The Rolling Stones are back, and they’ve brought a few famous friends.
“Hackney Diamonds,” the band’s first album of new songs in 18 years, features guest appearances from the likes of Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. Poignantly, it also features Charlie Watts, the stalwart Stones drummer who died in 2021 after almost six decades in the band. His drumming, recorded in 2019, features on two of the album’s dozen tracks, with Steve Jordan playing on the rest.
Watts’ absence lent a wistful note to the excitement of surviving Stones Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood when they came to east London’s Hackney district on Wednesday to unveil the new album and announce its release date: Oct. 20.
Of Watts, Richards said: “Of course he’s missed incredibly. But thanks to Charlie we have Steve Jordan, who was his recommendation if anything should happen to him.”
“It would have been a lot harder without Charlie’s blessing,” he said.
The album reveal was executed with the swaggering showmanship the Stones are famous for. It followed a cryptic teaser campaign, in which a glittery, jagged version of the band’s iconic mouth and tongue logo was projected onto the façade of landmarks in cities around the world, including New York, London and Paris.
Source : ABC