Rare UK Pressing 1st version of iconic Rolling Stones LP. This is the original 1968 press on the Boxed Decca Record Label in blue colour. The vinyl is housed in the first issue in a gatefold cover, with blue print. Label: Decca – SKL.4955 Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo Country: UK Released: 1968 • Recorded At – Olympic Studios • Published By – Mirage Music • Record Company – The Decca Record Company Limited • Printed By – Garrod & Lofthouse International Ltd. • Lacquer Cut At – Decca Studios • Pressed By – Decca Record Co. Ltd., Pressing Plant, UK. Catalog# "SKL.4955" appears on label. Catalog# "SKL 4955" appears on rear cover and spine. • Matrix / Runout (Run-out, stamped, side A: XZAL-8476-1K • Matrix / Runout (Run-out, stamped, side B: XZAL-8477-3K Rare original 1968 UK Decca stereo 10-track LP on the generic dark blue and silver printed company label. Label has large boxed Decca and 'ffss' logo on top and 'Full Frequency Stereophonic Sound' silver stripe right above center hole. Copyright information is to the far left of centre hole - matrix info/catalogue number to the far right - publishing year and J/T taxcode at bottom label. Vinyl is held in a generic era specific protective company inner. Condition: Vinyl is good – one or two very light scuffs. Labels are very good Cover is in very good condition with only light laminate wear - only a couple of laminate creases and a little spine related laminate shelling. The Rolling Stones remain rightly proud of their album Beggars Banquet, which marked a return to their more classic sound after the previous psychedelic experimentation of Their Satanic Majesties Request. The band have said that Beggars Banquet “changed everything for The Rolling Stones,” describing it on their official website as the album that showed them reaching “their musical manhood.” Listen to Beggars Banquet on Apple Music and Spotify. • Blind Willie McTell’s Miraculous ‘Last Session’ • Fresh Evidence: Revisiting Rory Gallagher’s Sublime 80s Albums • Little Walter: The True King Of Blues Harp The album’s famous opening track, “Sympathy For The Devil,” was written at a time when Mick Jagger had been reading about the occult. He and Keith Richards – who jointly composed nine of the ten tracks on Beggars Banquet – initially gave the song the less shocking working title of “The Devil Is My Name.” In their powerful lyrics, the Stones imagine Satan’s appearances at crucial moments in history, and there are references to the crucifixion of Christ, the Russian Revolution, World War II, and JFK’s assassination. Musically, the song is also memorable for the piano work of master session man Nicky Hopkins. There are also lots of brilliant guitar solos by Richards, who said that, at the time, his discovery of open five-string tuning for the recording sessions – which took place between March and July 1968, at Olympic Sound Studios, in London, and Sunset Sound, in Los Angeles – helped him improve the way he played. Another notable aspect of the album was the portraits that the band commissioned from photographer Michael Joseph to go in the gatefold artwork. The photos, which evoke the work of Old Masters such as Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel, showed the group dressed in outlandish clothes that seemed to blend Swinging 60s London with Dickensian rascals. It is no surprise that Time magazine’s review of Beggars Banquet, which was released on Decca Records on December 6, 1968, described the Stones as “England’s most subversive roisterers since Fagin’s gang in Oliver Twist.”