Track Listing

1. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
2. Down Home Girl
3. You Can't Catch Me
4. Heart Of Stone
5. What A Shame
6. I Need You Baby (Mona)
7. Down The Road Apiece
8. Off The Hook
9. Pain In My Heart
10. Oh Baby (We Got A Good Thing Goin')
11. Little Red Rooster
12. Surprise, Surprise

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6715 in Music
• Released on: 2006-08-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds
• Running time: 36 minutes

CD Description
THE ROLLING STONES, NOW! is a masterpiece of early British R&B, Rolling Stones style. Things start off with a powerful rendition of Solomon Burke's signature tune "Everybody NeedsSomebody To Love". Elsewhere, the Stones take a tour of American music, from Bo Diddley's "Mona", complete with choppy,reverbed guitar, to a slow, churning version of Willie Dixon's blues evergreen "Little Red Rooster", probably the firstversion of the song to feature fuzz bass.
Amid all this esteemed company, though, the standout tracks are the Jagger-Richards originals. With its heartbreaking lyrics and poignant accompaniment, "Heart of Stone" could have been a classic soul ballad appropriated from some great, obscure Americansinger. On "What a Shame", the Stones prove that they don'thave to look to outside sources for their blues. Keith's penetrating slide here, as on "Little Red Rooster", foreshadows greater things to come.

Customer Reviews

Superb
"The Rolling Stones Now!" isn't often mentioned when people talk about the Stones' greatest albums, but in all fairness it should be.
"Now!" is almost uniformly strong from start to finish, including superb covers of "Down The Road Apiece", Bo Diddley's vibrating "Mona", Otis Redding's "Pain In My Heart", and one of the group's best early gems, "Little Red Rooster", a pure blues with wonderful slide guitar playing by Brian Jones (it gave the Stones a #1 single in Britain).

As songwriters, Jagger and Richards were still learning, but they did come up with an American Top 20 hit, the great, soulful "Heart of Stone", as well as the thumping, Chuck Berry-styled rocker "Off The Hook".

"The Rolling Stones Now!" is a muscular slice of blues, rock n' roll and soul music, and a must-own even for moderately serious fans.
4 1/2 stars - highly recommended.

Yet another permutation on the originals
One of my favourite Stones tracks is the five minute version of Everybody Needs Somebody on my old LP (Decca LK4661), so seeing E.N.S. on this CD was reason enough to buy even though some of my other favourites were missing (where are Not Fade Away, I Can't be Satisfied, and I Wanna be Your Man?).
It came, I played it... Aargghh! Here, E.N.S. is a weak, insipid, short version, totally horrible, unlistenable. All the more disappointment, since all the rest of the CD blurb from Andrew Loog Oldham is exactly the same as on my LP, so it is unlikely that what I would consider the proper UK version (The Rolling Stones 2 as LK4661) will be released.
The rest of the CD is OK; You Can't Catch me, Mona, and Down Home Girl are as excellent as ever, but I still feel somehow cheated by this US version.

...and then
The third Rolling Stones US album follows the same pattern as its predecessor: r&b covers mixed in with the fledgling Jagger/Richards originals. It includes some tracks from the second UK album plus one from the first and a few from the band's singles. I'm not a big fan of 'Everybody Needs Somebody To Love' so I don't share the anguish of one of the other reviewers. I'm a little disappointed by 'You Can't Catch Me' though as The Stones's Chuck Berry covers are usually magnificent whereas this is only very good. 'Down Home Girl' has a great groove, however, as do the r&b staples 'Down The Road Apiece' and 'Mona'.

The original material shows a progression. 'Heart Of Stone' has a memorable chorus and 'Off The Hook', a b-side I believe, has the confidence of their best cover material. Then, of course, there's the cover of Willie Dixon's 'Little Red Rooster', a rare blues number one hit. It still hits the spot. Of their early US releases, 'Now!' is one of The Stones's most confident and consistent.