“Loving Cup” by The Rolling Stones

"Loving Cup" is one of the warm, rolling gospel-tinged moments on the Rolling Stones' 1972 album Exile on Main St., and it had been hanging around a long time: an early take with a totally different piano intro was cut at Olympic Sound Studios in London in 1969, during the Let It Bleed sessions.

The finished version is a party in slow motion. Mick Jagger sings with Keith Richards on the backing vocals, Richards plays acoustic and electric guitars, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts roll underneath, and Nicky Hopkins' piano leads the whole thing along. Bobby Keys blows sax, Jim Price adds trumpet and trombone, and producer Jimmy Miller shakes the maracas. Mick Taylor sits this one out, and to this day nobody knows who played the steel drum.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.