httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lNP-x94-SE

The Rolling Stones recently released a remastered version of their 1972 masterpiece, Exile on Main Street.

The Stones have been around so long — and have ground out so much also-ran material over the past 30 years — that it is easy to forget sometimes why they were once seriously known as “the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band.”  Exile of Main Street is almost certainly their best work that, more than anything by other mainstream artists of the period, deeply explores the musical roots of rock ‘n’ roll, from gospel to blues to soul to country and honky tonk — not to mention at least one track, “Just Wanna See His Face,” that sounds like it burbled up from the depths of a bayou swamp by way of voodoo magic.

Above is the album’s opening track, “Rocks Off”, played over contemporary footage by photographer Robert Frank, who also designed the album’s distinctive cover, as well as shot the notorious, never-released making-of-Exile documentary, Cocksucker Blues.

Before there were music videos, there was Britain’s Top of the Pops.  A couple of  appearances by the band after the jump.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Y6EEWXwRU

“Brown Sugar”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMkFjYRWM4M

“Angie”