As the '60s drained into the '70s, the Rolling Stones went on a creative run that rivals any in popular music. Beggars Banquet (1968), Let It Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile on Main Street (1972) routinely turn up on lists of the greatest albums of all time, and deservedly so. All done with American producer Jimmy Miller – "an incredible rhythm man," in Keith Richards' terse description – those records shake like the culture itself was shaking.

From the manner Beggars Banquet was recorded at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London, to the track selection, a mixture of rockers ("Street Fighting Man"), blues numbers ("Prodigal Son," "No Expectations") and ballads ("Salt Of The Earth"), the band truly came into their own as both authentic artists and unprecedented songwriters. While 1967′s Their Satanic Majesties was recorded after Mick and Keith's traumatic and unjust, drug busts, it was almost too soon to be reflected in their songwriting. Whereas "Sympathy For The Devil," and much of Beggars Banquet hint at a defiance at what they'd been through, and a strength from the experience.

The album also marks a change in musical direction for the band, with the debut of Miller as producer. He's also produced Traffic and Spooky Tooth, and co-wrote "I'm A Man" with Steve Winwood. Other musicians who appeared on the album are Nicky Hopkins on piano, Dave Mason on guitar and mandolin and a gospel choir from Los Angeles. The only non Jagger/Richards song on the album, "Prodigal Son" is a cover of Robert Wilkins' "That Ain't No Way To Get Along," which he first recorded in 1929. A year earlier Wilkins recorded the first known song to be entitled, "Rolling Stone."