Shes The Boss

Description

Mick Jaggers first proper solo album, Shes The Boss was released in early 1985 and was an immediate worldwide hit. An 1980s dance record through and through it overflows with cool production techniques and muscular sounding songs courtesy of uber producers Bill Laswell (Herbie Hancock, Parliament-Funkadelic, Maceo Parker, Sly Stone) and Nile Rodgers (Chic, David Bowie, Jeff Beck) and yielded a trio of hit singles including Just Another Night, Shes the Boss and Lucky in Love. Guest appearances are made by Jeff Beck, Sly Dunbar, Jan Hammer, Herbie Hancock, Robbie Shakespeare, Pete Townshend, Chuck Leavell, Lenny Pickett, and Michael Shrieve.

My intention was to write songs that were slightly left of the mainstream, Mick said. I wanted to write songs about personal relationships. And as I was writing the songs I was thinking visually, cinematic. Keith and I had been producing our stuff for a long time. I felt strongly that if I was going to release a solo record, I needed to focus on my performances without having the responsibility of also producing the record. I though that just for fun maybe Id use more than one producer. I thought it would be very good to try it with two very different people, Bill Laswell and Nile Rodgers. Bill Laswell is a real kind of thinking guy. I had liked the stuff that he did with Material. And so we sat around talking about musicians and the ideas sort of fell into place. And I was aware that Nile Rodgers was working with Jeff Beck on his album, so I though that maybe it would be good to do some tracks with Nile and Jeff.

I started off with the rhythm section of Sly Dunbar on drums and Robbie Shakespeare on bass, along with Jeff Beck on guitar and Jan Hammer on keyboards, he adds. And then everyone else just seemed to jump in. Unlike all of the popular records of those days which were recorded in layers, my record was more or less recorded live with this core group of musicians and then added to. I knew it was never going to sound like the Rolling Stones, and the great thing about it was the mystery. I was throwing elements together, and I didnt know what was going to happen, nor did the musicians. And we were all having fun.