By now, many of us have the new Rolling Stones album “Hackney Diamonds” in our sticky fingers.
It’s been hailed as a return to form for the World’s Greatest Rock Band, and their best album since the late 1970s. Meanwhile, Mick and Keef bring the band’s career full circle with a faithful blues cover of Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ Stone” (here called “Rolling Stone Blues”).
But don’t sleep on another Jagger record out this weekend (maybe): Another version of the Mick Jagger/Red Devils 1992 session, this one called “The Blues Session: Classic Recordings From the 90’s.”
It’s hard telling what is substantially different on this bootleg from this version. Or this version. Or this one. Or that one.
We can say the cover to this latest bootleg is the first time we have seen an attempt at creating an uncropped/colorized version of the well known Jagger/Devils photo from the Borderline in London in 1993. This cover photo shows some awkward hands, a distorted “Borderline” logo (compare it to this image) and uniformly flat coloring — all signs of some A.I. trickery!
But the important thing is the music inside. And while “Hackney Diamonds” continues to thrill critics, they still save room for the Mick Jagger/Red Devils 1992 blues session.
Ultimate Classic Rock recently named that album to its “Top 40 Unfinished or Unreleased Rock Albums” list. Here’s what UCR’s Allison Rapp has to say:
If there’s one thing Mick Jagger knows, it’s the blues. That connected him with a Los Angeles band called the Red Devils, who were also working with his Wandering Spirit producer Rick Rubin. Jagger briefly put his solo record on hold in order to record a blues album with them at Ocean Way Recording studio. The Red Devils were purportedly paid a flat fee of $750 for the session, and recorded more than a dozen songs. Bassist Jonny Ray Bartel said Jagger aimed to “just nail it down really quick and let’s see what we get.” The only thing ever officially released was “Checkin’ Up on My Baby,” which appeared on 2007’s The Very Best of Mick Jagger compilation.
Sir Mick and the boys sit comfortably on an alphabetical lineup that includes very few surprises (Beatles and Beach Boys, Springsteen, Nirvana, Prince, Bee Gees and CSN).
So add a “top 40 unfinished album” to the list of great accolades for The Red Devils and sometime member Mick Jagger:
The greatest music never sold.
The greatest album you’ll never hear.
The greatest band you’ve never heard.
Top photo: Mick Jagger (center) and The Red Devils (Bill Bateman, Dave Lee Bartel, Jonny Ray Bartel, Paul Size and Lester Butler) at the Borderline club in London, circa 1993.
More on NoFightin.com:
- Gorgeous Red Devils/Mick Jagger bootleg 45 appears
- London’s Borderline club forever tied to Red Devils’ myth
- Photos: Jagger joins The Red Devils onstage
- Paul Size got robbed at Mick Jagger’s birthday party. Then Dave Lee stepped in
- ‘Saint Mick’ gathers his Devils in the studio, 1992
- Rick Rubin: ‘I hope Mick Jagger/Red Devils comes out’
No Fightin' 
