| The Rolling Stones     ROLLING STONES
Rock group, 'The Greatest rock'n'roll band in the world': Mick Jagger, vocalist (b Michael Philip Jagger, 26 July '43, Dartford, Kent); Keith Richards, guitar (b 18 Dec. '43, Dartford); Bill Wyman, bass (b William Perks, 23 Oct. '36, Penge, south-east London); Charlie Watts, drums (b 2 June '41, Neasden, North London); Brian Jones, rhythm guitar, other instruments (b Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones, 28 Feb. '42, Cheltenham, Glos.; d 3 July '69), replaced by Mick Taylor (b 17 Jan. '48, Herts.), who was succeeded by Ron Wood (b 1 June '47, Hillingdon, Middx); plus Ian Stewart, keyboards (b '38, d 12 Dec. '85). The Rolling Stones reflected the times that they played through, their best music transcending the farce and melodrama of their story: Keith Richards, the 'Human Riff', is a superb guitarist who has never lost his love for rock'n'roll and the roots music it came from; Mick Jagger is the perfect front man for a rock band, always almost over the top, with boundless energy and an ego to match; Charlie Watts, with his jazzman's ability to play slightly behind the beat, was one of the best drummers in the genre. Jagger and Richards attended primary school together, met on a train as teenagers and discovered they were both rhythm and blues fans; Jagger attended London School of Economics, Richards was in the same art school as guitarist Dick Taylor, who played in the same R&B band as Jagger (with fame Keith dropped the 's', calling himself Richard, until reconciled with his father years later). Jones followed a similar enthusiasm a hundred miles away, travelled to London to visit Alexis Korner's club, where Jagger was the second-string vocalist after Long John Baldry, and where he met Watts and Stewart. A nucleus of Jones, Jagger and Richards began to rehearse together, with Watts or with Mick Amory (later drummer with the Kinks), Dick Taylor on bass, and Stewart. Drummer Tony Chapman also passed through; Wyman replaced Taylor '62 (who then formed the Pretty Things); Watts was persuaded to quit his job in advertising '63. European blues enthusiast Giorgio Gomelsky booked them a weekly slot at the Railway Hotel in Richmond, Surrey, and acted as an unofficial manager until they attracted a following, when hustling publicist Andrew Loog Oldham turned up (b '44): he'd worked for designer Mary Quant, then for Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, and moulded the Stones into a saleable commodity as a rebellious London answer to the relatively goody-goody northern Beatles. Oldham demoted Stewart, who did not fit the slim-hipped image (Stewart became tour manager and trusted confidant, frequent keyboard player on tours/records; had 'Boogie With Stu' dedicated to him on Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti '75; played pub blues with Watts early '80s in Rocket 88). A contract with Decca was easily obtained, as that label was kicking itself for turning down the Beatles; first record '63 was cover of Chuck Berry's 'Come On', a minor UK hit. Oldham asked the Beatles for an original song, and the Stones' version of 'I Wanna Be Your Man' was top 20 UK (where the song was not a Beatle single). They toured UK winter '63 at the bottom of a bill with Everly Bros and Little Richard; cover of Buddy Holly's 'Not Fade Away' (to which they added Bo Diddley's beat) was no. 3 '64, also reaching US top 50. Eponymous debut LP was no. 1 UK, with Phil Spector and Gene Pitney helping; 'Tell Me' from it made USA top 30, as did their first UK no. 1, cover of the Valentinos' 'It's All Over Now' (by Bobby Womack). EP Five By Five was made in Chicago during their first US tour '64; Willie Dixon's 'Little Red Rooster' from it was a UK no. 1, while Jerry Ragavoy's 'Time Is On My Side' was their first US top ten. Rolling Stones No. 2 was second UK no. 1 LP; USA counterparts 12 x 5 and The Rolling Stones Now! both reached top five '64--5. They exploited their opposite image to the Beatles, refusing to wave bye-bye on a UK pop TV programme; while the Beatles collected MBEs from the Queen, the Stones were arrested for urinating on a garage forecourt. They were popular in the USA but had no no. 1 hits there, where it seemed slightly peculiar to have five English kids covering Chuck Berry and the rest; Oldham pushed them to write songs of their own. Out Of Our Heads '65 was a roots LP in UK, only no. 2; a different LP of the same title in USA incl. first Jagger/Richards songs 'The Last Time' (no. 1 UK, top ten USA) and '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction', their first transatlantic no. 1; 'Get Off Of My Cloud' was their second, same year, (on US LP December's Children (And Everybody's). They helped Jagger's then girlfriend Marianne Faithfull to four consecutive top ten hits '64--5. Compilation Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) and Aftermath '66, Between The Buttons '67 all in different editions on each side of the pond, as well as Got Live If You Want It! '66 (made at Albert Hall: exciting souvenir EP in UK, stretched to a dubious LP in USA); Flowers '67 not issued in UK at all. Their early 'Under-Assistant West Coast Promo Man' had sent up the record business; big hits in both UK/USA incl. '19th Nervous Breakdown', 'Paint It, Black', 'Mother's Little Helper' (song about housewives' tranquillizers, years before the problem of 'legal' pills was widely recognized), 'Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?'. 'Sittin' On A Fence' (on Flowers) was an acoustic lament for an innocence everyone was losing in those years: in the songs at least, they had no illusions about their own or anyone else's generation. Aftermath was their most cohesive LP to date, yet still too poppish, overshadowed by the Beatles' Revolver, Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde and the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, all the same year. (The reason the albums were different in the UK and the USA had to do with the way song royalties were paid; US LPs had fewer tracks. This ended with the Beatles' Sgt Pepper; see their entry.) In '67 the Stones faltered badly: Their Satanic Majesties Request late in the year achieved record advance orders and was the biggest disappointment of the decade, a dreadful attempt at psychedelia. Total of $15,000 was spent on an opulent 3-D cover for the album; there may be a sense in which they wanted it to fail, psychedelia being no part of what the Stones were really about. Meanwhile Jagger, Richards and Jones had been arrested on drugs charges, the law clumsily making it obvious that it wanted to arrest the outlaw Stones rather than the Beatles; prison terms were avoided after a famous Times leader asked, quoting William Blake, 'Who Breaks A Butterfly Upon A Wheel?'. Their only single '67 was the limp 'We Love You', accompanied by a film with Jagger dressed as Oscar Wilde, Marianne as Lord Alfred Douglas, Richards as the Marquess of Queensberry. They were also growing distant from prod. Glyn Johns, and from Oldham (they had entered the clutches of Allen Klein, who would soon add to the list of lawsuits pending against him the one with Oldham over the Stones' money). Then they pulled it all together and reached their peak. 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' '68 (no. 1 UK, 3 USA) was classic, exciting rock'n'roll, dispelling notions of studio or electronic wizardry for the Stones: while the Beatles no longer toured at all, the Stones had to tour because they really were the world's greatest rock'n'roll band. It was also the year that flower-power began obviously to fail, a year of riots and the emergence of hippy terrorism; by the time Beggars Banquet came out at the end of the year (after a squabble with Decca over the original sleeve, which pictured a toilet and a graffiti-covered wall) the Stones were almost bored with it, but it was their first masterpiece, with knowing 'Sympathy For The Devil' (the title of Jean-Luc Godard's film of the sessions), 'Street Fighting Man', 'Salt Of The Earth'; low-down dirty 'Parachute Woman', 'Stray Cat Blues', etc. The sleeve thanked Nicky Hopkins and 'many friends', believed to incl. Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood. Jagger made film Performance '68, playing a jaded, faded rock star: not a happy pop Beatle film but a risky portrait of psychopaths, with James Fox and Anita Pallenberg, communal Stones' girlfriend; soundtrack music was by Jack Nitzsche and Lowell George; Jagger's only song was 'Memo From Turner', one of his best tracks, recorded with members of Traffic incl. Winwood. Out-takes of Pallenberg and Jagger won a prize at a pornographic film festival in Amsterdam. A TV film Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus was made in December, with the Who, Jethro Tull, John Lennon, Clapton and others, but not shown until '96; Jagger thought he had been outshone by the Who. Brian Jones was far more than a rhythm guitarist; he had been the musical centre of the group many times, e.g. his slide guitar on 'No Expectations' an attraction of Beggars Banquet. They might not have accomplished anything without him, but he'd become unreliable and drug- sodden; he could not get another visa for touring in the USA. In May '69 the unhappy, asthmatic, alcoholic woman-beater, his liver and heart already badly damaged, was eased out of the group; in July he drowned in his swimming pool in Sussex (having purchased the former home of A. A. Milne, the 'House at Pooh Corner'), amid the usual rumours of foul play. (His last project was issued '72 as Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan In Joujouka, Moroccan trad. music.) A free concert in Hyde Park two days later with Mick Taylor (ex-John Mayall's Bluesbreakers) went on as scheduled; in tribute to Jones boxes of butterflies were released, many of them also dead; the band gave one of its worst performances ever. Jagger and Marianne then flew to Australia; he played legendary outlaw in flop film Ned Kelly, soundtrack with Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson (one song by Jagger). She took an overdose of pills while they were there and Jagger saved her life, but the days of the affair were numbered. 'Honky Tonk Women' was no. 1 USA/UK mid-'69, one of their best (video saw them in drag); Through The Past Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) '69 was dedicated to Jones; Let It Bleed '69 was their second masterpiece in a row, with the strutting title track, a cover of Robert Johnson's 'Love In Vain', 'Country Honk' (a different version of 'Honky Tonk Women'), orchestrated 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' etc incl. guests Leon Russell, Ry Cooder, Al Kooper. Flower- power was well and truly over after another free concert Dec. '69 at Altamont, a disused racetrack in northern California: bad organization incl. 'security' provided by Hell's Angels, who hacked and stomped to death Meredith Hunter, an 18-year-old black man foolishly waving a pistol, captured in film Gimme Shelter. Get Your Ya-Yas Out '70 was their best live LP, made during USA tour, and marked the end of the Decca contract: they formed Rolling Stones label. Sticky Fingers '71 incl. 'Brown Sugar' (no. 1 USA, 2 UK), 'Wild Horses' and 'Sister Morphine' (infl. by Gram Parsons, who fell out with Jagger over composer credits). Klein had their money tied up tight, but meanwhile their taxes hadn't been paid: they moved to France.  |
