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Crispin Cioe Tours with the Rolling Stones

  • 3 min read

Crispin Cioe Tours with the Rolling Stones

Rolling Stones Saxophonist

Crispin Cioe of the Uptown Horns tours with the Rolling Stones, performing with them in the movie of their concert “Rolling Stones: Live at the Max”. The film was the first concert movie shot in the IMAX format. Crispin (alto sax) is a charter member of The Uptown Horns along with the rest of the horn section Arno Hecht (tenor sax), Larry Etkin on trumpet (who replaced Paul Litteral in the early ’90s) and Bob Funk (trombone). The Uptown Horns toured with The Rolling Stones on their Steel Wheels and Urban Jungle tours. “Happy” is the eighth song in concert setlist.

During the tour, the Uptown Horns’ performances with the Rolling Stones were recorded for the IMAX film “Rolling Stones: Live at the Max”. You can see them in the song “Happy” sung by Keith Richards. Crispin Cioe (second from the left) plays alto saxophone next to Bobby Keys (left). Keys shared the same birthday as Keith Richards with whom he became a longtime friend. He was constant in Richards’ entourage. According to Richards, the single ‘Happy’ was recorded only by him and Keys, with producer Jimmy Miller on drums.

Crispin Cioe Plays Sax with the Rolling Stones

“Happy”

“Honky Tonk Women”

“Honky Tonk Women” topped the charts in the U.S. and England. The song was on Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. “Honky Tonk Women” is the seventh song in the movie’s setlist. Crispin

“Tumbling Dice”

You can watch The Uptowns Horns perform with the Stones on “Tumbling Dice” from the album Exile on Main Street. It was written while the band was in tax exile in the picturesque seaside town of Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Côte d’Azur. The band recorded at the home Keith Richard had rented, Nellcôte, a 19th-century mansion that overlooks the Mediterranean. They had turned guitarist Keith Richards’ new home into a makeshift studio with the band’s mobile recording unit parked outside. Exile is a double album, and considered by many as the rootsiest thing the Stones ever did.

“Mixed Emotions”

In 2020, The Rolling Stones issued a previously unreleased concert film, Steel Wheels Live — Atlantic City, New Jersey, and companion album Steel Wheels Live. StradlinEric Clapton, and blues legend John Lee Hooker. The concert file and a live album by the Rolling Stones was recorded in Atlantic City, New Jersey on the Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour. It features appearances by Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin from Guns N’ RosesEric Clapton and John Lee Hooker. The Uptown Horns are also credited on Flashpoint, which is another live album from the same tour. You can catch a glimpse of Crispin on the left in the horn section in the Atlantic City performance of the Rolling Stones.

Happily Ever After

At the end of the Steel Wheels/ Urban Jungle tour, Crispin attended a party at Keith Richard’s home in Connecticut. Crispin chatted up Krista Bradford, a television journalist at the time. Soon afterward, they they started dating. Crispin and Krista were married about 4 months later and still are to this day. Their only child, a daughter, is now an MD and psychiatrist.

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