* On the run from the English tax man, hounded by French police over all the junkies hanging out at Keith Richards’ southern France villa and frustrated by band members constantly gone missing, the Rolling Stones managed to make a masterpiece out of the jumbled yet strongly coherent Exile on Main Street.

Exile’s grungy mix was sharply criticized when the album was first issued almost 40 years ago. But to many Stones fans, including myself, the sound achieved (or blundered into, depending whom you believe) was more authentic than anything the group managed to do before or since.

The album was recorded in a dirty basement and it definitely sounded like it. That dirty, even muddied sound induced righteous feelings of euphoria in those of us who know those guys are capable of so much more than poppy stadium rock. The band members explored different musical styles, different sorts of phrasing and new instruments, mostly at the behest of one of those junkies who was hanging around all the time: Gram Parsons. And they did it all without overtly and cynically pushing for that “one big hit” designed to appeal to the juveniles and keep the record in the top forty. They also succeeded in making an album that covered the musical gamut while holding together as one. All the songs have the same Exile feel. There’s just nothing else like it in rock.

I never heard Exile until I got to college, but I’m glad I had to wait. It is a classic “college” album, ready-made for those of us who were discovering they loved art, not just the mindless hard rock of their high school daze. Just play it, man, put it on tape and release the thing. That’s Exile. Or, at least, that’s how it sounded to me.

* As you probably know by now, Exile has been reissued with some old tracks that were never released. Many of the tracks have been redone, with lyrics written and vocals added because they were just instrumentals back then. Still, the Stones didn’t manage to totally screw it up.

All but one of the new tracks are on YouTube, so I’ve been listening to them the past couple of days. My father and my brother Devin are in love with a boogie-woogie song called I’m Not Signifying…

If that doesn’t put you right back into that basement with a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other, nothing will.

“Tumbling Dice” has always been one of my favorite Stones hits, and now they’ve released the song it was based on, Good Time Women…

Again, you definitely get that high, rough feel which you will only find in spots on most other Stones albums.

Pass the Wine (Sophia Loren) has all new vocals, so we get that overly affected Jagger voice which I really wish he’d drop. Plundered My Soul sounds a lot like some of the songs the Stones released in the early 1980s, which will probably make it the big hit off this new release. An alternate take of Soul Survivor has Keith Richards singing instead of Mick. So Divine (Aladdin Story) sounds like “Paint it Black” at the beginning, but listen carefully because you’ll hear the inspiration for later Stones songs.

And while Dancing In the Light doesn’t really sound like an Exile tune, it’s something I’ll probably be playing in the convertible all summer…

Enjoy.