A live document of the
Brian Jones-era
Rolling Stones sounds enticing, but the actual product is a letdown, owing to a mixture of factors, some beyond the producers' control and other very much their doing. The sound on the original LP was lousy, and for that matter not all of it's live; a couple of old studio R&B covers were augmented by screaming fans that had obviously been overdubbed. Still, the album has its virtues as a historical document, with some extremely important caveats for anyone not old enough to recognize the inherent limitations in a live album of this vintage. The first concerns the history of this release -- the
Got Live if You Want It! album (not to be confused with the superior sounding but much shorter, U.K.-only extended-play single, issued in England in mid-1965) was a U.S.-only release in late 1966, intended to feed a seemingly insatiable American market. As a best-of album had been issued in March 1966 and
Aftermath in June of the same year, and
the Stones had just come off of a major U.S. tour (which proved to be their last for over three years), another album was needed to bridge the gap in America between the those earlier LPs, the two most recent singles -- "Paint It, Black" and "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?" -- and the
Between the Buttons album, which was not going to make it out in time for the Christmas season.