The Rolling Stones on Tuesday hinted that they are about to release their first album in more than a decade, apparently a collection of covers of Chicago blues classics.
The English mega-rockers took to Twitter to tease the line “Coming October 6” along with a snippet of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the rest of the band jamming out a hard blues song with harmonica.
The band did not offer further details but Don Was, the US producer who has overseen the Stones’ studio sessions over the past two decades, said that the Stones had cut an album of takes on Chicago blues songs.
The Stones recorded the album in just three days with a simple microphone set-up and without further studio touch-ups, hoping to preserve a raw, authentic feel, Was told the French newspaper Le Figaro last week.
Guitar great Eric Clapton also took part in sessions as he was recording an album in an adjacent studio, said the producer, who is also known for his band Was (Not Was) in the 1980s.
The teased release date of Friday is the same day the Stones will inaugurate Desert Trip, a new festival in California that aims to bring together the top living legends in rock history.
The septuagenarian rockers — one of the highest-grossing acts in the music business — will share the three-day festival bill with Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Roger Waters, The Who and Neil Young.
The Rolling Stones have not released a studio album since 2005’s A Bigger Bang, which consisted of original material that largely stayed true to the band’s blues rock roots.
The rockers have released a series of concert recordings in the past decade, however.
Richards, 72, has often spoken of his love of the Chicago blues and its influence over his guitar-playing while growing up in England. The blues, born among African Americans in the US South, took on a new life with the Great Migration to industrialised northern cities with added amplification and gradual rock elements.
Richards, notorious for his hard-living, has remained energetic and a year ago put out a solo album in which he also takes vocal duties. He revealed at the time that the Stones planned to return to the studio in 2016.
