With 'Stoned Cold Country,' Nashville pays tribute to the Rolling Stones

The enduring blues and jazz roots of the Rolling Stones prove incredibly vibrant when examined through a modern, countrified lens.

Among many sonic notes, that is the most significant takeaway from the cover album "Stoned Cold Country: Nashville's Love Letter to the Rolling Stones," which is being released March 17.

Some tracks have already been released, including Jimmie Allen's take on "Miss You," "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It)" by Brothers Osborne and the War and Treaty, "Sympathy for the Devil" by Elvie Shane, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by Lainey Wilson and "Paint It Black" by the Zac Brown Band.

Veteran Nashville creative Robert Deaton, executive producer of the 14-track album and an accompanying documentary film, talked with the Tennessean about the project.

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"This album is country music's thank you to the Rolling Stones for 60 years of inspiration and providing the soundtrack of our lives," Deaton says. "While recording the record, I was reminded that this is a showcase and spotlight on the best we have to offer as a genre. From our artists to all of the musicians that played on the record, we boldly state that country music is second to none when it comes to artists of integrity and creativity."

A series of funkier, steamier moments from the English band's nearly 70 years of inter-continental sonic fusions are examined in the new compilation.

Deaton ties the Stones' country roots to 1971, when country icon Gram Parsons spent the first half of the year living in guitarist Keith Richards' French villa, Nellcôte, during recording sessions for the Stones' album "Exile on Main Street."

"These were creative, trailblazing geniuses fueling each other's desire to make the best music possible," Deaton says. "Feeling over perfection, no click tracks, no desire for radio airplay, outlaws making loose, real music like Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson."

Intriguingly, North Carolina-native Deaton's career in country music — alongside an appreciation for all things Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette — ties into a Stones-related inspiration.

After hearing Ronnie Milsap's 1976 live cover of the band's "Honky Tonk Women," Deaton said believed it to be "one of the greatest country music songs of all time."

Similar to Milsap's ability to fuse the best of country, rock, soul, and a multitude of sonic influences, Deaton feels that the artists tabbed for inclusion in the tribute project — including women like Elle King, Ashley McBryde, Maren Morris, War and Treaty's Tanya Trotter and Wilson — add a "trailblazing" spirit to the compilation, "by design, on purpose."

"Lainey's voice with the overtones of a steel guitar — once she says 'caint' in the hook of 'You Can't Always Get What You Want,' it feels unmistakably country," Deaton says.

Having the opportunity to record one of the Rolling Stones' tracks was "an incredible honor," Wilson says.

"I had so much fun recording this track and I'm so grateful that I got to bring my bell-bottom country flare to one of their greatest hits," she says.

The impact of acts like Brooks and Dunn ("Honky Tonk Women") and Eric Church ("Gimme Shelter"), who cut their teeth playing Stones covers as part of their early development playing dive bar gigs, improves the album significantly, too.

Notably, Church and his longtime background singer Joanna Cotten's vocal interactions on "Gimme Shelter" take a refreshing approach to Merry Clayton's iconic original. For the accompanying documentary film, there's a rare look behind the scenes at a Church recording session that offers a sense of how earnestly "The Chief" and his team approach their craft.

"["Playing those covers"] is hard to do," adds Deaton. "The Stones are the Stones."

Taking something complicated and re-imagining it with relative ease, Allen's "confident" cover of "Miss You" is one of the album's more stunning tracks.

Aided by Willie Nelson's longtime harmonica player Mickey Raphael and the late Michael Rhodes (a 10-time Academy of Country Music Bass Player of the Year award-winner who plays on roughly half of the album's songs), the track is deeply embedded in the funk of its groove, Deaton says. "Imagine if Barry White were making a country record with some jazz and R&B sprinkled in with that."

Another standout Stones re-creation involves the Zac Brown Band's experimental performance of "Paint It Black." Deaton says Brown and crew's version is "incredible."

"As a producer, it's easy to get out of the way of the Zac Brown Band," Deaton says. "Zac's a genius. Jimmy De Martini, the band's violin player, opens by dancing around the melody, which sounds like pure frenzy. Then, the song drops in during [Jimmy's] last statement. [Zac] figured out how to make it different while still paying intentional respect to the original."

Deaton says the most challenging task of the release was seamlessly crossing country and rock while handling with care "important songs that are the soundtrack of our lives, made by legendary artists."

"Being cognizant of the weight of their blessing to be able to pull this together in a way that feels different, but perfect, too."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville pays tribute to Rolling Stones with 'Stoned Cold Country'