"They were tough hombres, man. But they were tough on each other too."
This month, MOJO's cover CD salutes the Stones' 1971 classic. Engineer Andy Johns oversaw the original, and affords MOJO an exclusive peek behind the curtain...
"I'd known the Stones since I was a teenager. My brother [Glyn Johns] had worked with them before they'd even gotten a record deal. So I was just kind of around it. Later, I came to know their producer, Jimmy Miller. We did a few projects together and got on really well.
"The band had gotten about halfway through Sticky Fingers. They'd done the Muscle Shoals sessions and Sister Morphine and had taken a break. Jimmy asked if I wanted to come and finish the record with him. Of course, I jumped at the chance. They'd just built their mobile studio. It was a neat little unit and we were working at [Jagger's house] Stargroves.
"To begin with, they just sat and played for a couple days. And as usual with the Stones after a break they played really badly - until they got into the groove. So they're banging around and after two days they come in to hear the playback in their brand new mobile, with a lot of hangers-on and weirdoes laying about.
