The Rolling Stones
- For other uses, see Rolling Stones (disambiguation)
The Rolling Stones are a British rock group who rose to prominence during the 1960s. The Rolling Stones were original in weaving together various strands of music (blues, pop, R&B, soul, country and gospel, along with whatever trends lay around the corner, be they phsycedelic music, funk, disco, reggae, punk, or contemporary dance rythms) into their own, signature style, and by their 1969 tour of the U.S.A were being introduced as "The Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the World," a title that has since stuck. They remain one of the most visible and popular rock groups of all time, as well as one of the greatest.
Early history: 1961-1967
Early in their career they played covers of blues, rhythm and blues, country, and rock and roll music. Their first recordings were covers of Chuck Berry, Robert Johnson, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Muddy Waters, and Hank Williams songs, among others. Although founding members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are regarded as one of the greatest songwriting teams in rock. They are the longest surviving rock & roll band in history, and continue to record and tour to this day.
The band came into being in 1961 when former school friends Jagger and Richards met Jones, who named the band after a Muddy Waters song. At least two other bands (and one circus tumbling act) are believed to have called themselves The Rolling Stones before the Jagger/Richards/Jones band was formed. The original line-up included Jagger (vocals), Jones (guitar), Richards (guitar), Ian Stewart (piano), Charlie Watts (drums) and Dick Taylor (bass). Taylor left shortly after to return to art school, and was later to form The Pretty Things. He was replaced by Bill Wyman. United by their shared interest in rhythm and blues music, the group rehearsed extensively, initially playing in public at The Marquee Club in London, where Alexis Korner's blues band was resident. They soon got their own residency at The Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, which was run by Russian emigre Giorgio Gomelsky, and began to establish themselves as one of London's premier live acts, even being honoured with a visit from The Beatles. At first, Brian Jones, a guitarist who also toyed with numerous other instruments, was the Stones' creative leader, despite Mick Jaggers' increasing popularity and visibilty with fans during live performances. The band rapidly gained a reputation for their frantic, highly energetic covers of the rhythm and blues songs of their idols and, through their recently appointed sharp young manager Andrew Loog Oldham, were signed to Decca Records (who had passed when offered The Beatles). At this time their music was fairly primitive. Keith Richards had learned much of his guitar playing from the recordings of Chuck Berry, and had yet to develop a style of his own, and Jagger was not as in control of his maliciously sexual stage persona as he would soon become. By the time of their first single release; a cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On", Ian Stewart was, at the insistance of Andrew Oldham, officially not part of the band, lacking the proper "look," though he continued to record and perform with them. The band, although unhappy with this decision, agreed that it was neccessary in order to maximise their chances of success. Another of Oldham's ideas was to convince Keith Richards to drop the 's' from his surname to become "Keith Richard", presumably in a bid to give him greater pop star credibility.
The choice of material on their first, self-titled EP, reflected their live shows. Similarly, the album The Rolling Stones (England's Newest Hitmakers) 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). Although the Rolling Stones were essentially a cover band at this point, they updated these classic tunes in a distinctively guitar-oriented context, upping the wattage and infusing their performances with their own distinctively punkish, amateurish menace. The performances were pivotal in introducing a generation of white British youth to rhythm and blues music, and helped to fuel the "British Invasion" of America. Their early records and shows established their basic sound, influenced the breakthroughs of progressive bands like the Yardbirds, and overshadowed many of their cover band peers. More importantly to their commercial success, however, was their tailored rebellious image. Whilst 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 of surly yobs. This image was instrumental to their success, as their public appearances provoked hysterical reactions from female fans in particular, much as the Beatles themselves had, and soon the Stones were a teen idol group. The follow-up album, The Rolling Stones #2 (Now in the U.S), was also composed mainly of cover tunes, only now augmented by a couple of songs written by the fledgling partnership of Jagger and Richards, having been locked in a room by their manager, who refused to let them out until they had written something they could release. Encouraged by Oldham, the band toured Europe and America continuously, 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, Illinois. Their early records, before their breakthrough, self-penned hit "Satisfaction," are sometimes neglected in favor of later recordings. However, the early Stones, with their tough, electric guitar-based attack and interlocking Richards/Jones rythm playing helped define hard rock and their best interpretations from this period remain classic recordings of the British Invasion.
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 shared a squalid London flat in Edith Grove, Chelsea, throughout much of 1963 along with friend, reprobate, and later biographer James Phelge. The three Stones became so fond of Phelge that they used his name as part of the 'Nanker/Phelge' pseudonym to indicate early band writing compositions. Two years later Brian Jones began 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 filmmakers. 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 begin 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 relationship that would last over ten years. During this time, the Stones began to broaden their sound to incorporate then-contemporary styles such as folk and soul music, while the Stones own blues-pop hybrid began to mutate under the early rumblings of phsycedelic music. [[Af During this period Pallenberg seemed to exert an influence on the music as somebody who's opinions the band trusted, particularly on the dark single "Paint it Black", and the (for 1966) shockingly sexually ambiguous video for "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby (Standing in the Shadows)? ". With the main songwriters maintaining their rate of production, Aftermath (1966) continued the progression, consisting entirely of Jagger/Richards compositions including "Mother's Little Helper," about pill abuse, and the misogynistic "Under My Thumb," whereas on Between the Buttons (1967) they essentially left their R&B base behind for the first time, wearing the influences of their many contemporaries, including The Who and The Kinks.
Sex, Drugs, Death and Rock & Roll: 1967-1971
By now the band, with their alternately antisocial, subversive, and sexual singles and their rebellious image, had become almost synonymous with the rebellious spirit of the 1960s, and in particular a more relaxed attitude towards drug use. Brian Jones faced several court appearances during 1967, accused of possession of drugs, and the pressure on him began to show. The British Sunday tabloid newspaper News of the World targetted the Stones and their perceived debauched lifestyles, and allegedly tipped off the police leading to a search of Keith Richard's country home, "Redlands" in West Wittering, Sussex. The February 1967 raid, now legendary in the band's mythology, occurred during one of the regular parties held there, and police discovered a moderate quantity of cannabis. The raid also served as a source of apocryphal stories, mainly concerning the appearance and demeanour of Mick Jagger's girlfriend Marianne Faithfull, which only served to augment their reputation for debauchery. It was also rumoured that the raid was delayed on police instructions to allow Beatles guitarist George Harrison to leave, who was among the guests. Richards was charged and a few months later stood trial for allowing drug use in his home. Jagger was charged with possessing amphetamine tablets, which though bought legally in Italy to combat travel sickness, were still obtained without a doctor's prescription. Amidst intense press interest they were convicted, Richards was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and Jagger to four months, prompting The Times newspaper to run an editorial criticising the verdict. Beneath the title "Who Breaks A Butterfly On A Wheel" editor William Rees-Mogg wrote:
- "If we are going to make any case a symbol of the conflict between the sound traditional values of Britain and the new hedonism, then we must be sure that the sound traditional values include those of tolerance and equity."
During the furor, Decca shrewdly released Flowers in the United States. Despite being a quickly cobbled-together collection of hits and studio outtakes, it was nevertheless a hit. A exploitative, cash-in compulation at the time of its release, it remains in print today, containing some of their most distinguished work from this period. The Who also rush-released a single covering two Stones originals "Under My Thumb" and "The Last Time" in a show of solidarity.
With Richards and Jagger out on bail and shortly to be acquitted on appeal, Jagger was immediately whisked off in a helicopter to appear on a BBC television programme " World in Action " taking part, along with members of the British establishment, in a live debate discussing the morals of modern society. Maybe as a result of the pressure he was feeling, he looked out of his depth and his arguments cut little ice with his fellow participants. The band then set about recording a new single, the slightly menacing phsycedelia of "We Love You", officially as a thank you for the loyalty shown by their fans, though privately it was seen as a barbed attack on their perceived persecutors; the News of the World, the Metropolitan police force and members of the British judiciary. The record featured the sounds of footsteps and a cell door banging shut, and which it is rumoured was taken from a secret recording from within Wormwood Scrubs; the London prison where Richards was held overnight. The daring record indicated a new, controversial direction for the band . 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 was recorded in difficult circumstances with various members of the band living under the threat of imprisonment, so much so, that Bill Wyman was able to get one of his songs "In Another Land" onto the album. The resulting record received poor reviews, as the press found the record's phsycedelic flourishes ill-adapted for the Stones' style and accused the band of imitating The Beatles and succumbing to a trendiness that diluted their core sound. The record's critical reputation has increased over the years, as modern rock critics are able to view the record through the lense of time. In reality, the Jagger/Richards songwriting team was still growing, and the Stones, with the help of Brian Jones, effectively blended the Stones punkish menace with swirling physcedelic arrangements, incorperating strings, orchestration, sitars, bells, dulcimers, flutes and other instruments, almost all of which were played by [{Brian Jones]]. Although the phsycedelic component is dated and excessive in places, the record is evidence that the Stones were more cunning composers than is generally acknowledged.
After the excesses of Satanic Majesties, and with personal relations between Jones and Richards increasingly frayed, 1968's Beggars Banquet, along with the sublime "Jumpin' Jack Flash" single, saw the band return to their rock and blues roots. Despite the tension, and aided by an excellent sound from up-and-coming producer Jimmy Miller, Jagger and Richards produced some of their most memorable work, including the distorted acoustic guitar-driven "Street Fighting Man," the Delta-blues tribute "No Expectations," 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 (specifically Delta blues), but tempered by the radical changes that occurred in 1960s music and retaining very vague traces of the phsycedelic music the Stones had experimented with (especially "Sympathy for the Devil"'s african rythms, the sitars of "Street-Fighting Man," and the mellotron effects on "Jig-saw Puzzle." In contrast to its more ambiguous predecessor, "Beggar's Banquet" was, on some level, a 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. First, Keith Richards played extensively with Ry Cooder, and was taught his open-G guitar tuning (as used by John Lee Hooker), later admitting "I took Ry Cooder for all I could get". Secondly, both Jagger and Richards befriended Gram Parsons, who introduced them to 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."
An ever-increasing consumption of drugs, however, were making Brian Jones less and less reliable. The ill-fated Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus was one of his last projects with the band and increasingly he was either absent from recording sessions by choice, or simply not invited to attend. He found himself forced out of the band for good after an infamous late-night visit to his rural home from Jagger and Richards in May 1969, but not before contributing beautiful slide guitar and playing several other textural instruments on "Beggar's Banquet." He was soon to be replaced by the young, blues-influenced guitar vituoso, Mick Taylor, drafted in from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.
Jones retreated to his Cotchford Farm home in Kent, a house formerly owned by Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne, drinking heavily in the local pub and planning his comeback with a blues band. However, within two months, and a matter of two days before the new-look band were due to play a free concert in Hyde Park, London he was dead; found at the bottom of his swimming pool which was surrounded by statues of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. Although his death was recorded as being by misadventure, the cause of the drowning to this day remains a mystery. A recent death-bed confession to murder by Frank Thorogood, a builder employed by Jones at the time, has only served to cloud the issue further.
Despite the tragedy, the Hyde Park concert went ahead, with an audience of up to half a million fans, with Jagger reading from Shelley's "Adonais" and releasing hundreds of butterflies by way of tribute to the late guitarist. The band's performance, under-rehearsed and suffering from some of the remaining members' narcotic intake, was somewhat shambolic and was captured by a Granada Television production team, later to be shown on British television as "Stones in the Park". The band had released the first recording with the new line up, a single called "Honky Tonk Women", which was recorded with Jones but had his guitar part edited out and Taylor's part dubbed in at the last minute. It was released on July 3, 1969, co-inciding with the death of Jones. An album Let It Bleed followed in December and was rapidly hailed as another classic, featuring the brooding apocalypse piece "Gimme Shelter," the anthemic "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and a further nod to their roots with a sparkling cover of Robert Johnson's "Love In Vain". It was to become, along with "Beggars' Banquet," one of the defining Rolling Stones albums. Immediately, the band set off on their famous '69 US tour, characterised by raw, wasted, stripped down music and the hedonism that their position in rock's aristocracy afforded them.
This was like no other tour the band had yet undertaken. Away from the stage since 1966, they found that live performing had moved on since then. Rather than performing in small and medium sized venues to audiences of screaming girls, they were booked into huge baseball and football stadiums with crowd sizes to match. They blazed a trail for a multitude of stadium tours by the super-bands of the seventies, and which continue to this day.
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 located about 40 miles east of San Francisco. Originally, the Stones' appearance was to be a surprise for the festival in San Franciso's Golden Gate Park. Jagger's decision to announce at a press conference that the Stones would be performing at the event, possibly to ensure a sufficient audience for the concert movie, resulted in the city of San Francisco denying permits.
This lead to numerous problems as the event organizers had to scramble to plan the event. As a result, on-site security was provided by the Hells Angels at the suggestion of the Grateful Dead.
The concert was a disaster. Most commentators agree nowadays that the violence that took place at the concert was mostly a result of the Hell's Angels horrible behavior, Jagger's refusal to perform during the day, again to ensure a better film with lighting at night, may have partially resulted in an escalation of violence, but the violence took place mostly between drugged-up fans and the senselessly combative Angels. The fights continued through the Stones' set, despite Jagger's numerous pleas for peace. Horrifyingly, however, the running battles between fans and Hells Angels 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 Altamont concert would be documented in Albert and David Maysles' film Gimme Shelter. Many cultural scholars of the time opined that Altamont marked the de facto end of the sixties, and a great, cathartic loss of innocence. What was fascinating for commentators at the time, however, was that the Stones had long flirted with a rebellious, sleazy, and Satanic public image, and that their recent music had been characterized by a demonic sexuality and vaguely violent, apocalypic menace that was, on some level, a clear rejection of utopian hippie values. This, combined with the violence at Altamont that stood in clear and direct contrast to that year's peaceful, completely catastrophe-free festival at Woodstock, contributed to the mythological reputation of the incident. The killing is irrevocably associated with the Stones' image and with their best-known music. In a sense, it haunts them to this day. As the Stones opened the show with "Sympathy for the Devil," fights broke out. They stopped the tune, and Jagger remarked that "something funny" always seemed to happen when the Stones started that song. Minutes later, Hunter was killed. It was not coincidence, then that many commentators accused the Stones of inciting violence with the song, and the Stones briefly dropped the tune from their set lists, though they did not abandon their seedy image by any means.
The murder, coming so soon after the death of Brian Jones, had a harrowing effect on Keith Richards, and his reaction to the events was to increase his usage of heroin. He would spend the best part of the next decade as an addict, 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, however, including a time in 1976 when he fell asleep on stage, do not bear this out.
1969 saw the end of the band's existing contract with Decca Records. The intervening years since they had signed with the record company had seen them become global superstars, and despite overtures they refused to sign a new contract. They recorded a final single as a contract obligation, the bawdy, unreleaseable ballad "Cocksucker Blues", and left to form their own record company under the financially astute eye of Mick Jagger. Sticky Fingers released in March (1971), the band's first album on their own Rolling Stones Records label, continued where Let It Bleed had left off, although seemed marked by a certain drug-induced weariness that seemed fitting after the violent developments of the past 2 years. The record features one of their best known hits in the irresistable "Brown Sugar," an interesting pastiche of taboo subject matter that included interracial sex, vague references sadomasachism and slave rape, cunnilingus, heroin, and lost virginity. The country-influenced "Wild Horses" (which caused a disagreement between Gram Parsons and Mick Jagger over songwriting credits) was another hit, the moody "Moonlight Mile" featured Paul Buckmaster's evocative string arrangement and one of Jagger's finest vocal performances, and a version of Marianne Faithfull's "Sister Morphine" about her own ambiguous relationship with heroin. Mick Taylor collaborated on this album with Jagger for two tunes, the aforementioned "Moonlight Mile," and the bluesy "Sway." However, all the songs were credited as usual to 'Jagger/Richards' which frustrated Taylor.
It's Only Rock'n'Roll: 1972-1981
As Keith Richards removed himself from society, Mick Jagger began to move in more elevated social circles. He married the Nicaraguan model Bianca Perez Moreno de Macias, and the couple's jet-set lifestyle put further distance between himself and Richards. Pressured by the UK Inland Revenue service for several years of unpaid income tax, their recently appointed accountant Prince Rupert Lowenstein, a 'society' friend of Jagger's, advised the band to move abroad to avoid bankruptcy caused by the high rates of taxation of the Labour government of Harold Wilson. They eventually decided to quit Britain for the South of France, the band members taking to this enforced change of lifestyle with varying degrees of success. Bill Wyman, in particular, soon felt at home in his new mountainside house and became friendly with French painter Claude Chagall. Richards, however, adopted a more head-in-the-sand approach, ensconced in his London Cheyne Walk home in a state of insurrection until the very last minute.
Once in France Richards rented a gothic chateau "Villa Nellecote", which had been used as the headquarters for the local Nazi SS during the Second World War, and sublet rooms to the band members and a multitude of assorted hangers-on. Using the Rolling Stones Mobile studio, they began recording the double album Exile on Main St. (1972) in the basement of their new home, reputedly using electricity purloined from nearby railway lines. Dismissed by some on its release as sprawling and self-indulgent, the record is now considered among the band's (and rock & roll's) greatest. The film Cocksucker Blues, never officially released, documents the subsequent American tour.
By the time Exile on Main St. 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, Jagger and Richards in particular, could get together and remain amicable sufficiently long enough to do so. When it finally arrived, Goats Head Soup (1973) was tagged as disappointing, though memorable largely for the hit single "Angie," popularly believed to be about David Bowie's new wife, but in reality another of Richards' odes to Anita Pallenberg.
Interestingly, the popular ballad "Waiting on a Friend" was recorded during the Goats Head Soup sessions, but not released until Tattoo You, nearly ten years later. 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 the fall of 1973 showed the Rolling Stones in top form, particularly Taylor, who played extensive solos on songs like "Midnight Rambler" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in an exciting interplay with Richards on rhythm guitar.
A live recording made in Brussels on 17 October was intended for an official release, but owing to legal problems it only appeared only on bootlegs (Nasty Music, The Bedspring Symphony and Brussels Affair). Many fans and critics regard these as the best Rolling Stones concert recordings. By the time they came to the Musicland studios in Munich to record 1974's It's Only Rock'N'Roll, there were even more problems. Regular producer Jimmy Miller was not asked to participate because of his increasing unreliability and drug use. Critics generally wrote the album off as uninspired from a band seen as stagnating, but both album and the single of the same name were huge hits, even without the customary tour to promote them; and, It's Only Rock'N'Roll esentially maintained the Stones high quality of work despite not restoring their critical reputation, with was fading under the eyes of a music press that sometimes seemed eager to write them off. Mick Taylor's intricate lead style lent itself well to Stones recordings from this period, though his shy persona never quite matched Keith Richards' outspoken image and basic, Chuck Berry-inspired rhythm work. By this time Richards was reportedly berating Taylor during recording sessions, and he 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 started for the next album, Black and Blue (1976). The band used the album's recording sessions (again in Munich) to audition possible replacements. Guitarists as stylistically far-flung as Humble Pie lead Peter Frampton and ex-Yardbirds impressario 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. Black and Blue saw the stones stretching out, experimenting with a surprising array of styles on what was a essentially a jam record. The music press was typically derisive; famous confrontation critic Lester Bangs called the record "the first meaningless Stones album." The Rolling Stones were still hugely popular (the single "Fool to Cry" helped propel the record to platinum status), despite an unsupportive press, and Black and Blue, like most high-quality Stones releases from this period, has dated well, despite having few arranged songs.
Wood had already contributed to It's Only Rock'N'Roll, but his first public act with the band would be the 1975 United States 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 Jagger and Richards' relationship —the pragmatic Richards considering it entirely superfluous and distracting from the music. Once again, Jagger was, if nothing else, shrewdly interpreting market trends. The mid-1970s were the era of extravagant stage shows from the likes of Queen and Elton John, and the band's tours were to become even more expensive and elaborate in the years to come.
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 Anita 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 would end in 1977. By this time punk rock had become highly influential, and the Stones were increasingly criticized as being decadent, ageing millionaires and their music considered by many to be either stagnant or irrelevant. The Clash vocalist Joe Strummer even went so far as to declare "No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones in 1977." What people did not realise at the time was that many punk bands idolised The Stones, Keith Richards in particular, and this does not seem surprising given the band's earlier rebellious image.
In 1978 the band recorded Some Girls, their most focused and successful album in years, 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) and the droll, country-ballad "Far Away Eyes", the songs in this album were fast, basic guitar-driven rock and roll or impeccable ballads like "Beast of Burden", and the album was widely praised as both a Stones classic and a summation of late 1970s music trends. Emotional Rescue (1980) was in a similar vein, but was perceived as a poorer imitation of its predecessor. Like all second-rate Stones records from this period though, Emotional Rescue was consistent, and contained two excellent songs in "She's So Cold" and the title track.
Tattoo You (1981), was composed partially by using new material and by using unused songs from earlier recording outings (the ballad "Waiting on a Friend" dated back to the Goats Head Soup sessions). It also featured the hugely popular single "Start Me Up," showing that Richards was still capable of writing monster guitar parts of the same calibre as ten or fifteen years earlier. Tattoo You and the subsequent tour were major commercial successes, and Tattoo You is generally acknowledged as one of the better latter-day Stones records.
Mixed emotions: 1981-1999
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 incorporate current musical trends into the Stones style (though Jagger was mostly responsible for the wildly successful contemporary experiments on Tattoo You and Some Girls). The album's dense production and violent political and sexual content were coolly received by both critics and fans, though the most interesting songs on the record are in fact the dance and dub experiments like the title track and "Too Much Blood" that Jagger was apparently responsible for.
Unfortunately, Ron Wood was now suffering from his own growing drug habit. In 1982 Jagger had signed a major solo deal with the band's new label, CBS Records. This 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 turgid Dirty Work was authored solely by Keith Richards. The album again sold poorly, and sales were probably hurt by Jagger's decision not to tour in support of the album (although in 1995 Jagger admitted that he thought the tour would have been the end of the band because of tension among members).
To add to the band's woes in 1986, longtime collaborator and unofficial band member Ian Stewart, who was often called the sixth Stone, died of a heart attack. It cannot be underestimated how important the gentle, cool-headed pianist's contribution to The Rolling Stones had been, from driving the tour van in the early days to keeping the warring band members from each other's throats during some of their darker moments. Without his presence, the band could well have imploded countless times. They performed a tribute concert for Stewart which was their only live appearance during this time. A bright spot that year was when they were awarded a Grammy for lifetime achievement, but by this point Jagger and Richards had begun openly criticizing each other in the press and many observers assumed the band had broken up. Neither the quality nor the sales of Jagger's solo records (She's the Boss (1985) and Primitive Cool (1987)) lived up to expectations, but Richards' first solo record, Talk is Cheap (1988), which he had been reluctant to make because of his loyalty to The Stones, was well-recieved by the Stones cult. Although Jagger had been the cheif musical force behind the best latter-day Stones records, and Keith Richards was mostly responsible for the Stones weakest record (Dirty Work), most critics and fans found Richards solo records to be far superior to Jaggers glitzy, quickly-dated mid-80s dance-drenched records which were designed to establish his solo stardom. This sometimes led to the misconception that Richards was the main musical force behind the Stones, as fans and critics seemed to forget that Jagger had written most of the songs on Some Girls and arranged, produced, and been responsible for much of the extra writing on the Tattoo You outtake collection.
Maybe as a result of the shocking loss of the beloved 'Stu' , Jagger and Richards appeared to bury the hatchet and re-focus on the recording of a new album which would eventually become 1989's Steel Wheels and the subsequent world tour. The record momentarily satisfied the fans and critics with its strong pop appeal (although it did not maintain its reputation among critics years later). Despite the hype, the record irked some fans with its big, clean stadium-rock sound, cheap radio-ready singles and the shockingly repititious, universally-reviled "Contintental Drift," which featured the musicians of the Morroccan mountain village of Joujouka, previously recorded by Brian Jones during the ill-fated 1967 trip to North Africa with Keith Richards and Anita Pallenburg, but did not live up to any of its promise. 1989 also saw Stones inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1991 Bill Wyman finally left the band after years of deliberation and had published Stone Alone, a frank autobiography. After his departure, the band continued as a foursome. Charlie Watts was asked to choose a bass player, and he selected the respected session musician and Miles Davis sideman Darryl Jones, who appeared on Voodoo Lounge (1994) and played on the supporting tour. Bridges to Babylon (1997) featured another prolific bassist, Doug Wimbish, a journeyman session player and solo artist. Wimbish was offered the permanent position of bass player by the band, but declined in order to focus on his own material, and so did not play on the ensuing tour. Jones was brought back and has remained with the band since the Bridges tour. Both Voodoo Lounge and Bridges to Babylon were highly praised by fans and critics alike.
The Stones' song "Start Me Up" was used by Microsoft to launch their Windows 95 operating system. Some critics noted that the group who epitomised the way that rock and roll commercialised earlier rhythm and blues by delivering it to a global audience provided the soundtrack for the corporation which did the same with software. (Critics of Windows also noted the song's lyric "You make a grown man cry.")
The Rolling Stones had previously never licensed their music for commercial use. According to legend, Microsoft founder Bill Gates asked Jagger how much the rights to the song would cost; rather than refuse outright, Jagger replied with $13 million — a sum that he thought would self-evidently be outrageously high. However, Gates, immediately agreed to the amount.
Don't stop: 2000-present
mistakenly believed by many to have been designed by Andy Warhol; actually designed by John Pasche.
In 2002, the Rolling Stones released Forty Licks, a greatest hits album that spanned their career, that contained four new songs. The same year, Q magazine named The Rolling Stones as one of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die". On July 30, 2003, the band headlined the Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto concert in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to help the city recover financially and psychologically from the effects of the 2003 SARS epidemic. It was attended by an estimated 490,000 people, the largest single-day ticketed event in world history. On November 9, 2003, the band played its first ever concert in Hong Kong as part of the Harbour Fest celebration. In November of 2003 the band exclusively licensed the right to sell their new 4-DVD boxed set, Four Flicks, recorded on their most recent world tour, to the U.S Best Buy chain of stores. In response, other music retail chains (including Tower Records, Virgin Megastore and HMV) pulled all Rolling Stones CDs and related merchandise from their shelves and replaced them with signs explaining the situation.
The Stones completed sessions with Don Was as producer for a new studio album in Paris in December 2004, with Jagger and Richards writing and recording new songs. It was said the Stones would reconvene after the Christmas holidays and that the tracks recorded so far were significantly different to anything he has worked on with The Stones before. Charlie Watts also attended the Paris sessions and was reported to be in excellent health after being treated for throat cancer. On July 26 2005, coinciding with Jagger's birthday, the band announced the name of their new album, A Bigger Bang, which was released September 6th to much critical acclaim including a glowing review in Rolling Stone magazine. On May 10 2005 the Stones announced plans for another world tour starting on August 21st at Fenway Park in Boston. The tour is expected to include dates throughout the USA and Canada before going to South America, Asia and Europe. Launching the tour at the Julliard School in New York, Mick Jagger told reporters that it would not necessarily be their last and declared that work on a new album was "85 percent" complete.
In the last few years, Toronto, Ontario has been chosen as a pre-tour venue for the Rolling Stones. They have played at smaller venues such as the Palais Royale and The Phoenix prior to the full tour. In the wake of the SARS outbreak, the Stones came to Toronto to host a relief concert. Toronto has become something of a headquarters for the Stones, and they are considered there Toronto's stepchild of rock and roll.
The group kicked off their Bigger Bang world tour 2005—2006 with two shows at the historic Fenway Park, Boston, where The Stones' huge stage caused extensive damage to the outfield, so that approximately 40,000 square feet (4,000 m²) of sod had to be brought in to repair it, and a subsequent baseball game held at the park three days later had to be pushed back an hour to give the grounds crew more time to complete the repairs.
All the Stones latter-day records from Steel Wheels on have received good reviews, probably because of Jagger's notorious commercial savvy. This has caused increasing resentment among some commentators who often find the record to compare unfavorably to the reviews, and confusion among record buyers and music fans, who are sometimes attracted or repelled by the reputation of a certain album. Although many feel that the Stones latter-day records are irrelevant, and other heap praise on them, an objective analysis of the situation reveals the recent records to be fine efforts. The most recent Stones album seems to have been generally acclaimed as the best recent Stones effort, despite similar claims about the last 3 Stones records.
The group will play during half-time of Super Bowl XL. The Stones are also taking part in creating promotions throughout the entire NFL season which feature music from their new album, "A Bigger Bang" and footage from their supporting world tour as well. [1]
Line-ups
1992 to present
- Mick Jagger - Vocalist
- Keith Richards - Guitarist
- Ron Wood - Guitarist
- Charlie Watts - Drummer
1975 to 1992
- Mick Jagger - Vocalist
- Keith Richards - Guitarist
- Ron Wood - Guitarist
- Bill Wyman - Bassist
- Charlie Watts - Drummer
1969 to 1974
- Mick Jagger - Vocalist
- Keith Richards - Guitarist
- Mick Taylor - Guitarist
- Bill Wyman - Bassist
- Charlie Watts - Drummer
1963 to 1968
- Mick Jagger - Vocalist
- Keith Richards - Guitarist
- Brian Jones - Guitarist
- Bill Wyman - Bassist
- Charlie Watts - Drummer
- Ian Stewart - Keyboardist - 1963-1985. Although not an official band member, he was a major contributor and is often cited as "the Sixth Stone".
See also
- The Rolling Stones discography
- Best selling music artists - World's top-selling music artists chart.
References
External links
- The Official Rolling Stones Site
- Rolling Stones Concert Schedule
- Rolling Stones on Bandnews
- The Rolling Stones at the SoundtrackINFO project
- Rolling Stones Lyrics Searchable index of Rolling Stones lyrics
- Rolling Stones
- Interview with Mick Jagger & Ron Wood
- Keno's Rolling Stones web site (Unofficial)
- The Unauthorized Rolling Stones
- The Rolling Stones lyrics - Songs organized by album
- StonesDoug's Shidoobeeland - The Web's biggest Rolling Stones messageboard