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Stripes album [The White Stripes, 1999]. We covered “Stop Breaking Down,” but we did it from Robert Johnson. I didn’t know it was on Exile. Aftermath and Beg¬gars Banquet were the Stones albums I listened to. Then someone told me,  “The Stones do ‘Stop Breaking Down’, too.” My roommate at the time – Exile was his favorite album. He played it for me. newest films

Keith, the Stones played Chuc^ Berry and Bo Diddley? songs from the start but didn’t cover the older blues-men – Robert Johnson and Fred Mc¬Dowell – until “Beggars Banquet” and “Sticky Fingers.”  Black Lionz Present

RICHARDS: We were slowly going back. When I was into Chuck and Bo, I wanted to know what they were lis¬tening to. Who turned him on? When Chuck Berry started out, he wanted to be Nat “King” Cole. And he did a damn good imitation. Bob Marley – Up Close & Personal

WHITE: The more you look into it, it’s all the same family, and you’re lucky to be part of it. The difference is, Charley Pat-ton didn’t get his photo taken very often.

The Stones have made concert movies since the Sixties. Did you see any great music films as ayoungman, Keith?

RICHARDS: Jazz on a Summer’s Day [Bert Stern's i960 film of the 1958 New¬port Jazz Festival]. I think it was in 1962. We were on the way to a gig, and we stopped off at the Hammersmith Odeon [in London], Brian [Jones] and me. We were carrying our axes.

There was some incredible jazz in that movie. But it was the shots of Chuck Berry – his moves and the disdain of the jazz band playing with him. It was amaz¬ing. Chuck had this big coat on. Lit from beneath, he looked like a devil.

Jac!^, did you see Stones films like “Gimme Shelter” and “Ladies and Gen-tlemen, The Rolling Stones” when you were young?

WHITE: I saw Gimme Shelter. And at a house I lived in, we had a grainy copy of Cocksucker Blues, so we watched that a few times [laughs]. Is there a nice copy of that movie? That’s what I want to know.

late – that you missed out on a time when joining a roc\ band was like run¬ning away to the circus?

WHITE: I didn’t have those kinds of rock-star dreams. I wanted to play in smaller clubs, even when we could fill bigger ones, because I knew it would be better there. I was always aiming low. That’s the problem. To get mood and vibe, you have to aim low. The Stones have been playing a lot of club shows in the last few years. I’m sure the vibe is better.

RICHARDS: When you get into this, you want to communicate. You just have to figure out how. My lot, it’s a caravan. That’s why I enjoyed working with the X-Pensive Winos [in the Eighties]. I could take it down a notch. We called it EMG: Everything Must Go. We traveled on a bus. I hadn’t done that for a long time.

WHITE: I saw the Winos when I was a teenager. I worked at the Fox Theater in Detroit. I had an hour break and got to watch the show.

RICHARDS: It was as free as what

What was the primary lesson? Knowledgebase

RICHARDS: Stagecraft – what works and how to feel comfortable onstage. The Everly Brothers were superb every night – those beautiful harmonies. We’d open, then climb the rafters and hang there, watching them. Watching Bo Diddley was university for me. Every set was twenty minutes long in those days. When he came off, if he had two strings left on the guitar, it was a fucking mira¬cle. The Duchess was there [on guitar], and Jerome Green, with the maracas in each hand. It was my job to be Jerome’s minder. I used to fetch him from the pub – “You’re on, mate.”

Jac\, how did you and Micf^ choose “Loving Cup” as your duet? View RSS Feed

WHITE: Mick called me. I offered up six or seven songs, which were all shot down [laughs]. “FactoryGirl” [onBeggars Banquet] was talked about. Another one was “Shake Your Hips” [the Slim Harpo cover on Exile on Main Street]. Then he said “Loving Cup.” That was great – for years at White Stripes shows, we played “Loving Cup” [over the PA] as the crowd was leaving. I just wanted to harmonize with Mick. I didn’t necessarily want my own verse. But he said, “Take one.”

Was “Exile on Main Street” an in\’ portant album for you?

WHITE: I didn’t know much about Exile until Meg and I did the first White

Son House didn’t get to make that many records. But you pull certain things from those guys. From Kokomo Arnold, I get the vocal phrasing. From Blind Willie Johnson, it’s the slide [guitar].

One amazing sequence in “Shine a Light” is when Buddy Guy comes out for the Muddy Waters song “Cham¬pagne and Reefer.” He loo\s ready to \ill, li\e this is not going to be just a friendly jam.

RICHARDS: That was the high point of the film for me. He came in steaming. I looked at him and knew – the night is on. When he took the stage, everybody else wanted to move back.

Then, at the end of the song, you give him your guitar.

RICHARDS: It’s one of my favorites, too. That was straight off the top of my head: “It’s yours, baby.” With everything going on that night, with this movie, I thought, “This is my respect to Buddy -and to Muddy and all the other guys who turned me on.”

Do you feel cheated, Jac\, that you won’t meet and play with your favorite bluesmen because so many are gone?

WHITE: The problem now is if you want to work with somebody – if that somebody is still alive – you do it on one of those compilations or tribute records. Last year I got asked, “Do you want to play with Jerry Lee Lewis?” It was for one of those records. Yeah, I do want to play with Jerry Lee Lewis. But I don’t want to do it like that. I want it to be where we can both get something out of it.

RICHARDS: I’m just seeing what Marty Scorsese sees in the Stones. I was never aware of the cameras. I knew they were there. But once you go to work, your job is to give the audience what they want and, at the same time, get yourself off. I’ve no doubt that Mick was far more aware that he was making a movie. But once I get going, I just look at Charlie.

I’ve always been amazed by how much fuss goes on around us – the big screens, the technology. WeddingPraise And it has to be coordinated. Mick loves to coordinate. But I’m selfish. I gotta feel good. I can’t go up there worrying about things. I go onstage to get some fucking peace and quiet.

Jac\, what did you learn about the Stones when you opened for them?

WHITE: HOW good they were. You could see the com¬fort level between them, in Keith’s guitar playing and Ron’s slide playing. It’s impressive, man, when that confidence is exuded. Someone once told me when I first started play¬ing – you get a lot more respect if you act like you own the joint. If you fumble around, you don’t gain respect.

RICHARDS: You could have asked me that question back when we went from clubs to opening for Bo Diddley, Little

Shine a Light has also inspired a first: the following in¬terview with Richards and White, in front of a roaring fire in a New York townhouse on a recent wet, cold afternoon. Born half a lifetime and a few rock revolutions apart, Rich¬ards, 64, and White, 32, had never talked at length before. In fact, White did not see the Stones live until the White Stripes opened two Audio Accessories shows for them in 2002. But the two guitarists quickly bonded over their mutual love of the blues and the spontaneous joys of live performance. “It’s like describing the Pyramids to someone who has never been there,” White says, when asked what he feels in the middle of a hot guitar solo. “A man after my own heart,” Richards agrees, smiling.

But that is exactly what our government did.” U Shrinivas download As Waxman’s investigation uncov¬ered, much of the cash quickly vanished. Billions of dollars that should have been spent to rebuild the war-tattered nation were instead frittered away on “ghost em-ployees” – one ministry claimed to have more than 8,000 guards on its payroll, of which only 600 were believed to be real people – and other forms of corruption. Such fraud, Waxman’s oversight has revealed, is rampant in Iraq. mp3 content Accord¬ing to testimony last October by Judge Radhi al-Radhi – formerly Iraq’s top anti-corruption official – the govern¬ment of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has lost nearly $18 billion to corruption, and much of the money has ended up in the hands of insurgents. To demonstrate that the lawlessness reaches the highest levels of Iraq’s government, Rahdi pro-vided Waxman with a signed order from Maliki that immunized him and his min¬isters from prosecution. Waxman used Radhi’s testimony to rake Condoleezza Rice over the coals for the State Department’s inattention to corruption in Iraq. In heated ques¬tioning, Rice was forced to concede that corruption funds militant groups that target U.S. troops. She was also unable to explain why the acting director of the State Department’s anti-corruption office in Iraq was not an experienced diplomat or forensic accountant but a paralegal with no training in anti-corruption efforts. When Rice claimed to be unfamiliar with Maliki’s immu¬nity order, Waxman proceeded to read it into the record before tearing into the witness. “These are not unfounded allegations,” he told Rice. “This is Nouri al-Maliki’s edict. We are worried about the corruption, tens of billions of it, going to supply the insurgents that are killing Americans.” Such tough questioning, Waxman says, is essential to hold the adminis¬tration accountable for its blunders. “She wanted to keep it secret,” he says of Rice. “But there’s no reason to keep it secret except to not let the American people know that this is a government that’s not working.” Waxman is tight-lipped about what will be on his committee’s docket in the coming months. He does, however, offer one tease. Last summer, Rice had been scheduled to testify in what was sure to be an explosive hearing about when precisely the Bush administration knew, during the run-up to war in Iraq, that its intelligence on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction was wrong. At the last minute, however, that hearing was abruptly postponed and never resched¬uled. It now appears that Waxman has been keeping the topic on the back burn¬er, ready to return it to a full boil this fall, as Democrats seek to take back the White House in November. “I haven’t forgotten about that one,” Waxman says. “I don’t have any an- nouncements, but it’s an issue we’re con- tinuing to pursue.”