The Rolling Stones get their last U.S No.1 in 1978 with the Disco influenced “Miss You”
Featured on their album “Some Girls” and credited to Jagger-Richards, the actual songwriting of the Stones Rock-Disco hit has been the subject of a long dispute between some members of the band
The Rolling Stones get their last U.S No.1 in 1978 with the Disco influenced “Miss You”
In 1978, the Rolling Stones were already Rock music veterans with a career spanning for over 15 years. They had no plans to stop (as they still don’t today!) and to get back on the charts, they went to look for inspiration to the trendy sounds of the late 1970’s, mainly Disco and Dance grooves. One of their best efforts was “Miss You”, a song originally written by Mick Jagger while jamming with keyboardist Bill Preston but credited to Jagger-Richards. Despite Jagger and Ronnie Wood insisting that “Miss You” wasn’t conceived as a disco song, Keith Richards has said, “…’Miss You’ was a damn good disco record; it was calculated to be one.” Also, drummer Charlie Watts said about the song that, “A lot of those songs like ‘Miss You’ on ‘Some Girls’… were heavily influenced by going to the discos. You can hear it in a lot of those four-to-the-floor and the Philadelphia-style drumming.” But Jagger still seemed to be somehow “embarrassed” that the biggest Rock band in the world gave up to the Disco trend of the era, as other Rock artists also did include David Bowie and KISS, despite remaining one of the Stones best songs and still a concert staple for the band. Former member, bassist Bill Wyman, who always was critical of some positions and stands his band mates Jagger and Richards took, claims that he wasn’t credited for writing the song bass riff, as he later stated “When I did the riff for ‘Miss You’ – which made the song, and every band in the world copied it for the next year: Rod Stewart, all of them – it still said Jagger/Richard. When I wrote the riff for ‘Jumpin’Jack Flash’, it became Jagger/Richard, and that’s the way it was. It just became part and parcel of the way the band functioned.”
Recorded in Paris, France, “Miss You” was originally released as a single on May 10, 1978, in the U.S and later on May 26 in the U.K backed with “Far Away Eyes”. It features several studio musicians, including Sugar Blue who, according to Wood, was found by Jagger busking on the streets of Paris. The song was an instant hit, and gave the Stones their eight, but also last No.1 in the United States, hitting the top of the Hot 100 on August 5, 1978. The single was released one month in advance of their upcoming album “Some Girls”, considered by many the last greatest Stones album. During that period, the Rolling Stones released other songs that were heavily influenced by the Disco sound, including the 1980 “Emotional Rescue”.
Watch the 1978 music video “Miss You” by the Rolling Stones
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