Stones to Get Their Kicks with Historic ‘Licks’ CD
For the first time in their 40-year history, the Rolling Stones will release a greatest hits album that covers their entire career, the band’s labels said on Monday.
The group famously lost control of its 1960s hits such as “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “Paint It, Black” to its former manager, New York accountant Allen Klein, in the early 1970s. Relations between the two camps have only just started to thaw.
With the band preparing to begin a two-year world tour in Boston next month, Klein’s ABKCO Records label has joined forces with the Stones’ current Virgin Records label to issue a 2-CD compilation entitled “Forty Licks.”
The first CD will cover the ABKCO years, the second will include the hits from 1971 onwards, including “Brown Sugar” and “Start Me Up,” as well as four newly recorded tracks.
The album will be released on Sept. 23 in Japan, Oct. 1 in North America, and a day earlier in every other territory.
Referring to vocalist Mick Jagger, Klein said in a statement, “Mick asked that we should try to ‘Square the Circle’ — The Stones wanted it and I’m happy we could do it with them.”
A spokesman revealed the title of only one of the four new tracks, “Don’t Stop,” which will be released as a single later this month.
Separately, ABKCO will on Aug. 20 reissue digitally remastered versions of 22 Rolling Stones albums, including some that have long been unavailable on CD such as the U.K. versions of 1967’s “Between the Buttons” and 1965’s “Out of Our Heads.”
The Stones will begin their North American tour of theaters, arenas and stadiums at Boston’s FleetCenter on Sept. 3. Next year, they will visit Europe, Australia and possibly — for the first time — China. The band held high-level talks in the late 1970s with Chinese officials to tour the country, but they foundered.
Virgin Records, a unit of EMI Group Plc., distributes the Stones’ post-1971 recordings under an exclusive license granted by the group. Closely held ABKCO’s releases are distributed internationally by Universal Music Group, a unit of Vivendi Universal.
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