Giving all of you a mighty fine heads up, The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet (Record Store Day Edition 2023) will be released as part of the annual celebration of independently-owned record stores on Saturday, April 22nd. This 180-gram vinyl LP is a special pressing on grey, blue, black and white swirled vinyl LP – a direct reference to the lyric from “Salt of the Earth,” the album’s closing track.

On Beggars Banquet, Mick Jagger sings, “When I search a faceless crowd / a swirling mass of grey and black and white.” In the concert film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, recorded less than a week after the studio album’s December 1968 release, he sings, “And when I look into this faceless crowd / a swirling mass of grey, blue, black and white.”

Beggars Banquet (Record Store Day Edition 2023) will also feature the album’s original 11x18 artwork and will come with a reproduction of the window display poster created by the Stones’ UK label Decca in ‘68. The poster features a Michael Joseph photo of all five members in a field in front of the decrepit Swarkestone Hall Pavilion in Derbyshire, England, and was mislabeled the title “Beggar’s Banquet.”

Staying faithful to the original, this replica version keeps the errant apostrophe intact. A different image from the same photo session appeared on back of the band’s compilation Hot Rocks 1964-1971, released three years later.

Side A:
1) Sympathy for the Devil
2) No Expectations
3) Dear Doctor
4) Parachute Woman
5) Jigsaw Puzzle

Placing the first side of this incredible, simply brilliant-looking grey, blue, black and white swirled vinyl on the turntable, putting the needle down and returning to my listening chair, the first thing I reflect on as Sympathy for the Devil starts to build, is that it was on this album that, and in my humble opinion, the gradually strengthening songwriting team of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards delivered an entire album of stand out tracks; and not a weakness to be found anywhere.

Indeed, as we next get to listen to the laid back, countrified acoustic twang of the gorgeous slide guitar ballad No Expectations, it becomes increasingly clear that each track here stands on its own as either a top notch single and/or album track, no filler, and all astutely executed with a flair only the Stones could provide.

The harmonica-driven, lonesome yearn within the musical mock-country tune Dear Doctor is a wholly underrated track by the Stones, and the lo-fi effect (from having the backing track originally recorded to cassette) that accompanies Parachute Woman is Heaven on stick, the melodically jaunty, ‘60s pop styling of Jigsaw Puzzle rounding out the first side nicely.

Side B:
1) Street Fighting Man
2) Prodigal Son
3) Stray Cat Blues
4) Factory Girl
5) Salt of the Earth

Flipping the vinyl over and on a recording that would find Brian Jones’s role reduced greatly due to his drug use and disagreements with the rest of the band, meaning, as a result, over half the album was recorded as a four-piece band, we next get their forerunner to Gimme Shelter, the sitar and tamboura-affected Street Fighting Man, which is backed by their first foray into acoustic gospel Prodigal Son (which would be further explored in Exile on Main Street).

Up next is their electrified nod to the celebration of underage sex and sleaziness within Stray Cat Blues, then we are delivered the blues-country vibe of Factory Girl, the album closing on the tender everyman ballad Salt of the Earth (which features an impassioned opening lead vocal by Richards).

Recorded between February and July of 1968 at Olympic Sound Studios in London and mixed at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, Beggars Banquet was the first Stones album produced by Jimmy Miller and marks the start of what is considered the Stones’ most critically acclaimed album era. Beggars Banquet has a special place in the history of the band, as it is the final album completed with the original lineup of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts.

During the year of release, Rolling Stone Magazine declared it “the best record [The Stones] have yet done” and “an achievement of significance in both lyrics and music.” Beggars Banquet contains evergreen classics such as “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Street Fighting Man” that are still often played in live Stones sets more than a half century later.