KSLX Blog

By Randi Scott |

Randi’s Rock Report: New – Rolling Stones- Hear Mick Jagger & Jimmy Page Discuss “Scarlet”…

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With today’s release of The Rolling Stones‘ long lost 1974 song “Scarlet” come their recollections of the sessions, which featured Jimmy Page on guitar. Click here to hear Mick Jagger on The Rolling Stones recording “Scarlet.”…

Mick Jagger says, “I remember first jamming this with Jimmy and Keith in Ronnie‘s [Wood] basement studio. It was a great session.”

“I had this song so I said, ‘Let’s try this out. I don’t how it’s gonna work out.’ So we ran through this amongst other things and then Keith and I just focused on it. And then since then I completely lost forgotten about it and I rang Jimmy Page up and I didn’t remember anything. Jimmy Page remembered everything. ‘No, it was… and this was the person who played on it.’ He seemed so certain about it. Anyway, so, obviously I had to mix it and I put maracas on it. Like you would finish a track, you know, you can’t have it without maracas. And, here it is. It’s one of the extra tracks that we put on [the deluxe reissue] of Goats Head Soup.”

CLICK HERE TO HEAR: “Scarlet,” AND in addition to the multi-format deluxe reissue of Goats Head Soup also includes two other previously unreleased tracks — “Criss Cross” and “All the Rage.”

And in a series of tweets, Jimmy Page says, “I was invited to Ronnie Wood’s house in Richmond to do a session in October 1974. It was said that Keith Richards and Ian Stewart would be there. It sounded a good opportunity to catch up with old friends.⠀

Jimmy Page on recording “Scarlet” with The Rolling Stones

“Working with Keith was something like from scratch almost, you know. He was playing it and then everybody was sort of joining in and working their parts out to it, and, actually the following day, putting the guitar solos on. I knew it was really something special at the time, if you know what I mean. It just felt really great. And then more recently, Mick got in contact and then he sent me a copy of the finished version, I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, that sounds so cool.’ Yeah, my memories of it are pretty clear because it was something special.”

Page adds that it’s “an ultra-rare appearance of me outside Led Zeppelin in the ’70s.” And then there’s Keith’s version of the story. “My recollection is we walked in at the end of a Led Zeppelin session. They were just leaving, and we were booked in next and I believe that Jimmy decided to stay. We weren’t actually cutting it as a track, it was basically for a demo, a demonstration you know, just to get the feel of it, but it came out well, with a line up like that, you know, we better use it.”

Here’s what we do know for sure:

  • Ronnie Wood wasn’t a member of the Stones at that time, although the song was recorded in his basement. It was also in his basement where the first recordings of “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It)” were made, again, before Wood was a member of the band.
  • The house Woody lived in at the time is called The Wick and it’s now owned by Pete Townshend.
  • “Scarlet” is named after Jimmy Page’s daughter, and it will be included on the deluxe reissue of Goats Head Soup, which comes out September 4th.