Ryan Adams is no stranger to covering albums, having dropped a full (and pretty bloody decent) tribute to Taylor Swift’s 1989 back in 2015. However, the alt-country muso has decided to beef things up again, performing a full cover of The Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main St. over the weekend.
As Stereogum reports, Ryan Adams took to the stage at the New Orleans’ Jazz Fest on Saturday night, just one week shy of the 46th anniversary of Exile On Main St., to perform the classic album in full.
The event, which was titled ‘Exile On Bourbon Street’, saw Ryan Adams joined by Todd Wisenbaker on guitar, Cyril Neville of the Neville Brothers on percussion, Medeski Martin & Wood’s John Medeski on piano, and Don Was, a longtime producer of The Rolling Stones, on bass duties.
The performance saw Ryan Adams transform the rock classic into a jam-fest, with prolonged guitar solos, and Adams’ signature touch being added into the mix.
While ‘Sweet Black Angel’ didn’t get a look-in (potentially due to its controversial topic and lyrics), Adams did treat fans to a couple of extra tunes in the encore, including ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ from 1971’s Sticky Fingers, and ‘The Worst’, from 1994’s Voodoo Lounge.
Exile On Main St. was released back in May of 1972 after being recording the previous year while The Rolling Stones were living in France as tax exiles. Touching on a wide variety of topics and themes while utilising a number of musical styles, the album has often been considered by many music critics as one of the group’s finest works, and one of the greatest albums of all time.
Even Don Was expressed his enthusiasm of the record when Ryan Adams announced the project back in March. “I’ve listened to all the multi-track tapes from the Exile period and it’s not hyperbolic to say that this is probably the greatest rock ‘n roll ever recorded,” Was said at the time.
Check out Ryan Adams’ ‘Exile On Bourbon Street’ performance below:
