Includes a 24 page color booklet with liner notes by David Wild. The Rolling Stones: Mick Jagger (vocals, guitar, harmonica, percussion); Keith Richards (acoustic & electric guitars, bass, bowed double bass, background vocals); Mick Taylor (electric & slide guitars, bass); Brian Jones (electric guitar, sitar, recorder, harmonica, piano, marimba, tamboura, background vocals); Ron Wood (electric guitar, background vocals); Bill Wyman (bass, maracas, background vocals); Charlie Watts (drums, percussion, background vocals). Additional personnel includes: Merry Clayton (vocals); Sugar Blue (harmonica); Bobby Keyes (saxophone, percussion); Mel Collins (saxophone); Chuck Leavell (piano, organ, keyboards); Nicky Hopkins, Ian Stewart, Ian McLagan, Al Kooper (piano); Don Was (keyboards); Darryl Jones (bass); Blondie Chaplin (percussion, background vocals); Sly Dunbar, Luis Jardin (percussion); Clydie King, Vanetta, Ivan Neville, Bernard Fowler, Lisa Fischer, Sara Dash, Doris Troy, Madeline Bell, Nanette Newman, Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg (background vocals); The London Bach Choir. Producers include: Andrew Oldham, Jimmy Miller, The Glimmer Twins, Don Was. Thirty years after the release of what had been the definitive Rolling Stones anthology, HOT ROCKS, the arrival of the two-disc Stones collection FORTY LICKS seemed bound to prompt compare/contrast debates. In the end, it's pretty much an apples-and-oranges situation. HOT ROCKS does have some great '60s tracks absent from the later release, but time is on the side of FORTY LICKS, which takes advantage of access to all the Stones' great post-1971 material, which is abundant, despite cynics' protests to the contrary. So besides the early hits/classics it shares with HOT ROCKS ("Satisfaction," "Brown Sugar," "Jumping Jack Flash," you know the drill), FORTY LICKS offers the stuttering, sassy "Start Me Up," the sensual, disco-tinged "Miss You," mission statement "It's Only Rock 'N Roll (But I Like It)," and such tearjerkers as "Fool to Cry" and "Angie." Impressively, FORTY LICKS simultaneously captures the glory of the Stones' first couple of phases and puts the lie to the benighted notion that the early '70s were this hardy band's last hurrah. And that's not even mentioning the four new, previously unreleased tracks these seemingly indefatigable icons saw fit to throw in.

• Genre: Oldies
• Format: CD
• Released: 10/1/2002