Exile on Main Street

In the space of a year that pivoted on 1971, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison of the Doors were all dead of drug overdose — rock giants all dead before they were 28-years-old.

The sixties had bloomed and collapsed. An angry war slogged on in Vietnam. And in an opulent mansion in the south of France, the still-young bad boy superstars of rock and roll, The Rolling Stones, were grinding out an album in a real and metaphysical exile of sex, heroin, and cultural confusion.

They called it "Exile on Main Street" — a dark masterpiece of rock alienation. Music journalist Robert Greenfield was there.

We get lost with the Rolling Stones, and the making of Exile on Main Street.

Quotes from the Show:

"The Rolling Stones really fit in the French Riviera." Robert Greenfield

"The Rolling Stones were anticipating the changes that were happening to the counterculture." Robert Greenfield

"In 1971, they [Rolling Stones] had no idea of their own standing in rock history." Robert Greenfield

"Keith Richards was an authentic artist ... embodied the values of the culture that was about to end." Robert Greenfield

"[The Rolling Stones] were always influenced by America." Robert Greenfield

Guests:

Robert Greenfield, author of "Exile on Main Street: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones."