Who Played on Goats Head Soup: Ten Tracks, Four Pianists Who Never Meet

If you want to know who played on Goats Head Soup, the answer is more tangled than the sleeve credits suggest, so I mapped the record itself: all ten tracks of the 1973 Rolling Stones album sit as stations in running order, and every credited musician runs as a line through the tracks they actually played on.

The thing I did not expect when I worked through the credits: the four keyboard players on this album cover all ten tracks between them and never once share one.

The short version. My Goats Head Soup map plots all ten tracks of the 1973 Rolling Stones album, from "Dancing with Mr. D" to "Star Star", as stations in running order. Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger are credited on all ten. Keith Richards is on nine. Bill Wyman plays bass on three. Four different keyboard players divide the album between them with no overlap at all. Giclée art print in A2 and A1, unframed or in a black wood frame, from £42.00.

Why This Map Goes Inside One Album Instead of a Whole Career

Every other music map I make plots a career, one station per studio album. This is the only one in my range that goes inside a single record.

That decision changes what you can see. On a discography map, you learn that Billy Preston played on a Stones album. On this one, you learn he played clavinet on exactly two tracks, and which two.

It is made for the fan who knows the running order without checking, and who will stand in front of it working out why one line stops where it does.

Charlie Watts Is on All Ten Tracks. Keith Richards Is Not.

Watts is credited on drums for every track on the record, which makes his name the one line that runs the full width of the print without a break. Mick Jagger reaches all ten as well, though he gets there by a stranger route: lead vocals on nine, and backing vocals on "Coming Down Again", the one Keith Richards sings.

Richards stops at nine. He is not credited as a performer on "Winter", and the electric guitar on that track is played by Jagger instead.

One missing station out of ten does not sound like much. On a map, it is the first thing your eye finds, because everything around it carries on and that one line does not.

Bill Wyman Plays Bass on Three of the Ten

This is the finding that surprises people most. The band's bass player is credited on bass on three tracks: "Angie", "Winter" and "Star Star".

The other seven are covered by the two guitarists. Richards plays bass on "100 Years Ago", "Heartbreaker", "Silver Train" and "Hide Your Love". Mick Taylor plays it on "Dancing with Mr. D", "Coming Down Again" and "Can You Hear the Music".

Drawn out as lines, the bass duty on this album looks nothing like a five-piece band. It looks like three people passing an instrument around, which is exactly what happened.

Who Played Keyboards on Goats Head Soup, and Why They Never Meet

Ten tracks, four players, and no two of them appear on the same station. I have mapped seventy artists now and I have not found a cleaner split than this one anywhere in the range.

Player	Tracks	Credited on
Nicky Hopkins	5	Piano on "Dancing with Mr. D", "Coming Down Again", "Angie", "Winter" and "Can You Hear the Music"
Billy Preston	2	Clavinet on "100 Years Ago" and "Heartbreaker", plus piano on "Heartbreaker"
Ian Stewart	2	Piano on "Silver Train" and "Star Star"
Mick Jagger	1	Piano on "Hide Your Love"

Five plus two plus two plus one is ten, with nothing left over and nothing doubled. Whoever was booking the sessions did not intend that, but it is what the credits add up to.

Ian Stewart is the one worth pausing on. He was dropped from the official line-up in 1963 and was still playing on Stones records a decade later, and here he takes two of the ten stations while the band's own singer takes one.

Can You Hear the Music Is the Busiest Station on the Record

Nine credited players run through the album's ninth track, which is one more than anything else on the map. Jagger, Richards, Taylor and Watts are all on it, Nicky Hopkins plays piano, Jim Horn brings a flute, and three separate percussionists pile in behind Watts: Jimmy Miller, Anthony "Rebop" Kwaku Baah and Nicholas Pascal Raicevic.

"Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)" is close behind with eight, and it gets there a different way. Billy Preston brings clavinet and piano, Bobby Keys plays tenor saxophone, Jim Horn plays alto and Chuck Findley plays trumpet. Bill Wyman is not on it, which is worth saying because people assume the busiest track must involve the whole band.

At the other end, "Hide Your Love" is the sparsest station on the map with four players: Jagger on lead vocals and piano, Richards on bass, Taylor on electric guitar and Watts on drums.

The Arrangers Get No Line, and That Is the Rule

Jim Price arranged the horns on "Heartbreaker". He does not get a line, because my rule across every map is the same: you are drawn as a line if you are credited playing something, not for arranging or producing it. Nicky Harrison, who arranged the strings on "Angie" and "Winter", is out for the same reason.

It is a strict rule and it costs me some famous names, but it is the only way the map means one consistent thing from end to end.

Jimmy Miller Produced It, Played Percussion on One Track, and Earned His Line

Goats Head Soup was the last Rolling Stones album Jimmy Miller produced, closing a run that started with Beggars Banquet in 1968. Under my rule, that would leave him off the map entirely.

He is on it, and only just, because he is credited on percussion on "Can You Hear the Music". One track, one line, one station.

Choosing Between A2 and A1 for a Track-by-Track Map

A track-level map carries more information per centimetre than a discography map does, so size matters more here than usual. The A2 reads well from a few feet back and holds the shape of the album clearly. The A1 is what I would send to somebody who wants to follow a single player across the record without hunting.

Size	UK	US equivalent	Unframed from
A2	594 x 420 mm, landscape	24 x 18 in	£42.00
A1	841 x 594 mm, landscape	36 x 24 in	£58.00

Both sizes come unframed or in a black wood frame, ready to hang. Every print is a Giclée on 230gsm premium fine art paper with a textured matte finish, archival and acid-free.

Questions I Get About the Goats Head Soup Map

How is this different from your Rolling Stones discography map?

The discography map plots the whole career, one station per studio album. This one plots one album, one station per track, which is why it can show who played what on each individual song.

Was this Mick Taylor's last album with the band?

His penultimate one. He left in 1974, and on this record he is credited on all ten tracks across electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass and backing vocals.

Who is on the record but not on the map?

Jim Price and Nicky Harrison, who arranged the horns and strings, and the engineering and sleeve credits: Andy Johns, Carlton Lee, Howard Kilgour, Doug Bennett and the photographer David Bailey. None of them are credited playing an instrument, so none of them get a line.

Do the session musicians get the same treatment as the band?

Yes. Bobby Keys, Jim Horn, Chuck Findley, Rebop Kwaku Baah and the rest are drawn exactly the way the five Stones are. A line is a line.

Would it work as a present?

It is what I designed it for. It arrives ready to frame or already framed, and it is the sort of thing that goes on a wall rather than into a drawer.

Maps That Sit Alongside This One

For the whole career rather than one record, the Rolling Stones Discography Map runs from 1964 onwards and puts Goats Head Soup back in its place in the sequence. The two hang well as a pair, one wide and one deep.

Nicky Hopkins also turns up on the The Who map, and Billy Preston played across George Harrison's solo records, which makes the George Harrison map the other natural companion. The wider range is in the music art print collection.