How the Rolling Stones Turned a Failed Reggae Experiment into “Start Me Up”

Coming up, a candidate for the most famous #2 hit of all-time and the song that was almost lost in the vaults: Start Me Up… It was written by the Rolling Stones in the 70s. In fact, the Stones did about 70 takes of Start Me Up and most of them were a very sad attempt at creating a reggae song. They crashed and burned, but on one of the takes, they did a straight-ahead rock version. Well, in the 80s, the Rolling Stones really needed a hit and songs for their new album. Luckily, their engineer remembered the one take they did that was a diamond in the rough and knew it could be a hit. But going back to the vaults, it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. It’s the story of a song that sat on the shelf for years, and then the Stones had to be convinced to play it straight… Find out what happened next on Professor of Rock.

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