Change of Plans...Keith does Country
The RCMP had other plans for one member of the Stones, quite different from him and his band recording an album in Toronto. Keith had been busted for drug possession at a Toronto hotel, and now things were up in the air as to how the band would proceed.It was decided that the other members of the band would split for various destinations since Keith was not allowed to leave Canada, due to his arrest, and they would reconvene when the dust settled...
Eddie Kramer was on a tight schedule too, and so as to not waste the studio time, Keith decided to start recording some of his favourite country music songs that he had always wanted to put on tape. He came in late one evening and we set up a couple of microphones on our Petrof 9' grand piano, a vocal mic, and miked his various guitar amps. Keith started with a basic piano track, which he played , and quite well I must say, then added various guitar, and vocal tracks to whatever songs he felt like working on...I was told to just let the tape machine run, in case Keith got inspired...so the 24 track Studer tape machine, with 2 " tape, running at 30 ips , just kept churning out reel after reel of country standards, a' la Keith! We went through roughly 20 reels of tape, over a week or so, before we had about 7 or 8 songs that Keith wanted to do overdubs on...vocal harmonies,a couple of extra guitar parts..or whatever..and he did them all the playing and singing ! I think Ian Stewart, (who stayed behind with Keith, as a road manager would) may have played some piano on one of the songs, but other than that , this was the 'Keith Does Country' sessions.
After about 10 days , we had rough mixes of the tunes done, Keith was allowed to leave the country, (Eddie Kramer had had to leave after a couple of days), so Jeff Smith and I finished the project,(which was never released as far as I know) but I have very fond memories of those nights when one of the biggest rock stars in the world would come into the studio and just have fun playing and recording country and western tunes that he really loved.
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