How 'Primitive Cool' Gave Mick Jagger a Rootsy Rock Makeover Thanks to Dave Stewart

After the glossy, Nile Rodgers–produced She’s the Boss (1985) tried to sell Mick Jagger as a solo pop star, his follow-up Primitive Cool (1987) felt like a deliberate steps backward into the dirt. The album swapped synth hooks for slide guitars, shunted the disco-funk in favor of bluesy rock, and generally sounded like a guy who missed playing with Keith Richards but wasn’t ready to admit it. The key was bringing in Dave Stewart from Eurythmics, who co-wrote and co-produced the whole thing.

Stewart, fresh off Savage with Annie Lennox, had a knack for mixing rock grit with studio polish. On Primitive Cool, he pushed Jagger into a more organic, band-oriented setup—live drums, lap steel, harmonicas, and a lot of space. Tracks like “Let’s Work” and the title cut lean on swampy grooves and ragged vocals, a far cry from the robotic precision of She’s the Boss’s “Just Another Night.” Stewart also drafted in guitarists like Jeff Beck and Jim Keltner on drums, giving the sessions a loose, born-in-a-jam feel.

The album flopped commercially—Jagger blamed poor promotion and a rift with CBS—but its sound quietly predicted the bluesier, more rootsy direction the Rolling Stones would take on Steel Wheels two years later. Stewart’