Chris Kimsey: The Engineer Who Captured the Stones’ Late-70s Shift on Some Girls and Emotional Rescue

Chris Kimsey wasn’t a household name like Glyn Johns or Bob Clearmountain, but he was the unsung engineering and production anchor for the Rolling Stones during their most restless, transitional period. He started as a tape operator at Olympic Studios in the late ’60s, working on Beggars Banquet, then moved up to engineer on Goats Head Soup and It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll. By the late ’70s, he was the guy the band trusted to drag them out of creative ruts.

For Some Girls (1978), Kimsey essentially became the fifth member in the studio. The band was sick of overdubs and big productions, so he set them up in a smaller room at Pathé Marconi in Paris, miking everything live with no separation. He used a primitive but effective trick: placing Jagger in the control room, the band in the main room, and leaving the door open so the bleed was part of the sound. That raw, aggressive, almost punk-ish punch came from Kimsey pushing Keith’s amps