The Rolling Stones announce new album, Blue and Lonesome

After a week of speculation, the Rolling Stones have announced the release of their 25th studio album, Blue and Lonesome. Described as “five decades in the making and just three days to record”, the album is a collection of blues covers which takes the band back to their roots in the genre.

Released on 2 December via Polydor, the Stones’ first studio album in over a decade was recorded in London in December 2015, and features “old friend” Eric Clapton, who happened to be in the next studio making his own album at the time.

“This album is manifest testament to the purity of their love for making music, and the blues is, for the Stones, the fountainhead of everything they do,” says Don Was, who co-produced Blue and Lonesome alongside the Glimmer Twins (a pseudonym for Mick Jagger and Keith Richards).

Recorded at British Grove Studios in Chiswick, west London – not far from Richmond and Eel Pie Island, where the Stones started out as a young band playing pubs and clubs – the followup to 2005’s A Bigger Bang is said to take the band back to their “passion for blues music which has always been at the heart and soul of the Rolling Stones.”

According to a statement from their publicist, the band describe the recording process as “spontaneous” and played live in the studio without overdubs. Jagger, Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood were joined by their long-time touring musicians Darryl Jones, Chuck Leavell and Matt Clifford as well as Clapton for the recording.

The band announced the news ahead of their performance at Desert Trip, the first of a new festival in California that boasts a collection of the legends of rock.

Blue and Lonesome tracklist

1 Just Your Fool (original written and recorded in 1960 by Little Walter)

2 Commit a Crime (original written and recorded in 1966 by Howlin’ Wolf aka Chester Burnett)

3 Blue and Lonesome (original written and recorded in 1959 by Little Walter)

4 All of Your Love (original written and recorded in 1967 by Magic Sam aka Samuel Maghett)

5 I Gotta Go (original written and recorded in 1955 by Little Walter)

6 Everybody Knows About My Good Thing (original recorded in 1971 by Little Johnny Taylor, composed by Miles Grayson and Lermon Horton)

7 Ride ’Em On Down (original written and recorded in 1955 by Eddie Taylor)

8 Hate To See You Go (original written and recorded in 1955 by Little Walter)

9 Hoo Doo Blues (original recorded in 1958 by Lightnin’ Slim aka Otis Hicks, composed by him and Jerry West)

10 Little Rain (original recorded in 1957 by Jimmy Reed, composed by him and Ewart G Abner Jr)

11 Just Like I Treat You (original written by Willie Dixon and recorded by Howlin’ Wolf in December 1961)

12 I Can’t Quit You Baby (Original written by Willie Dixon and recorded by Otis Rush in 1956).