Rolling Stones ~ Emotional Rescue 1980 Disco Purrfection Version

After the massive success of “Miss You“ the Stones took a step back into soulful R&B with “Emotional Rescue“ a beat driven tune that peaked at #3 for two weeks it was the highest new entry that week at #33. It could not get past Diana Ross’s “Upside Down“ at #1 and Christopher Cross “Sailing“ at #2 the first week and then Air Supply “All Out Of Love“ the second. Mick Jagger wrote and recorded a demo with an electric piano and sang it in falsetto like Marvin Gaye had done with “Got To Give It Up“ and brought it to the band,keeping the piano and vocal with the rest of the Stones adding their parts to the song finishing off with saxophonist Bobby Keys adding his part. Billboard noted that the song may have been influenced by the music of Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions but updated with the tough talking lyrics of Jagger who explained that the song was about a girl who was a bit messed up and a man who wanted to help her to get involved with his emotional rescue. Gossip had it that Keith Richards was not enamoured of this new direction and limited his involvement with guitar and his backing vocals near the end of the song. The result is a hot funky dance track that was not played in concert until 2013. It did peak at #9 on the Hot Disco/Dance chart that summer of 1980.