50 BEST STONES RIFFS
THE ROLLING STONES’ 50 GREATEST RIFFS REVEALED – PLUS AN IN-DEPTH GUIDE TO HOW THE VERY BEST OF THEM WERE CREATED
From 1968 on, The Rolling Stones’ sound was dominated not only by Mick Jagger’s swaggering vocals and the funky rhythm section of Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, but the guitars that somehow sounded unlike anything else out there at the time. Keith Richards had discovered a new rhythm sound, and with it an unprecedented burst of creativity.
Open tunings are common in the world of fingerstyle acoustic and blues slide, but far less so with regular strummed rhythm guitar. But when country-blues legend Ry Cooder showed Richards open G tuning while working with the band during 1968, it was a lightbulb moment for Keith. With this new tuning he would go on to write some of the most memorable riffs of all time.
Tuning the sixth, fifth and first strings down by a tone gives the notes DGDGBD. Keith quickly surmised that having a 5th interval on the bottom string (the bass string) would be a hindrance, so in a moment of genius he simply removed it. This gave afivestring G chord with the root on the bottom, so placing a full barre anywhere on the neck created a new major chord; at the 5th fret we get C, on the 7th fret D, and so on.
When Keith added his second and third fingers to the barre to create what looks like an Am7 shape, the G chord became Cadd9/G, the C became Fadd9/C, the D became Gadd9/D, etc. This simple scheme with its unique sound launched many of the Stones’ greatest riffs.
Here, we list the top 50 – as voted by TG readers – and reveal the stories of how each the top 10 were written and recorded.
50 Too Much Blood
49 Goin’ Home
48 Dance Pt.1
47 Heaven
46 Soul Survivor
45 Live With Me
44 Fingerprint File
43 Dancing With Mr. D
42 Casino Boogie
41 Love Is Strong
40 Jiving Sister Fanny
39 Some Girls
38 One Hit (To The Body)
37 Slave
36 Star Star
35 Undercover Of The Night
34 Mother’s Little Helper
33 Harlem Shuffle
32 Before They Make Me Run
31 Hot Stuff
30 Little Red Rooster
29 Sway
28 Stray Cat Blues
27 Let’s Spend The Night Together
26 19th Nervous Breakdown
25 Shattered
24 Miss You
23 Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
22 Get Off Of My Cloud
21 Rocks Off
20 All Down The Line
19 Happy
18 It’s All Over Now
17 The Last Time
16 Bitch
15 It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll (But I Like It)
14 Monkey Man
13 Paint It Black
12 Beast Of Burden
11 Street Fighting Man
10 Tumbling Dice
Recorded at Keith Richards’ rented chate
