The Rolling Stones Release 'Love You Live'

Love You Live is a double live album by The Rolling Stones, released in 1977.

The album is drawn from Tour of the Americas shows in the United States in the summer of 1975, Tour of Europe shows in 1976 and performances from the infamous El Mocambo nightclub concert venue in Toronto in 1977. It is the band's third official full-length live release.

The album was overdubbed and mixed from late May to mid-June 1977; it features Billy Preston and Ian Stewart on piano. Love You Live's artwork was prepared by Andy Warhol, and the pencil smears seen across the front were added to Warhol's dismay by Mick Jagger. Released in September 1977, the album was well-received and managed to reach #3 in the UK and #5 in the US, where it went gold.

Love You Live was The Rolling Stones' final album whereby Rolling Stones Records would be internationally distributed by Warner Music. The band's next several albums would be distributed through EMI worldwide, while they remained with Warner in North America only.

Love You Live was the final album where Keith Richard's name would be spelled as such, returning his surname to "Richards" beginning with 1978's Some Girls.

As a Stones loyalist, I am distressed to report that this documents the Stones' suspected deterioration as a live band, a deterioration epitomized by the accelerating affectation of Mick's vocals. Once his slurs teased, made jokes, held out double meanings; now his refusal to pronounce final dentals--the "good" and "should" of "Brown Sugar," for example--convey bored, arrogant laziness, as if he can't be bothered hoisting his tongue to the roof of his mouth. His "oo-oo-oo"s and "awri-i"s are self-parody without humor. This is clearly a professional entertainer doing a job that just doesn't get him off the way it once did, a job that gets harder every time out.