New Rolling Stones Video Features Kristen Stewart

Share This:

Kristen Stewart, from the Rolling Stones’ “Ride ‘Em on Down” video

Blue & Lonesome, the Rolling Stones’ highly anticipated all-blues album—their first-ever all-covers album and first new studio release since 2005’s A Bigger Bang—is out today (Dec. 2) and along with it a new video: “Ride ’Em on Down.” The video features actress Kristen Stewart cruising around L.A. in a blue 1965 Mustang, dancing at a gas station, careening wildly through a puddle, being stopped by a dicey-looking character in a police car and eventually, inexplicably, driving past a zebra, all to the tune of the band’s workout on the 1955 Eddie Taylor tune.

“Ride ’Em on Down” is the third single to be released from Blue & Lonesome, following “Just Your Fool” and “Hate to See You Go.” Both of the earlier singles reached #1 on Billboard’s Blues Digital Songs chart. “Hate to See You Go” was released as a video in November.

Stewart was quoted as saying, about the video shoot, “It didn’t take much more than a few words to get me amped on the idea. The Stones. A ’65 Mustang. Alone in Los Angeles. And the shoot was just as dreamy as the idea. We tore L.A. apart in a day and we had one hell of a soundtrack.”

The Stones themselves do not appear in the video.

The Rolling Stones at the 2016 Desert Trip concerts

Blue & Lonesome, the Stones have said, was recorded in three days, sans overdubs, at British Grove Studios in West London. In addition to the core Stones members—Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts—it features Darryl Jones on bass and Chuck Leavell and Matt Clifford playing keyboards. Eric Clapton, who was recording in an adjacent studio, dropped by the sessions to play on two tracks.

“Ride ’Em on Down” is based on a song titled “Shake ’Em on Down,” originally recorded by bluesman Bukka White in 1937 on the Vocalion label. Taylor’s version changed the title and was cut for the Vee-Jay label. Variations on the song have been recorded by the British blues band Savoy Brown and others.

Watch the “Ride ‘Em on Down” video from the Stones’ Blue & Lonesome