The album release party for The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet album was a notoriously messy affair, complete with a well-documented food fight. But the real release party for the record — held four months earlier — was even more fraught.
I just replaced my well-loved OG Canadian pressing of the 1968 LP with a lovely 2023 Record Store Day version. There are several differences. First, it sounds different. My new remaster is noticeably faster than my old copy. This is quite surprising. Somehow, a mastering issue caused the album to be released at a slightly slower speed than intended. Weirder still, it stayed this way until 2002, when it was remastered for Super Audio CD. Prior to this, anyone trying to learn how to play Sympathy For The Devil, Street Fighting Man, Salt Of The Earth, Stray Cat Blues, No Expectations, etc., probably struggled to tune their instrument to the record and play along.
Since 2002:
1968-2001:
Since 2002, Beggars Banquet is roughly 30 seconds shorter in duration overall than it was prior to the speed correction. The most obvious difference between my 2023 and 1968 pressings, however, is the sleeve artwork. The 2023 one bears the original, intended artwork — Barry Feinstein’s photos of the public toilet, with the walls freshly scrawled upon by the Stones themselves. Neither London nor Decca Records were keen on the original artwork. Toilets were a no-no in the ’60s, apparently. Earlier pressings of The Mamas & The Papas’ 1966 debut album, If You can Believe Your Eyes And Ears, showed the vocal group piled together into a bathtub. The toilet next to them was covered up with a text box about the hits included on the album. Eventually, the ridiculous censorship was relaxed. Such was the case with Beggars Banquet as well. The band settled on the equally famous white RSVP cover as a replacement for the toilet, and it was in production exclusively until 1981, when a Greek pressing finally opted for the original artwork. By the mid-’80s, the original artwork was in use at least half the time. Since the remasters of the early 2000s, practically all of the pressings bear the original artwork.
The fight over the artwork held up the release of the album for several months in 1968. After two months of sessions at London’s Olympic Studios, the last day of recording was in June, followed by mixing sessions at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, which concluded July 25. Mick Jagger celebrated his 25th birthday on July 26 and to mark the occasion, they arranged a massive party at Tony Sanchez’s newly opened Vesuvio Club on Tottenham Court Road in central London the first week of August — probably Aug. 6. Thinking their much-anticipated followup to the critical failure, Their Satanic Majesties Request, was due to be released very soon, Jagger had Sanchez spin a copy of the freshly mixed album for the crowd. Various accounts of the event suggest the crowd was digging what they were hearing — leaping and dancing about to the band’s return to form. Imagine hearing Sympathy For The Devil for the first time.
The shindig was a VIP event, featuring the Stones, their entourage, management and production staff, friends, family and fellow musicians including John Lennon and Yoko Ono. With the party already in full swing, Sanchez recalls Paul McCartney strolling in with a studio acetate of The Beatles’ next single Hey Jude / Revolution. The first stereo mix of Hey Jude was completed Aug. 2 and the mono mix was done Aug. 8. This acetate probably contained that first stereo mix. McCartney handed the acetate to Sanchez to play — and suggested he fit it in at some point, as this was the still-unreleased “next one.” Sanchez dutifully played both sides of the acetate, and was reportedly asked to play Hey Jude over and over.
If I were Jagger, or any member of the band, I’d be pretty pissed at being upstaged at my own party. It’s kind of a dick move, really. But these were young men with justifiably enormous egos — McCartney had just turned 26 a few weeks earlier.
Among the guests at the party would have surely been keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, who is on eight of Beggars Banquet’s 10 tracks. Apart from Brian Jones’ Mellotron on Jigsaw Puzzle and Stray Cat Blues, Hopkins is the only keyboard player on the record. Fun fact — he also plays electric piano on Revolution. He’s the only non-Beatle on the track. So, there’s a very good chance Hopkins was present at that party while everyone raved about music he helped make with the Stones, but also with The Beatles.
Awkward. Very cool, but awkward.
Not only would Hopkins have earned a spot at the party due to his involvement on Beggars Banquet, but also due to the fact that he was well liked by everyone — particularly for his sense of humour. He also played on the aforementioned Their Satanic Majesties Request, and every subsequent Stones album until Some Girls in 1978. He was back for Emotional Rescue in 1980 and appears on three Tattoo You tracks. Hopkins made three solo albums and did three film soundtracks, but was primarily a session player. There is absolutely no chance you’ve not heard his playing, so I thought I’d celebrate this with a playlist of Nicky’s greatest hits.
Beset with health problems related to Crohn’s Disease most of his life, Hopkins died at age 50 in 1994 from complications after intestinal surgery. A documentary about him, fittingly titled Session Man, came out in 2023 and has been available in North America since March 2025.
“Raise your glass to the hard-working people
Let’s drink to the salt of the earth.”
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Area Resident is an Ottawa-based journalist, recording artist, music collector and re-seller. Hear (and buy) his music on Bandcamp, email him HERE, follow him on Instagram and check him out on Discogs.
