In the history of The Rolling Stones there are moments that divide the waters: Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. consolidated their myth in the early ’70s, but with Black and Blue (1976) the band faced a transition marked by the departure of Mick Taylor, the arrival of Ronnie Wood and a sound that explored unusual terrain for them: reggae, funk, soul. Almost five decades later, the group announces a monumental reissue of that album that symbolized both an internal change and an aesthetic search.
An album of transit and risk
Black and Blue was recorded at a time of uncertainty. The Stones, already rock giants, were feeling the weight of their own legend and the need to reinvent themselves. The album, with collaborations by Billy Preston, Nicky Hopkins, Jeff Beck, Harvey Mandel and Wayne Perkins, showed a band willing to go off script.
It was not an album of immediate hits (although “Fool to Cry” broke into Billboard’s Top 10), but a collage of styles: reggae on “Cherry Oh Baby”, funk on “Hot Stuff”, melancholic ballads like “Memory Motel”. It was received with critical coldness at the time – “it’s not a rock album, but a sampler of styles”, wrote the Miami Herald-, but over time it has been vindicated as a testimony of creative freedom.
The 2025 reissue: an extended journey
Next November 14th, through Interscope/UME, the definitive reissue of Black and Blue will be released. A release designed for collectors and fans, with several formats:
- 5LP and 4CD box set with the original album and abundant bonus material.
- A full remix of 2025 by Steven Wilson, known for breathing new life into progressive and hard rock classics.
- An album with six unreleased recordings, including outtakes and instrumentals of the Stones in the process of exploration.
- A live recording of the legendary concert at Earls Court, London, 1976, included in the Super Deluxe edition.
- Blu-ray with the TV broadcast of the show at Les Abattoirs (Paris), Dolby Atmos mixes of both the album and the live concert.
- A special 1LP zoetrope vinyl, collector’s item with a rotating visual design.
Between yesterday and today
The reissue not only recovers an album: it rescues a moment of transition. Ronnie Wood was already in the equation, consolidating the chemistry that would keep him as a permanent Stone. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were experimenting with Afro-Caribbean rhythms and funk, anticipating the versatility that would keep them alive in the following decades.
If in 1976 some critics dismissed it as scattered, today it is recognized as a brave album, capable of showing the Stones beyond the formula of the guitar riff and the stadium ballad. As Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote for All Music: “There are times when you listen to the Stones just for the pleasure of hearing them play, and this is one of them”.
Black and Blue in perspective
Black and Blue spent four weeks at number one in the United States and went immediate platinum, proof that, beyond the critics, the public was still thirsty for their music. Today, almost half a century later, its re-release comes as a reminder that great groups are not only measured by their unquestionable masterpieces, but also by their transitional albums, those where they take risks, make mistakes and, in the process, broaden their horizons.
In 2025, with a monumental box set and a remastered sound for new generations, Black and Blue returns to reclaim its place: not only as a historical document, but also as an album that, with its imperfections, shows the Rolling Stones in full metamorphosis.
