Stones in Exile

Description: A look at the creation and impact of the 1972 Rolling Stones album "Exile on Main St." There is a great moment in Stones in Exile when Keith Richards defines the essential difference in temperament between Mick Jagger and himself. "Mick needs to know what he's going to do tomorrow," says Richards, his voice slurring into a laugh. "Me, I'm just happy to wake up and see who's hanging around. Mick's rock, I'm roll." On Exile on Main St, though, Jagger, for once, rolled with Richards. So, too, did everyone else involved, from Jimmy Miller, the producer, to Marshall Chess, the young Atlantic Records executive, to the rest of the group and their extended retinue of session players, studio technicians and hangers-on. Once the decision had been made to record the album in the basement of Villa Nellcote, Richards's rented house in the south of France, the working schedule was dictated by the irregular hours kept by the group's wayward guitarist, who also had a singularly dogged approach to composing songs.