"All Down the Line" is a song by rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...

 featured on their 1972 album Exile on Main St.

Exile on Main St.

Exile on Main St. is the tenth British and 12th American studio album by English rock band The Rolling Stones. Released as a double LP in May 1972, it draws on many genres including rock and roll, blues, soul, R&B, gospel and country. The release of Exile on Main St. met with mixed reviews, but is...

.

Background

Written by Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....

 and Keith Richards

Keith Richards

Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...

, "All Down the Line" is a straight ahead electric rock song which opens side four of Exile on Main St.. An acoustic version of the song was recorded in 1969 during the early sessions of what would become Sticky Fingers

Sticky Fingers

-Personnel:The Rolling Stones*Mick Jagger – lead vocals, acoustic guitar on "Dead Flowers", electric guitar on "Sway", percussion*Keith Richards – electric guitar, six & twelve string acoustic guitar, backing vocals...

. Recording took place at Olympic Sound Studios in London and Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles.

Featured on the recording are Jagger on lead vocals and backing vocals with Richards and Kathi McDonald

Kathi McDonald

Kathryn Marie McDonald , popularly known as Kathi McDonald, is a blues and rock singer. She currently performs with Kathi McDonald & Friends. She has appeared on an extensive list of rock and blues albums and toured extensively with Long John Baldry prior to his death...

. Bill Wyman

Bill Wyman

Bill Wyman is an English musician best known as the bass guitarist for the English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1992. Since 1997, he has recorded and toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings...

 performs electric bass while Bill Plummer performs acoustic standup bass. Mick Taylor

Mick Taylor

Michael Kevin "Mick" Taylor is an English musician, best known as a former member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and The Rolling Stones...

 performs the electric slide guitar

Slide guitar

Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...

 while Richards performs electric rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...

. With Charlie Watts

Charlie Watts

Charles Robert "Charlie" Watts is an English drummer, best known as a member of The Rolling Stones. He is also the leader of a jazz band, a record producer, commercial artist, and horse breeder.-Early life:...

 on drums, producer Jimmy Miller

Jimmy Miller (producer)

James "Jimmy" Miller was a Brooklyn, New York-born record producer and musician who produced dozens of albums between the mid-1960s and early 1990s, including landmark recordings for Blind Faith, Traffic, the Plasmatics, Motorhead, The World Bank and Primal Scream...

 performs maracas. Bobby Keys

Bobby Keys

Bobby Keys is an American saxophone player, and has performed with other musicians as a member of one of the notable horn sections of the 1970s. He appears on albums by The Rolling Stones, The Who, Harry Nilsson, Delaney Bramlett, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, Eric Clapton and Joe...

 and Jim Price

Jim Price (musician)

Jim Price was, together with Bobby Keys and Jim Horn, one of the most in demand horn session players of the 1970s. He toured extensively with The Rolling Stones from 1970 until 1973, including their 1972 American Tour, and appears on the albums, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St. and Goats Head Soup...

 lend support on saxophone and trumpet and trombone, respectively. Nicky Hopkins

Nicky Hopkins

Nicholas Christian "Nicky" Hopkins was an English pianist and organist.He recorded and performed on noted British and American popular music recordings of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s as a session musician....

 performs on piano.

The Rolling Stones famously gave a Los Angeles radio station a demo of "All Down the Line" to play while they drove around and listened to it on the radio, but "All Down the Line"'s biggest claim to fame may be its near constant appearance on the Rolling Stones' tours since the release of Exile.

Concert performances

The song has appeared on a number of tours throughout the 1970s, early 1980s, and every tour since Voodoo Lounge Tour

Voodoo Lounge Tour

The Voodoo Lounge Tour was a worldwide concert tour by The Rolling Stones to promote their 1994 album Voodoo Lounge. This was their first tour without bassist Bill Wyman; he was replaced by Darryl Jones. The tour grossed $320 million, becoming the highest grossing tour of any artist at that time...

.

A performance of "All Down the Line" was captured for the 2007 live album Shine a Light. Despite its popularity as a live song, this is its first appearance on an official live LP. A live version from 1995 appeared as a B-side of "Wild Horses" from the Stripped album.

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