"Everybody else wanted to be Elvis" said Keith Richards.
"I wanted to be Scotty Moore."
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Rolling Stones - Bio
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 front man,
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 thirty
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.
The Rolling Stones are a British rock band who rose
to prominence during the mid-1960s. The band was
named after a song by Muddy Waters, a leading exponent
of hard-rocking blues. (This was a popular choice
of name; at least two other bands are believed to
have called themselves The Rolling Stones before
Jagger/Richards' band was formed.) In their music,
the Rolling Stones were the embodiment of the idea
of importing blues style into popular music.
Their first recordings were covers or imitations
of rhythm and blues music, but they soon greatly
extended the reach of their lyrics and playing,
but rarely, if ever, lost their basic blues feel.
The original lineup included Mick Jagger (vocals),
Brian Jones (guitar), Keith Richards (guitar), Ian
Stewart (piano), Charlie Watts (drums) and Dick
Taylor (bass). Taylor left shortly after to form
The Pretty Things, and was replaced by Bill Wyman.
By the time of their first album release Ian Stewart
was "officially" not part of the band, though he
continued to record and perform with them. Brian
Jones, although popular and charismatic, was forced
out of the band and died an enigmatic death, presumed
accidental at the time, although accusations have
surfaced that he was murdered. Jagger and Richards
took over songwriting and performance leadership.
Jones had favored sticking close to the blues base,
although he had also experimented with the sitar,
but Jagger and Richards broadened their approach.
The band came into being in 1961 when former school
friends Jagger and Richards met Brian Jones. United
by their shared interest in rhythm and blues music
the group rehearsed extensively, playing in public
only occasionally at Crawdaddy Club in London, where
Alexis Korner's blues band was resident. At first
Jones, a guitarist who also toyed with numerous
other instruments was their creative leader.
Taking their name from a Muddy Waters song, the
band rapidly gained a reputation in London for their
frantic, highly energetic covers of the blues and
R & B songs of their idols and, through manager
Andrew Loog Oldham were signed to Decca Records
(who had passed when offered The Beatles). At this
time their music was fairly primitive: Richards
had learned much of his guitar playing from the
recordings of Chuck Berry, and had not yet developed
a style of his own, and Jagger was not as in control
of the idioms as he would soon become. Already though,
the rhythmic interplay between Watts and Richards
was clearly the heart of their music. The choice
of material on their first record, a self-titled
EP, reflected their live shows. Similarly, the album
The Rolling Stones which appeared in April 1964
featured versions of such classics as "Route 66"
(originally recorded by Nat King Cole), "Mona" (Bo
Diddley) and "Carol" (Chuck Berry). The performances
were pivotal in introducing a generation of white
British youth to R'n'B music, and helped to fuel
the "British Invasion".
More importantly perhaps, while The Beatles were
still suited, clean-cut boys with mop-top haircuts,
the Stones cultivated the opposite image: decidedly
unkempt, and posing for publicity photographs like
a gang. The follow-up album, The Rolling Stones
#2 was also composed mainly of cover tunes, only
now augmented by a couple of songs written by the
fledgling partnership of Jagger and Richards. Encouraged
by Oldham, the band toured Europe and America continuously
in their support, playing to packed crowds of screaming
teenagers in scenes reminiscent of the height of
Beatlemania. While on tour they took time to visit
important locations in the history of the music
that inspired them, recording the EP Five By Five
at the studios of Chess Records in Chicago. Back
at home these early years of success represented
a rare period of stability in the personal relationship
between the band members. Jagger, Richards and Jones
were sharing a house and Jones had begun to see
Anita Pallenberg, an actress and model who introduced
them to the circle of society in which she moved:
a group of young artists, musicians and film makers.
Prompted by Oldham, who possessed sufficient business
acumen to see where money was to be made, Jagger
and Richards became more prolific songwriters and
1965's Out Of Our Heads contained much self-penned
material, including the classic "(I Can't Get No)
Satisfaction," and saw the dynamic of the band began
to change, with Jagger and Richards starting to
emerge as the perceived leaders of the band. Jones,
not unaware of his reduced importance, retreated
into drug abuse, alienating both Richards and Pallenberg,
who began a liaison that would last over ten years.
During this period Pallenberg's opinions about the
music, as one of the few people the band trusted,
should not be underestimated.
By now the band had become almost synonymous with
part of the rebellious spirit of the 1960s, and
in particular a more relaxed attitude towards drug
use. As a reaction the police obtained warrants
to search Richards' country home, Redlands. The
February 1967 raid, now legendary in the band's
mythology, occurred during one of the regular parties,
where police discovered a moderate quantity of cannabis.
The raid also served as a source of apocryphal stories,
mainly concerning the appearance and demeanor of
their friend Marianne Faithfull, which only served
to augment their reputation for debauchery. Richards
was charged and a few months later stood trial for
allowing drug use in his home. Amidst intense press
interest he was convicted and sentenced to a year's
imprisonment, prompting The Times newspaper to run
an editorial criticizing the verdict. With Richards
out on bail within a day, and shortly to be acquitted
on appeal, work commenced on a new "psychedelic"
album, which Jagger envisioned as the group's response
to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper. The record, which would
eventually be released as Their Satanic Majesties'
Request, received lukewarm reviews -- the songs
and arrangements did not lend themselves to their
natural style and the increasingly-strung-out Brian
Jones contributed little -- but, despite Richards
later pronouncing it "crap," still produced a small
number of songs which showcased the improving songwriting
of Jagger and Richards.
Within the band the dynamic was changing with the
two principal writers steadily usurping power from
the former leader, Jones, with Pallenberg as their
eminence grilse. After the excesses of Satanic Majesties,
and with personal relations between Jones and Richards
increasingly frayed, the band returned to the black
music that had originally inspired them on 1968's
Beggars Banquet. Despite the tension, and aided
by an excellent sound from an up-and-coming producer
named Jimmy Miller, Jagger and Richards produced
some of their most memorable work -- including the
distorted acoustic guitar-driven "Street Fighting
Man" and the anthemic "Sympathy for the Devil" --
and the Stones entered the phase that would see
them billed as "The World's Greatest Rock and Roll
Band".
The songs themselves were firmly rooted in the blues,
but tempered by the changes that occurred in 1960s
music and assimilating the imagery of Dylan and
the emergent heavy rock of Cream and Jimi Hendrix.
In contrast to its predecessor, however, it was
a clear rejection of the hippie ethos, replacing
the platitudes of "free love" with a layer of sleaze.
Two other events contributed to the change in the
Stones' sound. Firstly, Richards had played extensively
with Ry Cooder, appropriating his open-G guitar
tuning and some of his sinuous style (much to Cooder's
dismay, who publicly accused Richards of "ripping
him off"). Secondly, both Mick and Keith befriended
Gram Parsons, who helped educate them about the
country music with which he had grown up. Music
was not all the Stones and the independently wealthy
Parsons had in common: "We liked drugs," Richards
said later, "and we liked the finest quality." Drugs
were, however, making Jones increasingly unreliable.
Now Jagger and Richards were not only providing
most of the material but were also in charge of
the group's artistic direction, away from the blues
preferred by Jones and towards a harder-rocking
sound. Increasingly Jones was either absent from
recording sessions by choice or locked out of them.
After his minimal contribution to Beggar's Banquet
he found himself forced out in May 1969, replaced
by the young, jazz-influenced guitarist, Mick Taylor,
then of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Within two
months, and a matter of days before the new-look
band were due to play a free concert in London's
Hyde Park, Jones was found drowned in his swimming
pool. The concert went ahead, with an audience of
hundreds of thousands of fans, with Jagger reading
from Shelley's "Adonais" and releasing a flock of
tragically short-lived butterflies by way of tribute
to the late guitarist. The band's performance, under
rehearsed and suffering from the remaining members
narcotic intake, was somewhat shambolic. Shortly
after the band released their highly successful
single, "Honky Tonk Women," recorded without Jones
but too early for Taylor to contribute. Their studio
work was another matter. Let It Bleed (1969) followed
a short time later and was rapidly hailed as another
classic, featuring the slow and brooding "Gimme
Shelter," the folk-inflected "You Can't Always Get
What You Want" (featuring a boys choir) and a further
nod to their roots with a cover of Robert Johnson's
"Love In Vain". Immediately, the band set off on
another US tour, characterized by the hedonism that
their position in rock's aristocracy afforded them.
In an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of Hyde
Park, and as a reaction to the Woodstock festival,
the tour culminated in a free concert given at Altamont,
a disused racetrack outside San Francisco. Poorly
organized, and with on-site security provided by
the Hells Angels (at the suggestion of the Grateful
Dead), the concert was a disaster, featuring running
battles between fans and security which reached
a head when Meredith Hunter, a young black fan who
had unwisely brought a pistol (and a white girlfriend)
to the show, was stabbed and beaten to death by
the Angels during the band's performance of "Under
My Thumb." (The concert would be documented in Albert
and David Maysles' film Gimme Shelter). A recurring,
morbid urban legend states that "Sympathy for the
Devil" was playing during the killing, though this
is not the case. The murder, coming so soon after
the death of Jones, had a harrowing effect on Richards,
and his reaction to the events was to increase his
usage of heroin. He would spend the best part of
next decade as a junkie, taking occasional cures
in private clinics but always returning to the drug,
and each subsequent tour would become a logistical
nightmare to ensure a regular supply in the face
of trouble from the police and customs officers.
Richards has always maintained that the one facet
of his life that was unaffected was his live performance.
Concert tapes, including the time in 1976 when he
fell asleep on stage, do not bear this out. In time
heroin would sap Richards' creativity and lead to
more tragic events, but in 1971 the band showed
no sign of slowing. Sticky Fingers (1971), the band's
first record under their own Rolling Stones Records
label, continued where Let It Bleed had left off,
featuring the rocking "Brown Sugar" (another big
hit), the country-styled "Wild Horses" (which showed
the influence of Parsons, and which caused a disagreement
between him and Jagger and songwriting credits)
and a version of Faithfull's "Sister Morphine,"
about her own ambiguous relationship with heroin.
Most probably Mick Taylor collaborated heavily on
this album with Mick Jagger because Keith Richards
could not contribute too much because of his drug
problems. However, all the songs were credited as
usual to 'Jagger/Richards' which certainly frustrated
Taylor. Artist Biography - Rolling Stones As Richards
removed himself from society, Jagger began to move
in more elevated social circles. He married the
pregnant Nicaraguan model Bianca Pérez Mora Macías,
and the couple's jet-set lifestyle put further distance
between himself and Keith. They did have one further
classic album in them. Pressured by the UK Inland
Revenue service about several years of unpaid income
tax, the band left for the South of France, where
Richards rented a chateau and sublet rooms to the
band members and assorted hangers-on. Using the
recently completed Rolling Stones Mobile Studio,
they set about recording the double album Exile
on Main Street (1972) in the basement of their new
home. Dismissed by some on its release as sprawling
and self-indulgent, the record is now considered
among the band's greatest. The film Cocksucker Blues
documents the subsequent tour. It would also be
one of the last on which the band still functioned as a unit. By the time Exile had been completed
Jagger had made the other band members aware that
he was more interested in the celebrity lifestyle
than working on its follow-up, and increasingly
their records were made piecemeal, with tracks and
parts laid down as, and when, the band, and Jagger
and Richards in particular, could get together and
remain amicable for sufficiently long to do so.
When it finally arrived, Goats Head Soup (1973)
was disappointing, with the Stones' unique sound
diluted by the influence of glam rock and memorable
only for the hit single "Angie," popularly believed
to be about David Bowie's new wife but in reality
another of Richards' odes to Pallenberg. The making
of the record was not helped by another legal battle
over drugs, this one dating back to their stay in
France. But the Tour of Europe in fall 1973 showed
the Rolling Stones in top form, particularly Mick
Taylor who played extensive solos on songs like
Midnight Rambler and You Can't Always Get What You
Want in an exciting interplay with Keith Richards
on rhythm guitar. A live recording made in Brussels
on 17 October was intended for an official release
but due to legal problems it appeared only on bootlegs
(Nasty Music and Brussels Affair). Many fans and
critics regard these recordings as the best Rolling
Stones concert recordings ever. By the time they
came to Munich to record 1974's It's Only Rock 'n'
Roll, however, there were even more problems. Regular
producer Jimmy Miller was not asked to participate
in the sessions because of his increasing unreliability,
due to drug use. Critics generally wrote the album
off as uninspired from a band perceived as stagnating,
but both album and single were huge hits, even without
the customary tour to promote them. Intra-band strife
continued. Mick Taylor's intricate lead style and
shy persona never quite matched Richards' outspoken
image and basic, Chuck Berry-inspired rhythm work.
By the time of It's Only Rock And Roll Richards
was reportedly berating Taylor during recording
sessions, and Taylor contributed little to the album.
Irked by perceived mistreatment, and a small share
of the band's royalties, Taylor announced he was
leaving the band shortly before sessions commenced
for the next album, Black and Blue (1976). The Rolling
Stones used the Black and Blue sessions (again in
Munich) to audition possible replacements. Guitarists
stylistically far-flung as Humble Pie lead Peter
Frampton and ex-Yardbirds impresario Jeff Beck were
auditioned. American session players Wayne Perkins
and Harvey Mandel appeared on much of the album,
but the band settled on Ron Wood, a long time friend
of Richards and guitarist with The Faces, whose
singer Rod Stewart had recently gone solo. Wood
had already contributed to It's Only Rock 'n Roll,
but his first public act with the band would be
the 1975 American Tour. The shows featured a new
format for the Stones with their usual act replaced
by increasingly theatrical stage props and gimmicks,
including a giant inflatable phallus and a cherry
picker on which Jagger would soar out over the audience.
This represented a further breakdown in Mick and
Keith's relationship -- the pragmatic Richards considering
it entirely superfluous and distracting from the
music. Again, Jagger was, if nothing else, shrewdly
interpreting market trends--the mid-1970s were the
era of flashy stage acts such as Kiss and Elton
John, and the band's tours were to become even more
expensive and elaborate in the years to come. Although
the Rolling Stones remained hugely popular through
the '70s, music critics had grown increasingly dismissive
of the band's output. Keith Richards would have
more serious concerns in 1977. Despite having spent
much of the previous year undergoing a series of
drug therapies to help withdraw from heroin, including
(allegedly) having his blood filtered, Richards
and Pallenberg were arrested in a Toronto hotel
room and charged with possession of heroin. The
case would drag on for a year, with Richards eventually
receiving a suspended sentence and ordered to play
a concert for a local charity. This motivated a
final, concerted attempt to end his drug habit,
which proved largely successful. It also coincided
with the end of his relationship with Pallenberg,
which had become increasingly strained since the
tragic death of their third child (an infant son
named Tara). While Richards was settling his legal
and personal problems, Jagger continued his jet-set
lifestyle. He was a regular at New York's Studio
54 disco club, often in the company of model Jerry
Hall. His marriage to Bianca would end in 1977.
By this time punk rock had become highly influential
in pop circles, and the Stones were increasingly
criticized as being decadent, aging millionaires,
with their music considered by many to be either
stagnant or irrelevant. Clash vocalist Joe Strummer
even went so far as to declare "No Elvis, Beatles
or Rolling Stones in 1977." In 1978 the band recorded
Some Girls, their most focused and successful album
in some time, despite the perceived misogyny of
the title track. Jagger and Richards seemed to channel
much of the personal turmoil surrounding them into
renewed creative vitality. With the notable exception
of the disco-influenced "Miss You," (a hit single
and a live staple) most of the songs on the album
were fast, basic guitar-driven rock and roll, and
the album did much to quell the band's critics.
Emotional Rescue (1980) was in a similar vein, but
lacked the redeeming features of its predecessor.
Tattoo You (1981), like the album before it, was
composed mainly of unused songs from earlier recording
outings (The ballad "Waiting on a Friend" dated
all the way back to the Goats Head Soup sessions).
It also featured the single "Start Me Up," showing
that Richards was still capable of writing guitar
parts of the same caliber as ten years earlier.
Tattoo You and the subsequent tour were major commercial
successes. Throughout the early 1980s the Jagger/Richards
partnership continued to falter, and their records
would suffer because of it. 1983's Undercover was
widely seen as Jagger's attempt to make the Rolling
Stones' sound more compatible with current musical
trends. The album's slick production and violent
political and sexual content alienated both critics
and fans. To make matters worse, Ron Wood was now
suffering from his own growing drug habit. In 1982
Jagger signed a major solo deal with the band's
new label, CBS Records. This move angered Richards,
who saw it as a lack of commitment to the band.
Indeed, Jagger was spending a great deal of time
on his solo recordings and most of the material
on 1986's Dirty Work was authored solely by Keith
Richards (indeed, many would later speculate that
after years of making decisions in drug-addled Richards'
place, Jagger resented Richards reasserting creative
control). The album again sold poorly, and sales
were probably hurt by Jagger's decision not to tour
in support of the album. To add to the band's woes
in 1986, longtime collaborator and unofficial band
member Ian Stewart died of a heart attack. The Rolling
Stones' only live appearance during this time was
a tribute to Stewart. By this point Jagger and Richards
had begun openly criticizing each other in the press,
and many observers assumed the Rolling Stones had
broken up. Sales of Jagger's solo records (She's
the Boss (1985) and Primitive Cool (1987)) did not
live up to expectations. Ironically, Richards' first
solo record, Talk Is Cheap (1988), which he had
been reluctant to make because of his loyalty to
the Stones, was well received by both fans and critics,
prompting Jagger to shelve his own solo career and
reform the group for 1989's Steel Wheels album and
tour, widely heralded as a return to form. In 1991
Wyman left the band and published Stone Alone, a
frank and honest autobiography. (In 2002, Wyman
would write an even more ambitious coffee table
tome entitled "Rolling with the Stones"). After
leaving the band, Wyman was replaced by respected
session musician and Miles Davis sideman Darryl
Jones in time to record Voodoo Lounge (1994) and
Bridges to Babylon -- both highly praised -- and
to tour in support both records. The Rolling Stones
were awarded a Grammy for lifetime achievement in
1986 and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame in 1989. "Start Me Up" was used by Microsoft
to launch their Windows 95 operating system. Some
critics noted the irony that the group who epitomize
the way that rock and roll commercialized earlier
rhythm and blues by delivering it to a global audience
provided the soundtrack for the corporation who
did the same with software. (Critics of Windows
also noted the song's lyric "You make a grown man
cry".) On July 30, 2003, the band headlined the
Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto concert in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada, to help the city overcome the effects
of the 2003 SARS epidemic. It was attended by an
estimated 450,000 people, the largest concert in
Canadian history.
On November 9, 2003, the band played its first ever
concert in Hong Kong as part of Harbour Fest celebration.
In November of 2003 the band exclusively licensed
the right to sell their new 4-DVD boxed set to the
Best Buy chain of stores. In response, major music
retail chains (including Tower Records, Virgin Megastores
and HMV) have pulled all Rolling Stones CDs and
related merchandise from their shelves and replaced
them with signs explaining the situation. Of all
the British bands that purloined American music
and sold it back to the States, none have matched
the Rolling Stones' ingenious, energized redesigns
of roots influences.
The Stones didn't so much pay homage to their roots
as create revelatory, enduring rock 'n' roll extensions
of black Chicago and Delta blues, R&B, gospel and
hardcore country, playing up the sexually rhythmic
charge of the music by pushing it in new directions.
