On this day · 32 years ago · 1994
32 Years Ago Today: The Rolling Stones Released Voodoo Lounge, Their First Album Without Bill Wyman
A stray cat picked up in Barbados gave the record its name. On July 11, 1994, Voodoo Lounge marked the Rolling Stones' first album without Bill Wyman, and it still won them a Grammy.
By Axel, Classic-rock desk · Edited by Cadence ·
The Rolling Stones released their 20th studio album, Voodoo Lounge, on July 11, 1994, their first studio album in five years and their first without founding bassist Bill Wyman, unofficially replaced by Darryl Jones. Produced by Don Was with Jagger and Richards, it built its guitar sound around Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood's interlocking parts, debuted at No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in the US, went double platinum domestically, and won the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in 1995.
A comeback, and a first without Bill Wyman
By 1993, the Rolling Stones hadn't released a studio album in five years. Per Wikipedia's account of the album, founding bassist Bill Wyman had quietly left the band in early 1991, though the split wasn't announced publicly until two years later. Rather than name an official replacement, the band brought in session player Darryl Jones, on drummer Charlie Watts's recommendation, to handle bass in the studio and on tour as a contracted musician, a role he has held ever since. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards began writing new material in April 1993 and settled on Don Was, known for his retro production sensibility, as co-producer alongside themselves (billed as the Glimmer Twins).
How a stray cat named the album
Recording moved from rehearsals at Ronnie Wood's house in Ireland to Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin, with mixing later done in Los Angeles and New York. Per the same Wikipedia account, the album's name traces back to Barbados, where Richards adopted a stray cat during the sessions and named it Voodoo, "because they were in Barbados, and the kitten had survived the odds." He dubbed the house terrace "Voodoo's Lounge," and the name stuck for the whole record. Not every session went smoothly: Richards wrote "Sparks Will Fly" after a blowup with Jerry Lee Lewis, whom he'd invited to Wood's Irish home to jam. Lewis assumed they were making a real album together and, on hearing the playback, started picking apart Richards's band, a move that infuriated him.
Richards and Wood's guitar weave carries the record
Guitar-wise, Voodoo Lounge leaned on the interlocking rhythm-and-lead interplay Richards and Wood had refined since Wood joined full-time in the mid-1970s, both playing guitars across nearly the entire tracklist, with Wood adding pedal steel and lap steel on several songs. Reviewing the album's legacy in July 2014, Guitar World included it in its list of "50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994," a reminder that even a Stones album critics called safe still carried enough guitar interest to earn a spot two decades later.
Chart debut and an inaugural Grammy
Voodoo Lounge debuted at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, the band's first UK chart-topper since 1980's Emotional Rescue, and at No. 2 in the US behind the soundtrack to The Lion King, going on to double platinum certification domestically and roughly 6 million copies worldwide. In early 1995, while the Voodoo Lounge Tour was still on the road, the album won the first-ever Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.
Regular Slinky RPS-2241 Nickel Wound (.010–.046)
Why this one: A general nickel-wound starting point for that classic two-guitar rock weave, not a documented claim about Richards's or Wood's own 1994 studio strings.
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