Confessin’ the Blues: The Rolling Stones’s Revisit of Their Musical Roots

The Rolling Stones are a paradigmatic example of a band that appropriated the American blues in the early 1960s and gave the genre central stage in their albums in the late phase of their career. I will trace the function of the blues in the musical history of the Rolling Stones and examine the concept of “confession” as a means to both pay respect to African American pioneers of the genre and self-inscription in the blues canon. With an eye to the blues roots of the Rolling Stones, I will reveal how the band revisits their origins in the late phase of their career when the band members are in their seventies. Is the “confession” of the blues roots a kind of “summation of their life’s work and a radical vision of the essence of their craft,” as McMullan and Smiles have defined “late style?” I take my departure from musical recordings, live performances, and album cover design as a gateway to reflect on the intersection of autobiographic narratives and music. I call this approach sonic life writing.