No Expectations - The Rolling Stones

[Seymouro]

Imagination is a great tool in songwriting. I marvel at how artists sometimes produce work that is really not a part of their background at all.

Two great examples are CCR and the Stones. John Fogerty and CCR grew up in San Francisco. Most of their bets work was country blues based stuff that had to do with the "Deep South". Things like "Born on the Bayou", "Green River", and "Down on the Corner" were all about Fogerty imagining he grew up near the Gulf states.

Now the Rolling Stones are a rock/blues band based out of London. They all but worshipped the great black blues/rock artists like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry, even Charley Patton from the 1920's. But where did the "country" stuff come from?

The band has had several great pieces of country music. This one has the late Brian Jones on slide guitar and the immortal, late studio ace Nicky Hopkins on piano. Great material. But a London boy talking about "put me on a plane"? England is a third the size of the state of Michigan! Great imagination. And "great expectations" even with NO Expectations!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rIqBeMZAMc

[Bob]

I always assumed that England had hicks there too and the Stones brought a bit of that with them to the US. That's just an assumption on my part though... Mick is just too good at it.

[Seymouro]

Ha ha. Yes, Bob. There are a lot of "hicks" in England.

I met some of them when my folks had me there in '66. They were cousins, aunts and uncles on a farm 100 miles N of London!

[Mark M]

So then maybe Mick was a hick after all?

[Seymouro]

Mick is a hybrid cockney, southern black man, southern plantation owner, hick from French Lick, university trained economist and proven songwriter.

But hick is in the mix indeed.