By the time
the Rolling Stones
began calling themselves the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band in
the late '60s, they had already staked out an impressive claim on the
title. As the self-consciously dangerous alternative to the bouncy
Merseybeat of
the Beatles in the British Invasion,
the Stones
had pioneered the gritty, hard-driving blues-based rock & roll that
came to define hard rock. With his preening machismo and latent
maliciousness,
Mick Jagger became the prototypical rock frontman, tempering his macho showmanship with a detached, campy irony while
Keith Richards and
Brian Jones
wrote the blueprint for sinewy, interlocking rhythm guitars. Backed by
the strong yet subtly swinging rhythm section of bassist
Bill Wyman and drummer
Charlie Watts,
the Stones became the breakout band of the British blues scene, eclipsing such contemporaries as
the Animals and
Them. Over the course of their career,
the Stones
never really abandoned blues, but as soon as they reached popularity in
the U.K., they began experimenting musically, incorporating the British
pop of contemporaries like
the Beatles,
Kinks, and
Who into their sound. After a brief dalliance with psychedelia,
the Stones re-emerged in the late '60s as a jaded, blues-soaked hard rock quintet. The
Stones
always flirted with the seedy side of rock & roll, but as the
hippie dream began to break apart, they exposed and reveled in the new
rock culture. It wasn't without difficulty, of course. Shortly after he
was fired from the group,
Jones was found dead in a swimming pool, while at a 1969 free concert at Altamont, a concertgoer was brutally killed during
the Stones' show. But
the Stones
never stopped going. For the next 30 years, they continued to record
and perform, and while their records weren't always blockbusters, they
were never less than the most visible band of their era -- certainly,
none of their British peers continued to be as popular or productive as
the Stones.
And no band since has proven to have such a broad fan base or
far-reaching popularity, and it is impossible to hear any of the groups
that followed them without detecting some sort of influence, whether it
was musical or aesthetic.
Throughout their career,
Mick Jagger (vocals) and
Keith Richards (guitar, vocals) remained at the core of
the Rolling Stones.
The pair initially met as children at Dartford Maypole County Primary
School. They drifted apart over the next ten years, eventually making
each other's acquaintance again in 1960, when they met through a mutual
friend,
Dick Taylor, who was attending Sidcup Art School with
Richards. At the time,
Jagger was studying at the London School of Economics and playing with
Taylor in the blues band Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. Shortly afterward,
Richards joined the band. Within a year, they had met
Brian Jones
(guitar, vocals), a Cheltenham native who had dropped out of school to
play saxophone and clarinet. By the time he became a fixture on the
British blues scene,
Jones
had already had a wild life. He ran away to Scandinavia when he was 16;
by that time, he had already fathered two illegitimate children. He
returned to Cheltenham after a few months, where he began playing with
the Ramrods. Shortly afterward, he moved to London, where he played in
Alexis Korner's group,
Blues Inc.
Jones
quickly decided he wanted to form his own group and advertised for
members; among those he recruited was the heavyset blues pianist
Ian Stewart.
As he played with his group,
Jones also moonlighted under the name
Elmo Jones at the Ealing Blues Club. At the pub, he became reacquainted with
Blues, Inc., which now featured drummer
Charlie Watts, and, on occasion, cameos by
Jagger and
Richards.
Jones became friends with
Jagger and
Richards, and they soon began playing together with
Taylor and
Stewart; during this time,
Mick was elevated to the status of
Blues, Inc.'s lead singer. With the assistance of drummer
Tony Chapman, the fledgling band recorded a demo tape. After the tape was rejected by EMI,
Taylor left the band to attend the Royal College of Art; he would later form
the Pretty Things. Before
Taylor's departure, the group named itself
the Rolling Stones, borrowing the moniker from a
Muddy Waters song.
The
Rolling Stones gave their first performance at the Marquee Club in London on July 12, 1962. At the time, the group consisted of
Jagger,
Richards,
Jones, pianist
Ian Stewart, drummer
Mick Avory, and
Dick Taylor, who had briefly returned to the fold. Weeks after the concert,
Taylor left again and was replaced by
Bill Wyman, formerly of the Cliftons.
Avory also left the group -- he would later join
the Kinks -- and
the Stones hired
Tony Chapman, who proved to be unsatisfactory. After a few months of persuasion, the band recruited
Charlie Watts, who had quit
Blues, Inc. to work at an advertising agency once the group's schedule became too hectic. By 1963, the band's lineup had been set, and
the Stones
began an eight-month residency at the Crawdaddy Club, which proved to
substantially increase their fan base. It also attracted the attention
of
Andrew Loog Oldham, who became
the Stones' manager, signing them from underneath the Crawdaddy Club's
Giorgio Gomelsky. Although
Oldham didn't know much about music, he was gifted at promotion, and he latched upon the idea of fashioning
the Stones as the bad-boy opposition to the clean-cut
Beatles. At his insistence, the large yet meek
Stewart was forced out of the group, since his appearance contrasted with the rest of the group.
Stewart didn't disappear from
the Stones; he became one of their key roadies and played on their albums and tours until his death in 1985.
With
Oldham's help,
the Rolling Stones signed with Decca Records, and that June, they released their debut single, a cover of
Chuck Berry's
"Come On." The single became a minor hit, reaching number 21, and the
group supported it with appearances on festivals and package tours. At
the end of the year, they released a version of
Lennon-
McCartney's "I Wanna Be Your Man" that soared into the Top 15. Early in 1964, they released a cover of
Buddy Holly's
"Not Fade Away," which shot to number three. "Not Fade Away" became
their first American hit, reaching number 48 that spring. By that time,
the Stones were notorious in their homeland. Considerably rougher and sexier than
the Beatles,
the Stones
were the subject of numerous sensationalistic articles in the British
press, culminating in a story about the band urinating in public. All of
these stories cemented
the Stones
as a dangerous, rebellious band in the minds of the public, and had the
effect of beginning a manufactured rivalry between them and
the Beatles, which helped the group rocket to popularity in the U.S. In the spring of 1964,
the Stones released their eponymous debut album, which was followed by "It's All Over Now," their first U.K. number one.
That summer, they toured America to riotous crowds, recording the
Five by Five EP at Chess Records in Chicago in the midst of the tour. By the time it was over, they had another number one U.K. single with
Howlin' Wolf's "Little Red Rooster." Although
the Stones had achieved massive popularity,
Oldham decided to push
Jagger and
Richards
into composing their own songs, since they -- and his publishing
company -- would receive more money that away. In June of 1964, the
group released their first original single, "Tell Me (You're Coming
Back)," which became their first American Top 40 hit. Shortly afterward,
a version of
Irma Thomas'
"Time Is on My Side" became their first U.S. Top Ten. It was followed
by "The Last Time" in early 1965, a number one U.K. and Top Ten U.S. hit
that began a virtually uninterrupted string of
Jagger-
Richards
hit singles. Still, it wasn't until the group released "(I Can't Get
No) Satisfaction" in the summer of 1965 that they were elevated to
superstars. Driven by a fuzz-guitar riff designed to replicate the sound
of a horn section, "Satisfaction" signaled that
Jagger and
Richards
had come into their own as songwriters, breaking away from their blues
roots and developing a signature style of big, bluesy riffs and wry,
sardonic lyrics. It stayed at number one for four weeks and began a
string of Top Ten singles that ran for the next two years, including
such classics as "Get Off My Cloud," "19th Nervous Breakdown," "As Tears
Go By," and "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?"
By 1966,
the Stones had decided to respond to
the Beatles' increasingly complex albums with their first album of all-original material,
Aftermath. Due to
Brian Jones'
increasingly exotic musical tastes, the record boasted a wide range of
influences, from the sitar-drenched "Paint It, Black" to the Eastern
drones of "I'm Going Home." These eclectic influences continued to
blossom on
Between the Buttons
(1967), the most pop-oriented album the group ever made. Ironically,
the album's release was bookended by two of the most notorious incidents
in the band's history. Before the record was released,
the Stones performed the suggestive "Let's Spend the Night Together," the B-side to the medieval ballad "Ruby Tuesday," on
The Ed Sullivan Show, which forced
Jagger to alter the song's title to an incomprehensible mumble, or else face being banned.
In February of 1967,
Jagger and
Richards were arrested for drug possession, and within three months,
Jones
was arrested on the same charge. All three were given suspended jail
sentences, and the group backed away from the spotlight as the summer of
love kicked into gear in 1967.
Jagger, along with his then-girlfriend
Marianne Faithfull, went with
the Beatles to meet
the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi; they were also prominent in the international broadcast of
the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love." Appropriately,
the Stones' next single, "Dandelion"/"We Love You," was a psychedelic pop effort, and it was followed by their response to Sgt. Pepper,
Their Satanic Majesties Request, which was greeted with lukewarm reviews.
The
Stones' infatuation with psychedelia was brief. By early 1968, they had fired
Andrew Loog Oldham and hired
Allen Klein as their manager. The move coincided with their return to driving rock & roll, which happened to coincide with
Richards' discovery of open tunings, a move that gave
the Stones their distinctively fat, powerful sound. The revitalized
Stones were showcased on the malevolent single "Jumpin' Jack Flash," which climbed to number three in May 1968. Their next album,
Beggar's Banquet,
was finally released in the fall, after being delayed for five months
due its controversial cover art of a dirty, graffiti-laden restroom. An
edgy record filled with detours into straight blues and campy country,
Beggar's Banquet
was hailed as a masterpiece among the fledgling rock press. Although it
was seen as a return to form, few realized that while it opened a new
chapter of
the Stones' history, it also was the closing of their time with
Brian Jones. Throughout the recording of
Beggar's Banquet,
Jones was on the sidelines due to his deepening drug addiction and his resentment of the dominance of
Jagger and
Richards.
Jones
left the band on June 9, 1969, claiming to be suffering from artistic
differences between himself and the rest of the band. On July 3, 1969 --
less than a month after his departure --
Jones
was found dead in his swimming pool. The coroner ruled that it was
"death by misadventure," yet his passing was the subject of countless
rumors over the next two years.
By the time of his death,
the Stones had already replaced
Brian Jones with
Mick Taylor, a former guitarist for
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. He wasn't featured on "Honky Tonk Women," a number one single released days after
Jones' funeral, and he contributed only a handful of leads on their next album,
Let It Bleed. Released in the fall of 1969,
Let It Bleed was comprised of sessions with
Jones and
Taylor, yet it continued the direction of
Beggar's Banquet, signaling that a new era in
the Stones' career had begun, one marked by ragged music and an increasingly wasted sensibility. Following
Jagger's filming of
Ned Kelly
in Australia during the first part of 1969, the group launched its
first American tour in three years. Throughout the tour -- the first
where they were billed as the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band --
the group broke attendance records, but it was given a sour note when
the group staged a free concert at Altamont Speedway. On the advice of
the Grateful Dead,
the Stones
hired Hell's Angels as security, but that plan backfired tragically.
The entire show was unorganized and in shambles, yet it turned tragic
when the Angels killed a young black man, Meredith Hunter, during
the Stones' performance. In the wake of the public outcry,
the Stones
again retreated from the spotlight and dropped "Sympathy for the
Devil," which some critics ignorantly claimed incited the violence, from
their set. As the group entered a hiatus, they released the live
Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!
in the fall of 1970. It was their last album for Decca/London, and they
formed Rolling Stones Records, which became a subsidiary of Atlantic
Records.
During 1970,
Jagger starred in
Nicolas Roeg's cult film
Performance and married Nicaraguan model Bianca Perez Morena de Macias, and the couple quickly entered high society. As
Jagger was jet-setting,
Richards was slumming, hanging out with country-rock pioneer
Gram Parsons.
Keith wound up having more musical influence on 1971's
Sticky Fingers, the first album
the Stones
released though their new label. Following its release, the band
retreated to France on tax exile, where they shared a house and recorded
a double album,
Exile on Main St. Upon its May 1972 release,
Exile on Main St. was widely panned, but over time it came to be considered one of the group's defining moments.
Following
Exile,
the Stones began to splinter in two, as
Jagger concentrated on being a celebrity and
Richards sank into drug addiction. The band remained popular throughout the '70s, but their critical support waned.
Goats Head Soup, released in 1973, reached number one, as did 1974's
It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, but neither record was particularly well received.
Taylor left the band after
It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, and the group recorded their next album as they auditioned new lead guitarists, including
Jeff Beck. They finally settled on
Ron Wood, former lead guitarist for
the Faces and
Rod Stewart, in 1976, the same year they released
Black n' Blue, which only featured
Wood on a handful of cuts. During the mid- and late '70s, all
the Stones pursued side projects, with both
Wyman and
Wood releasing solo albums with regularity.
Richards was arrested in Canada in 1977 with his common-law wife
Anita Pallenberg for heroin possession. After his arrest, he cleaned up and was given a suspended sentence the following year.
The band reconvened in 1978 to record
Some Girls,
an energetic response to punk, new wave, and disco. The record and its
first single, the thumping disco-rocker "Miss You," both reached number
one, and the album restored the group's image. However, the group
squandered that goodwill with the follow-up,
Emotional Rescue, a number one record that nevertheless received lukewarm reviews upon its 1980 release.
Tattoo You,
released the following year, fared better both critically and
commercially, as the singles "Start Me Up" and "Waiting on a Friend"
helped the album spend nine weeks at number one. The
Stones supported
Tattoo You with an extensive stadium tour captured in
Hal Ashby's movie
Let's Spend the Night Together and the 1982 live album
Still Life.
Tattoo You proved to be the last time
the Stones
completely dominated the charts and the stadiums. Although the group
continued to sell out concerts in the '80s and '90s, their records
didn't sell as well as previous efforts, partially because the albums
suffered due to
Jagger and
Richards' notorious mid-'80s feud. Starting with 1983's
Undercover, the duo conflicted about which way the band should go, with
Jagger wanting
the Stones to follow contemporary trends and
Richards wanting them to stay true to their rock roots. As a result,
Undercover was a mean-spirited, unfocused record that received relatively weak sales and mixed reviews. Released in 1986,
Dirty Work suffered a worse fate, since
Jagger was preoccupied with his fledgling solo career. Once
Jagger decided that
the Stones would not support
Dirty Work with a tour,
Richards decided to make his own solo record with 1988's
Talk Is Cheap. Appearing a year after
Jagger's failed second solo album,
Talk Is Cheap received good reviews and went gold, prompting
Jagger and
Richards to reunite late in 1988.
The following year,
the Stones released
Steel Wheels,
which was received with good reviews, but the record was overshadowed
by its supporting tour, which grossed over 140 million dollars and broke
many box office records. In 1991, the live album
Flashpoint, which was culled from the
Steel Wheels shows, was released. Following the release of
Flashpoint,
Bill Wyman left the band; he published a memoir,
Stone Alone, within a few years of leaving. The
Stones didn't immediately replace
Wyman,
since they were all working on solo projects; this time, there was none
of the animosity surrounding their mid-'80s projects.
The group reconvened in 1994 with bassist
Darryl Jones, who had previously played with
Miles Davis and
Sting, to record and release the
Don Was-produced
Voodoo Lounge. The album received the band's strongest reviews in years, and its accompanying tour was even more successful than the
Steel Wheels tour. On top of being more successful than its predecessor,
Voodoo Lounge also won
the Stones their first Grammy for Best Rock Album. Upon the completion of the
Voodoo Lounge tour,
the Stones released the live, "unplugged" album
Stripped in the fall of 1995. Similarly, after wrapping up their tour in support of 1997's
Bridges to Babylon, the group issued yet another live set,
No Security,
the following year. A high-profile greatest-hits tour in 2002 was
launched despite the lack of a studio album to support, and its album
document,
Live Licks, appeared in 2004. A year later, the group issued
A Bigger Bang, their third effort with producer
Don Was.
In 2006,
Martin Scorsese filmed two of the group's performances at New York City's Beacon Theatre. The resulting
Shine a Light, which included guest appearances from
Buddy Guy,
Jack White, and
Christina Aguilera, was released in theaters in 2008. The accompanying soundtrack reached the number two spot on the U.K. charts. Following
Shine a Light,
the Stones turned their attention toward their legacy. For
Keith Richards, this meant delving into writing his autobiography
Life -- the memoir was published to acclaim in the fall of 2010; it generated some controversy due to comments
Keith made about
Mick -- but
the Stones
in general spent time mining their archives, something they previously
avoided. In 2010, they released a super deluxe edition of
Exile on Main St.
that contained a bonus disc of rarities and outtakes, including a few
newly finished songs like "Plundered My Soul." This was followed in 2011
by a super deluxe edition of
Some Girls that also contained unheard songs and outtakes. That same year,
the Stones opened up their Rolling Stones Archive, which offered official digital releases of classic live bootlegs like 1973's
The Brussels Affair.
All this was a prelude to their 50th anniversary in 2012, which the
group celebrated with a hardcover book, a new documentary called
Crossfire Hurricane and a new compilation called
GRRR!.
The Stones also played a handful of star-studded concerts at the end of
the year and in the first half of 2013, several of which featured guest
spots from the long-departed
Mick Taylor
. These live shows culminated with a headlining spot at Glastonbury and
two July 2013 concerts at Hyde Park; highlights from the Hyde Park
shows were released as a digital download on iTunes that July and, later
in the year, there was a home video/CD release of the concert called
Sweet Summer Sun: Live In Hyde Park.
http://www.allmusic.com
