It is speculated that Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Ringo Starr collaborate on the new Rolling Stones album. Some outlets, like Variety, take it for granted. And it is something that, if true, produces a certain morbidity. That's why the history of pop that had them as antagonists; or you were the melodic Beatles or the rockers Rolling Stones. That was before, six decades ago, when pop began its popular revolution and they were rivals on the charts. There was a time when putting them first worked as a marketing strategy, just as it would later, in Britpop times, with Blur and Oasis.
But it turns out that if we analyze history we can see that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones have been collaborating since the beginning of their careers. Whether it's for making vocal harmonies, providing ambience in the studio or at live concerts. McCartney and Jagger shared the stage at Wembley Arena in 1986, at a charity event sponsored by the Prince of Wales. They can be seen on YouTube with David Bowie doing a version of Martha and The Vandellas' Dancing in the street.
The love of both groups for rhythm and blues and African-American soul was shared from the beginning, when they even recorded the same song. And although I wanna be your man has gone down in history in the list of the album With the Beatles (1963), the truth is that before it was recorded as a single and in a much cruder key by the Rolling Stones.
In the psychedelic soundtrack of Yellow Submarine (1966) it is logical that, among the additional contributions, an eccentric such as Brian Jones would appear adding sound effects to the mix (clinking glasses), ocarina and choirs. Marianne Faithfull also appears in the credits. It was the summer of love and good vibes were rampant on Carnaby Street. So it is not surprising that in 1967 Lennon and McCarney expressed their solidarity with the Rolling Stones in We love you, one of their most experimental and psychedelic singles, doing choirs in a song thanking the fans for the support received during the arrest of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for drug possession.
Much more famous is the participation of John Lennon in the concert filmed in 1968 for the film The Rolling Stones rock and roll circus (1996), in which Lennon and Yoko Ono appear as members of the supergroup The Dirty Mac, along with Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. The most famous track on this album on Spotify is long Yer blues, an abrasive hard blues rock with the voice of a Lennon delivered and in a state of grace. Less known is that on the B-side of Let it be, in the soulful, swinging and also very strange (for the Beatle canon) You know my name (look up the number) (1970), Brian Jones plays the sax.
