#10
Most
Influentual Artist
of the Milleneum
The Rolling Stones
"As Voted By KINK radio,Portland,OR"
- 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
murdered 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.
- 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 Dick Taylor and Ian 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 themselves the
Rolling Stones, borrowing the moniker from a Muddy Waters
song.
- July
12, 1962 The
Rolling Stones gave their first performance at the
Marquee Club in London. 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.
- 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 Crawdaddy'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" which 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.
- 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.
- 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 -- Brian 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 their 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 murdered 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 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 (peak year 1981).
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 Flashback, which was culled from the Steel
Wheels shows, was released.
- Following
the release of Flashback, 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. -- Stephen Thomas
Erlewine, All Music Guide
