Live Licks

Live Licks is a 2004 double CD by the Rolling Stones, their ninth official live album. Coming six years after No Security, it features performances from the 2002–2003 Licks Tour in support of the career-spanning, fortieth anniversary retrospective Forty Licks. The album includes "an entire side of songs never before recorded live", and features only one song recorded after 1981's Tattoo You ("You Don't Have to Mean It" from Bridges to Babylon).

History

The first CD contains "the familiar classics" while the second features "some covers, b-sides and album tracks from the more obscure end of their back catalogue".

Sheryl Crow appears on "Honky Tonk Women", while Solomon Burke sings on his own "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love", which the Rolling Stones originally covered on The Rolling Stones No. 2 in 1965.

The Rolling Stones released two subtly different versions of cover art for Live Licks. While both feature a woman astride the Rolling Stones logo's tongue, in the British version she has no bikini top.

Unlike all their previous live albums, Live Licks features virtually none of the band's recent compositions, and includes only one track which was released in the preceding two decades. In all there are nine songs from the 1960s, eight from the 1970s, three from the 1980s (all from Tattoo You), one from the 1997 release Bridges to Babylon, and two previously unreleased covers.

Reception

Live Licks peaked at No. 38 in the UK Albums Chart, and No. 50 in the US, becoming a gold record on 9 December 2004, according to the RIAA.^{[^ʌ3]}

The BBC suggested that "even for cynics it demonstrates how potent they remain as a live act, despite not frightening the horses as much these days". It concluded that, "[like] Bowie, the Stones may no longer be churning out hits but they still know how to mount a spectacle, as this release amply proves."

David Fricke wrote that "Live Licks is the Stones' first live album since Ya-Ya’s to earn a spot next to my best soundboard and broadcast boots. One good reason: a bright, hard mix that nails the Stones' matured vigor onstage".

Track listing

Personnel

The Rolling Stones

Mick Jagger – lead vocals, harmonica, guitar on "When the Whip Comes Down", percussion on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking", keyboards on "Worried About You"
Keith Richards – guitars, backing vocals on "Honky Tonk Women", lead vocals on "Happy", "The Nearness of You" and "You Don't Have to Mean It"
Ron Wood – guitars, piano on "You Don't Have To Mean It"
Charlie Watts – drums

Additional musicians

Darryl Jones – bass guitar
Chuck Leavell – keyboards, backing vocals
Bernard Fowler – backing vocals, percussion, keyboards on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking"
Lisa Fischer – backing vocals, percussion on "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," and “Gimme Shelter”
Blondie Chaplin – backing vocals, percussion, acoustic guitar on "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", electric guitar on "You Don't Have To Mean It"
Bobby Keys – saxophone
Andy Snitzer – saxophone, keyboards
Michael Davis – trombone
Kent Smith – trumpet

Special guest musicians