18 December 1943, Dartford, Kent, England; guitar),
Brian
Jones (b. Lewis Brian Hopkin-Jones, 28 February 1942,
Cheltenham,
Gloucestershire, England, d. 3 July 1969; rhythm guitar)
and Ian Stewart (b.
1938, d. 12 December 1985; piano). Jagger and Richard were
primary school
friends who resumed their camaraderie in their closing
teenage years after
finding they had a mutual love for R&B and
particularly the music of Chuck
Berry, Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley. Initially, they were
teamed with
bassist Dick Taylor (later of the Pretty Things ) and
before long their ranks
extended to include Jones, Stewart and occasional drummer
Tony Chapman.
Their patron at this point was the renowned musician
Alexis Korner, who had
arranged their debut gig at London's Marquee club on 21
July 1962. In their
first few months the group met some opposition from jazz
and blues aficionados
for their alleged lack of musical 'purity' and the line-up
remained unsettled for
several months.
In late 1962 bassist Bill Wyman (b. William Perks, 24
October 1936,
Plumstead, London, England) replaced Dick Taylor while
drummers came and
went including Carlo Little (from Screaming Lord Sutch 's
Savages) and
Mick Avory (later of the Kinks, who was billed as
appearing at their debut gig,
but didn't play). It was not until as late as January 1963
that drummer Charlie
Watts (b. 2 June 1941, London, England) reluctantly
surrendered his day job
and committed himself to the group. After securing a
residency at Giorgio
Gomelsky 's Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, the Stones' live
reputation spread
rapidly through London's hip cognoscenti. One evening, the
flamboyant
Andrew Loog Oldham appeared at the club and was so
entranced by the
commercial prospects of Jagger's sexuality that he wrested
them away from
Gomelsky and, backed by the financial and business clout
of agent Eric Easton,
became their manager. Within weeks, Oldham had produced
their first couple
of official recordings at IBC Studios. By this time,
record company scouts were
on the prowl with Decca 's Dick Rowe leading the march and
successfully
signing the group. After re-purchasing the IBC demos,
Oldham selected Chuck
Berry's 'Come On' as their debut. The record was promoted
on the prestigious
UK television pop programme Thank Your Lucky Stars and the
Stones were
featured sporting matching hounds-tooth jackets with
velvet collars. This was to
be one of Oldham's few concessions to propriety for he
would soon be pushing
the boys as unregenerate rebels. Unfortunately, pianist
Ian Stewart was not
deemed sufficiently pop star-like for Oldham's purpose and
was
unceremoniously removed from the line-up, although he
remained road
manager and occasional pianist. After supporting the
Everly Brothers, Little
Richard, Gene Vincent and Bo Diddley on a Don Arden UK
package tour,
the Stones released their second single, a gift from John
Lennon and Paul
McCartney entitled 'I Wanna Be Your Man'. The disc fared
better than its
predecessor climbing into the Top 10 in January 1964. That
same month the
group enjoyed their first bill-topping tour supported by
the Ronettes.
The early months of 1964 saw the Stones catapulted to fame
amid outrage and
controversy about the surliness of their demeanour and the
length of their hair.
This was still a world in which the older members of the
community were barely
coming to terms with the Beatles neatly-groomed mop tops.
While
newspapers asked 'Would you let your daughter marry a
Rolling Stone?', the
quintet engaged in a flurry of recording activity which
saw the release of an EP
and an album both titled The Rolling Stones. The discs
consisted almost
exclusively of extraneous material and captured the group
at their most
derivative stage. Already, however, there were strong
signs of an ability to
combine different styles. The third single, 'Not Fade
Away', saw them fuse
Buddy Holly 's quaint original with a chunky Bo Diddley
beat that highlighted
Jagger's vocal to considerable effect. The presence of
Phil Spector and Gene
Pitney at these sessions underlined how hip the Stones had
already become in
the music business after such a short time. With the
momentum increasing by
the month, Oldham characteristically over-reached himself
by organizing a US
tour which proved premature and disappointing. After
returning to the UK, the
Stones released a decisive cover of the Valentinos' 'It's
All Over Now', which
gave them their first number 1. A best-selling EP, Five By
Five , cemented
their growing reputation, while a national tour escalated
into a series of near
riots with scenes of hysteria wherever they played. There
was an ugly strain to
the Stones' appeal which easily translated into violence.
At the Winter Gardens
Blackpool the group hosted the most astonishing rock riot
yet witnessed on
British soil. Frenzied fans displayed their feelings for
the group by smashing
chandeliers and demolishing a Steinway grand piano. By the
end of the evening
over 50 people were escorted to hospital for treatment.
Other concerts were
terminated within minutes of the group appearing on-stage
and the hysteria
continued throughout Europe. A return to the USA saw them
disrupt the stagey
Ed Sullivan Show prompting the presenter to ban rock 'n'
roll groups in
temporary retaliation. In spite of all the chaos at home
and abroad, America
remained resistant to their appeal, although that
situation would change
dramatically in the New Year.
In November 1964, 'Little Red Rooster' was released and
entered the New
Musical Express chart at number 1, a feat more usually
associated with the
Beatles and, previously, Elvis Presley. The Stones now had
a formidable fan
base and their records were becoming more accomplished and
ambitious with
each successive release. Jagger's accentuated phrasing and
posturing stage
persona made 'Little Red Rooster' sound surprisingly fresh
while Brian Jones's
use of slide guitar was imperative to the single's
success. Up until this point, the
group had recorded cover versions as a-sides, but manager
Andrew Oldham
was determined that they should emulate the example of
Lennon/McCartney
and locked them in a room until they emerged with
satisfactory material. Their
early efforts, 'It Should Have Been You' and 'Will You Be
My Lover Tonight?'
(both recorded by the late George Bean) were bland, but
Gene Pitney scored a
hit with the emphatic 'That Girl Belongs To Yesterday' and
Jagger's girlfriend
Marianne Faithfull became a teenage recording star with
the moving 'As
Tears Go By'. 1965 proved the year of the international
breakthrough and
three extraordinary self-penned number 1 singles. 'The
Last Time' saw them
emerge with their own distinctive rhythmic style and
underlined an ability to fuse
R&B and pop in an enticing fashion. America finally
succumbed to their spell
with '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction', a quintessential pop
lyric with the still
youthful Jagger sounding like a jaundiced roué. Released
in the UK during the
'summer of protest songs', the single encapsulated the
restless weariness of a
group already old before its time. The distinctive riff,
which Keith Richard
invented with almost casual dismissal, became one of the
most famous hook
lines in the entire glossary of pop and was picked up and
imitated by a
generation of garage groups thereafter. The 1965 trilogy
of hits was completed
with the engagingly surreal 'Get Off Of My Cloud' in which
Jagger's surly
persona seemed at its most pronounced to date. As well as
the number 1 hits
of 1965, there was also a celebrated live EP, Got Live If
You Want It which
reached the Top 10 and, The Rolling Stones No. 2 that
continued the
innovative idea of not including the group's name on the
front of the sleeve.
There was also some well documented bad boy controversy
when Jagger,
Jones and Wyman were arrested and charged with urinating
on the wall of an
East London petrol station. Such scandalous behaviour
merely reinforced the
public's already ingrained view of the Stones as juvenile
degenerates.
With the notorious Allen Klein replacing Eric Easton as
Oldham's
co-manager, the Stones consolidated their success by
renegotiating their Decca
contract. Their single output in the USA simultaneously
increased with the
release of a couple of tracks unavailable in single form
in the UK. The sardonic
put-down of suburban valium abuse, 'Mother's Little
Helper' and the
Elizabethan-styled 'Lady Jane', complete with atmospheric
dulcimer, displayed
their contrasting styles to considerable effect. Both
these songs were included
on their fourth album, Aftermath. A breakthrough work in a
crucial year, the
recording revealed the Stones as accomplished rockers and
balladeers, while
their writing potential was emphasized by Chris Farlowe 's
chart-topping
cover of 'Out Of Time'. There were also signs of the
Stones' inveterate
misogyny particularly on the cocky 'Under My Thumb' and an
acerbic 'Stupid
Girl'. Back in the singles chart, the group's triumphant
run continued with the
startlingly chaotic '19th Nervous Breakdown' in which
frustration, impatience
and chauvinism were brilliantly mixed with scale-sliding
descending guitar lines.
'Paint It Black' was even stronger, a raga-influenced
piece with a lyric so
doom-laden and defeatist in its imagery that it is a
wonder that the angry
performance sounded so passionate and urgent. The Stones'
nihilism reached
its peak on the extraordinary 'Have You Seen Your Mother
Baby, Standing In
The Shadow?', a scabrous-sounding solicitation taken at
breathtaking pace
with Jagger spitting out a diatribe of barely coherent
abuse. It was probably the
group's most adventurous production to date, but its
acerbic sound, lengthy title
and obscure theme contributed to rob the song of
sufficient commercial
potential to continue the chart-topping run. Ever
outrageous, the group
promoted the record with a photo session in which they
appeared in drag,
thereby adding a clever, sexual ambivalence to their
already iconoclastic public
image. 1967 saw the Stones' anti-climactic escapades
confront an
establishment crackdown. The year began with an
accomplished double
a-sided single, 'Let's Spend The Night Together'/'Ruby
Tuesday' which, like the
Beatles' 'Penny Lane'/'Strawberry Fields Forever',
narrowly failed to reach
number 1 in their home country. The accompanying album,
Between The
Buttons, trod water and also represented Oldham's final
production.
Increasingly alienated by the Stones' bohemianism, he
would move further
away from them in the ensuing months and surrender the
management reins to
his partner Klein later in the year. On 12 February,
Jagger and Richard were
arrested at the latter's West Wittering home 'Redlands'
and charged with drugs
offences. Three months later, increasingly unstable Brian
Jones was raided and
charged with similar offences. The Jagger/Richard trial in
June was a cause
célèbre which culminated in the notorious duo receiving
heavy fines and a
salutary prison sentence. Judicial outrage was tempered by
public clemency,
most effectively voiced by The Times' editor William
Rees-Mogg who,
borrowing a phrase from Pope, offered an eloquent plea in
their defence under
the leader title, 'Who Breaks A Butterfly On A Wheel?'
Another unexpected
ally was rival group the Who, who rallied to the Stones'
cause by releasing a
single coupling 'Under My Thumb' and 'The Last Time'. The
sentences were
duly quashed on appeal in July, with Jagger receiving a
conditional discharge
for possession of amphetamines. Three months later, Brian
Jones tasted judicial
wrath with a nine-month sentence and suffered a nervous
breakdown before
seeing his imprisonment rescinded at the end of the
year.
The flurry of drug busts, court cases, appeals and
constant media attention had
a marked effect on the Stones' recording career which was
severely curtailed.
During their summer of impending imprisonment, they
released the fey 'We
Love You', complete with slamming prison cell doors in the
background. It was
a weak, flaccid statement rather than a rebellious
rallying cry. The image of the
cultural anarchists cowering in defeat was not
particularly palatable to their fans
and even with all the publicity, the single barely scraped
into the Top 10. The
eventful year ended with the Stones' apparent answer to
Sgt Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band - the extravagantly-titled Their Satanic
Majesties
Request. Beneath the exotic 3-D cover was an album of
psychedelic/cosmic
experimentation bereft of the R&B grit that had
previously been synonymous
with the Stones' sound. Although the album had some strong
moments, it had
the same inexplicably placid inertia of 'We Love You',
minus notable melodies
or a convincing direction. The overall impression conveyed
was that in trying to
compete with the Beatles' experimentation, the Stones had
somehow lost the
plot. Their drug use had channelled them into laudable
experimentation but
simultaneously left them open to accusations of having
'gone soft'. The
revitalization of the Stones was demonstrated in the early
summer of 1968 with
'Jumpin' Jack Flash', a single that rivalled the best of
their previous output. The
succeeding album, Beggars Banquet, produced by Jimmy
Miller, was also a
return to strength and included the socio-political
'Street Fighting Man' and the
brilliantly macabre 'Sympathy For The Devil', in which
Jagger's seductive vocal
was backed by hypnotic Afro-rhythms and dervish
yelps.
While the Stones were re-establishing themselves, Brian
Jones was falling
deeper into drug abuse. A conviction in late 1968 prompted
doubts about his
availability for US tours and in the succeeding months he
contributed less and
less to recordings and became increasingly jealous of
Jagger's leading role in
the group. Richard's wooing and impregnation of Jones'
girlfriend Anita
Pallenberg merely increased the tension. Matters reached a
crisis point in June
1969 when Jones officially left the group. The following
month he was found
dead in the swimming pool of the Sussex house that had
once belonged to
writer A.A. Milne. The official verdict was 'death by
misadventure'. A free
concert at London's Hyde Park two days after his death was
attended by a
crowd of 250,000 and became a symbolic wake for the tragic
youth. Jagger
released thousands of butterfly's and narrated a poem by
Shelley for Brian.
Three days later, Jagger's former love Marianne Faithfull
attempted suicide.
This was truly the end of the first era of the Rolling
Stones.
The group played out the last months of the 60s with a
mixture of vinyl triumph
and further tragedy. The sublime 'Honky Tonk Women' kept
them at number 1
for most of the summer and few would have guessed that
this was to be their
last UK chart topper. The new album, Let It Bleed (a
parody of the Beatles'
Let It Be ) was an exceptional work spearheaded by the
anthemic 'Gimme
Shelter' and revealing strong country influences ('Country
Honk'), startling
orchestration ('You Can't Always Get What You Want') and
menacing blues
('Midnight Rambler'). It was a promising debut from John
Mayall 's former
guitarist Mick Taylor (b. 17 January 1948, Hertfordshire,
England) who had
replaced Jones only a matter of weeks before his death.
Even while Let It
Bleed was heading for the top of the album charts,
however, the Stones were
singing out the 60s to the backdrop of a Hells Angels'
killing of a black man at
the Altamont Festival in California. The tragedy was
captured on film in the
grisly Gimme Shelter movie released the following year.
After the events of
1969, it was not surprising that the group had a
relatively quiet 1970. Jagger's
contrasting thespian outings reached the screen in the
form of Performance
and Ned Kelly while Jean-Luc Goddard's tedious portrait of
the group in the
studio was delivered on One Plus One. For a group who had
once claimed to
make more challenging and gripping films than the Beatles
and yet combine
artistic credibility with mass appeal, it all seemed a
long time coming.
After concluding their Decca contract with a
bootleg-deterring live album, Get
Yer Ya-Ya's Out, the Stones established their own
self-titled label. The first
release was a three track single, 'Brown
Sugar'/'Bitch'/'Let It Rock', which
contained some of their best work, but narrowly failed to
reach number 1 in the
UK. The lead track contained a quintessential Stones riff:
insistent,
undemonstrative and stunning, with the emphatic brass work
of Bobby Keyes
embellishing Jagger's vocal power. The new album, Sticky
Fingers was as
consistent as it was accomplished, encompassing the bluesy
'You Gotta Move',
the thrilling 'Moonlight Mile', the wistful 'Wild Horses'
and the chilling 'Sister
Morphine', one the most despairing drug songs ever
written. The entire album
was permeated by images of sex and death, yet the tone of
the work was
neither self-indulgent nor maudlin. The group's playful
fascination with sex was
further demonstrated on the elaborately designed Andy
Warhol sleeve which
featured a waist-view shot of a figure clad in denim, with
a real zip fastener
which opened to display the lips and tongue motif that was
shortly to become
their corporate image. Within a year of Sticky Fingers,
the group returned with
a double album, Exile On Main Street. With Keith Richard
firmly in control,
the group were rocking-out on a series of quick-fire
songs. The album was
severely criticized at the time of its release for its
uneven quality but was
subsequently re-evaluated favourably, particularly in
contrast to their later
work.
The Stones' soporific slide into the 70s mainstream
probably began during
1973 when their jet-setting was threatening to upstage
their musical
endeavours. Jagger's marriage and Richard's confrontations
with the law took
