In the ’90s, Joe Satriani had already spent roughly a decade as one of the buzziest virtuosos in the guitar world, and with that privilege comes a long list of esteemed artists vying to collaborate. And on his sixth studio album, simply titled Joe Satriani and released in 1995, Satch very nearly ended up with Mick Jagger on his record.
He told the tale to Guitar World in 1996: “While I was doing some early sessions for the record with Jeff Campitelli [Satriani’s longtime drummer] and John Cuniberti [recording engineer and producer], the Stones came to town to play at Oakland Stadium.
“Pierre [deBeauport, the Stones' guitar technician] called us up and said, ‘Why don't you guys come over to the stadium and hang out a while?’ So we were sitting backstage in the Voodoo Lounge [tour], and Mick and I started talking.”
That was when Jagger offered his harmonica services.
“He said, casually, ‘Oh, Joe, if you want some harp playing on your record, just give me a call. I'll be in the States for a while, and I'll gladly do some harp tracks for you.’”
Satch’s original idea was to have him play on the tracks Cool #9 and Luminous Flesh Giants, but after a while, he realized that those songs weren’t “really suited for harmonica.”
“So then I wrote S.M.F. specifically for Mick to play on. We recorded an ADAT [Alesis Digital Audio Tape] demo and sent it off to him in South America or someplace. I think he was in Australia before he got to doing it and sent the tape back.”
However, the plan changed yet again when record producer Glyn Johns got on board. “When we were recording S.M.F., I told Glyn that there was this harp part that Mick Jagger was going to do. But Glyn said, ‘Well, why don't you just play it?’ I'd done things like that on The Extremist tour – playing harmonica live while playing guitar.
“We tried it, and it worked out fine. So by the time we heard the ADAT of the demo with Mick on it, we had this new live version which we liked much better,” he added sheepishly. “I haven't told Mick yet. Now I have to call up Mick Jagger and say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’”
As he sums it up, “A very embarrassing situation.”
