Nicky Hopkins, Ry Cooder, Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts - Jamming With Edward! 1972

Though many feel that the Stones were at their best when playing loose, sloppy rock & roll à la Exile on Main St., with this 1972 release on Rolling Stones Records the unrehearsed style of the album is more of a hindrance than a call to ragged glory. Not an official Rolling Stones release, the assembled band does contain three-fifths of the group (Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts) along with session man extraordinaire Nicky Hopkins and guitarist Ry Cooder. The band stumbles through keyboard-dominated original numbers such as "Boudoir Stomp" and "Edward's Thrump Up," as well as more conventional cuts like a cover of Elmore James' "It Hurts Me Too." Yet the songs never get beyond giving the listener the impression they were thrown together during a drunken night's rehearsals. In that sense the album is a bit of a letdown; though any Stones fan would surely clamor for lost material from the band's golden age, Jamming With Edward instead makes one wish it had never been released. AMG.

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