By DOUGLAS JOHN IMBROGNO | March 10, 2026
AT LEAST IN MY EXPERIENCE, I have not come upon too many bands that cover the exceptional Rolling Stones rock ballad ‘Wild Horses,’ by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Please permit our electric folk-chamber ensemble, THROUGH THE TREES, to remedy that here in our neck of the World-Wide Woods, with a fresh version and companion music video featuring some very special guest trees. (Click video above to view or watch it at the Trees YouTube channel.)
‘Wild Horses’ comes from the Stones’ 1971 album Sticky Fingers and was ranked number 334 in Rolling Stone magazine’s ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time,’ and then leapt to 193 in a 2021 update, according to the tune’s Wikipedia page. Interestingly, given the final tune’s lyrics about what sounds like a very complicated relationship, its melody began life as a lullaby that Keith Richards was writing for his newborn son, while experimenting with open tunings on a 12-string guitar.
“If there is a classic way of Mick and me working together this is it,” Richards later said of the song. “I had the riff and chorus line, Mick got stuck into the verses. Just like ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Wild Horses’ was about the usual thing of not wanting to be on the road, being a million miles from where you want to be.”
Upon its release, Record World magazine proclaimed of ‘Wild Horses’ that “this beautiful stylistic shift of gears will go directly to top.” It got pretty close. Released as a single in June 1971, it reached number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
THE STONES RECORDED their version over three days in December 1969, at the famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. THROUGH THE TREES recorded ours in a single live take (after many dry runs, of course) at Hear! Here! Studios in Saint Albans, West Virginia, which studio maestro Logan Gambill then mixed and mastered. In addition to The Trees core ensemble—Ray Garnett on viola, Jim Probst on lap dulcimer and Douglas John Imbrogno on lead vocals and guitar—the song features some lithe and fabulous harmony vocals by Anne Melton and a sinuous harmonica line and solo by Ron Sowell, leader of the Mountain Stage band and a long-time accomplished singer-songwriter.
Given that Ray is now studying viola at West Virginia University in Morgantown, W.Va., and Anne is training in the Virginia hills to be a wilderness shaman for young people, as well as an outdoor first responder, getting these two wildly talented twenty-somethings back into the same city to record us all playing ‘Wild Horses’ for the purposes of a music video, proved too quixotic. Instead, I was lucky to have enough still photography from the studio recording session and from all of us playing out at other shows, to go a different direction as you’ll see in the video. See the credits below for more on the song and let us know what you think. Feel free to pass the link on to other folk who might like to take a ride on this fresh serving of ‘Wild Horses.’
‘WILD HORSES’ by THROUGH THE TREES
RECORDED LIVE by THROUGH THE TREES On Dec. 27, 2025, at ‘Hear! Here! Studios’ in Saint Albans, W.Va., and mixed & mastered by Logan Gambill.
LEAD VOCALS & GUITAR | Douglas John Imbrogno
GUEST HARMONY VOCALS | Anne Melton
VIOLA | Ray Garnett
LAP DULCIMER | Jim Probst
GUEST HARMONICA | Ron Sowell
IMAGERY | Live horse footage from MotionArray.com licensed footage
PHOTOGRAPHY | Artified photos of band and guests artists are from ‘Wild Horses’ recording session at Hear! Here Studios and live concerts. PHOTO CREDITS: Logan Gambill; Jozlend Tucker; Douglas John Imbrogno; and Randy Melton.
VIDEO PRODUCTION | By AmpMediaProject.com & Douglas John Imbrogno
OFFICIAL BAND WEBSITE | ThroughtheTreesgroup.com
TREES YOUTUBE CHANNEL | youtube.com/@throughthetreesgroup
TREES on INSTAGRAM | instagram.com/throughthetreesgroup
