 steel styles, but who doesn't really play pedal steel.

My searching led me to this Forum post from a dozen years ago, which brings up another curiosity. (https://steelguitarforum.com/Forum15/HTML/010296.html) In the post, Bob Carlucci insists that there is, in fact, a recording of the Stones doing "Wild Horses" with Sneaky Pete on steel, not the well-known Burrito Brothers' version.
I had never heard it before, and I don't think Youtube had been around long enough yet in 2005 to rely on for finding it, but here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_dU-clef_0

Anyone know anything more definitive about who was playing steel on that 1964 alternate take of "Heart of Stone"?

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

Bob: it occurs to me that this might better belong under Steel Players. Please feel free to move it.

[Doug Beaumier]

I don't know who's playing steel on "Heart of Stone" but his solo is incredibly out of tune. Either he's playing flat/sharp or the guitar/pedals are out of tune, or maybe it's both. It's painful to listen to.

[Jack Hanson]

Whatever I know about anything would hardly be definitive, but here's a wild guess:

Brian Jones thought he could play about every instrument under the sun, and gave many a noble attempt. Perhaps he somehow got his hands on a pedal steel?

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

A little more digging, and it seems one print source claims it was Big Jim Sullivan (no, not Murphy). Turns out there are several tracks from a session in '64 with (not very good) steel, all released on Metamorphosis. Like Page, Sullivan is listed as a participant in those sessions.

Listening right now to Page on Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine." The tuning is better, but I could imagine this is the same player (with ten years to figure out how to play more in tune). But, Page said in an interview that his use of psg on Led Zeppelin I was the first time he touched the instrument, so....

I any case, I can't find any other mention of Sullivan playing steel. He did get heavily into sitar in the late sixties, so the same logic Jack applied to Brian Jones could apply here.

[Danny Letz]

Doug, perhaps there was some liquid, powdered or vaporized note bender envolved?

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

Actually, I think some liquid, powdered or vaporized note bender might have helped ( couldn’t have hurt. Much.)

[Al Evans]

I don't know who's playing steel on "Heart of Stone" but his solo is incredibly out of tune.

I had a hard time hearing anything in there as "in tune". The lead guitar bit at the end was particularly bad. But it's not that much worse than a lot of other rock and folk music recorded then. We're used to near-universal tuning accuracy nowadays. Electronic tuners have made a huge difference in expectations. I often think of those days as "before they invented tuning".

--Al Evans

[Donny Hinson]

Electronic tuners may help you to be in tune, but playing in tune is another matter. If that's really Pete on "Wild Horses", I'd be very surprised.

[Jim Sliff]

There's no way that's Pete on that version of Wild Horses. It sounds nothing like him except for the "Fender-y tone".

It's very possible it's Ron Wood. he was friends with the Stones years before he joined the band in '75. And it sounds just slightly worse than his steel playing does today.

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

I could buy that it's not Sneaky Pete, but it's someone advanced enough to copy his licks and style, which Ron Wood certainly isn't.

[Al Evans]

Electronic tuners may help you to be in tune, but playing in tune is another matter. If that's really Pete on "Wild Horses", I'd be very surprised.

Yeah, but like I say, listen to the out-of-tune guitar at the end.

Actually, now that I think of it, it wasn't unusual in 1964 to use two recorders as a sort of multitrack, and combine tracks later. Varispeed was rare, but the good ones, Ampex et al., all used hysteresis-synchronous motors. So the speeds would match up.

Except if you used one in the US (60 Hz) and one in England (50 Hz).

--Al Evans

[Fred Treece]

That version of Heart Of Stone was recorded in London. Big Jim Sullivan was never credited with playing pedal steel. His second instrument was sitar. It probably wasn’t him. The playing is too good to have been Jimmy Page, although his guitar solo is kinda fun. Cool song. Mick sounds great on it.

How many pedal steelers could there have been in London in 1964? Two or three maybe? Digging around on Wiki, I found a guy named Gordon Huntley who built pedal steels in the UK and became a studio player in the 60’s. Maybe it was him. Or B.J. Cole.

[Pete Burak]

That's about as far back in the cave as you can get it (reverb wise), on Heart Of Stone.
Is it possible Brian Jones took a shot at it?
The solo starting after 1:45 actually sounds similar to the PSG Chuck Berry plays at the end of Hail Hail Rock and Roll.

[Peter Leavenworth]

Hey Dan,
I don't know if you've heard of B.J. Cole but he's an English PS player who started out with a Fender 1000 in the mid-sixties and later became a sought-after session player. He did the cool lead work in Gerry Rafferty's hit "Right Down the Line" in the late '70s. It's probably not him but he was born in 1946.....I wouldn't doubt that it's Brian Jones.

Let me know when you're done with my Stone's book - and I want read your articles as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._J._Cole

https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube ... e&ie=UTF-8

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

B.j. Cole is too good to have ever sounded like this, even when he was just learning. I still contend this is someone who does not play pedal steel that much or that well.

Two of the three tracks were cut on days when only Mick Jagger was there representing the stones, so that rules out the otherwise believable Brian Jones scenario. The only source in print says Big Jim Sullivan, but this would be the only known evidence that he ever played a steel. I still like Jimmie page as the culprit. In an interview from @1980, Page claimed he had never touched a pedal steel before his tracks on the first LZ album. However, given his admitted heavy use of drugs in the 1970s, I'm prepared to imagine he already partook as per normal in the '60s rock scene(read, "heavily") and doesn't necessarily remember everything he did in the mid '60s.

Pete: why don't I bring your book by and have a look at that Mullen?

[Godfrey Arthur]

It was a songwriter demo for other singers. Not completely the Stones. Hence the playing is slack as most demos are, not polished and left that way on purpose.

Allen Klein (dec 2009) who was a business guru for the Stones, Beatles, et al assembled different takes for the Metamorphosis album.

According to an Allmusic write up by Dave Thompson:

"Klein, on the other hand, chose to approach the issue from the songwriting point-of-view, focusing on the wealth of demos for songs that Jagger/Richards gave away (usually to artists being produced by Andrew Oldham) and which, therefore, frequently featured more session men than Rolling Stones."

"During 1964-1965, Mick Jagger and Andrew Oldham headed a session team that also included the likes of arrangers Art Greenslade and Mike Leander, guitarist Jimmy Page, pianist Nicky Hopkins, bassist John Paul Jones, and many more, convened to cut demos for the plethora of songs then being churned out by Jagger and Keith Richards."

The choice was either a compilation by Bill Wyman, the band's (Stones) idea of a compilation to address the bootlegs or the Klein "songwriter's" angle. With the feeling that even if either were released, a fan would be missing the other with the bottom line to be thankful you got anything at all.


This was basically countermeasure to go up against the inevitable bootlegs. It's more historical meant than musical.


Jagger and Klein.

There was a typical artist vs management tiff with him and the Stones. But Klein was the go-to guy for big bucks in the music industry dealing with Mafia connected entities. He was lovingly called the "biggest bastard in the valley."


After Brian Epstein died, John called Klein.

[Joachim Kettner]

This aticle is from '69. It says "his latest acqisition"

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

Certainly sounds like he had never touched one before. I’m moving Big Jim up the leader board.

[Roger Rettig]

I knew Big Jim a little bit and worked a couple of shows, me on steel, him on electric. He took a great interest in my Sho-Bud but never mentioned ever having dabbled in steel playing. In that context, I feel sure that he'd have at least acknowledged that he'd once 'had a go at it'.

In any event, Jim was a spectacularly good musician. If he'd attempted it you can be sure that pitchiness wouldn't have been one of his issues. Any hint of that and he'd have backed off his volume-pedal!

[Fred Treece]

Roger, if anyone around here had a clue who it was it would be you. I love a mystery. No chance it was that Gordon Huntley guy I mentioned?

[Roger Rettig]

No, Fred - Gordon was already a good player when I first took up steel in the early '70s. It's much more likely to be one of the Stones - I did a tour alongside them in 1965 and can attest to the fact that tuning wasn't something that troubled them too much.

[Fred Treece]

LOL... okay, roger that

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

Roger, that does cast serious doubt on Sullivan as the culpr--I mean, player.

Here's the conundrum. Most every one involved at the time indicates that the rolling stones themselves did not play on two of the cuts with pedal steel; only Mick Jagger took part, singing. Again, this is not court certified evidence, so it's possible one of them (likely Jones, I would think) could have added the steel part.

Seems destined to remain a mystery.

[Jeff Mead]

Roger, that does cast serious doubt on Sullivan as the culpr--I mean, player.

Here's the conundrum. Most every one involved at the time indicates that the rolling stones themselves did not play on two of the cuts with pedal steel; only Mick Jagger took part, singing. Again, this is not court certified evidence, so it's possible one of them (likely Jones, I would think) could have added the steel part.

Seems destined to remain a mystery.

It's entirely possible that the steel player was someone the producer brought in that nobody has ever heard of since. It is also possible that he may not have had any idea who Jagger was at the time (even though the Stones had had two #1 singles by that time - depending on exactly when the session was). Or maybe the steel was recorded at a different time from the vocals and so they may be unaware that they even played on a Rolling Stones record.