This recent release from Mayflower presents the sessions from 1969 through October 1970 generally known as Sticky Fingers Sessions (hence this collection s name) but that have songs that will end up further on in the Stones history from Exile through Goat s Head Soup.
The title of Rarities 1971-2003 is a little misleading, as is the cover photo of the Stones in prime late-'70s form: both suggest that this long-awaited trawl through the Rolling Stones vaults, released in conjunction with Starbucks' Hear Music label but available in all conventional retail outlets, will be heavy on '70s material. That's certainly not the case. There are just three '70s cuts here, actually – four if you count the live "Mannish Boy," which appeared on the 1977 double live album Love You Live and the 1981 odds-n-sods collection Sucking in the Seventies, which was reissued earlier in 2005, the same year Rarities 1971-2003 came out…
To be indelicate about the matter: what exactly makes Big Cocksucker Blues different than plain old Cocksucker Blues, the legendary rarely-seen film of the Rolling Stones' 1972 tour? Well, while the original Cocksucker Blues has frequently been bootlegged since the pre-DVD era, this Big Cocksucker Blues has that 95-minute film and well over an hour of extras. The extra footage, you should know, does not contain Cocksucker Blues outtakes, but does offer a good amount of rare clips from 1967-1974 that should interest any hardcore fan of the Stones during this era…