The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Their first stable line-up was vocalist Mick Jagger, multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, guitarist Keith Richards, drummer Charlie Watts, and bassist Bill Wyman. Though R&B and blues cover songs dominated the Rolling Stones' early material, their repertoire has always included rock and roll. The Rolling Stones' estimated record sales of 240 million makes them one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

During their formative years Brian Jones was the primary leader. After Andrew Loog Oldham became the group's manager in 1963, he encouraged them to write their own songs. Jagger and Richards became the primary creative force behind the band, alienating Jones, who developed a drug addiction that interfered with his ability to meaningfully contribute. He left the band shortly before his death in 1969, having been replaced by guitarist Mick Taylor, who in turn left in 1974 to be replaced by Ronnie Wood. Since Wyman's departure in 1993, the band has continued with a four-piece core, with Darryl Jones playing bass on tour and on most studio recordings. Charlie Watts passed away on August 24, 2021.

Mick Jagger met Keith Richards when they were attending the Dartford Maypole County Primary School as children. They met again as teenagers in 1960, discovering they shared a love of American blues, rock & roll, and R&B. At the time, Jagger was a student at the London School of Economics and was playing with a London band called Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. Within two years, Jagger and Richards had formed the Rolling Stones. During the course of the '60s, the Stones were the only rock & roll band to rival the popularity of the Beatles. In the process, they cultivated an image as the most dangerous band in rock & roll, a status that was confirmed not only by the band's reckless, decadent behaviour, but also by Jagger's lyrical obsessions with sex and violence.

Rooted in blues and early rock and roll, the Rolling Stones started out playing covers and were at the forefront of the British Invasion in 1964, also being identified with the youthful and rebellious counterculture of the 1960s. They then found greater success with their own material as "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", "Get Off of My Cloud" and "Paint It Black" became No. 1 hits in the UK, North America, Australia and Europe. Aftermath (1966) – their first entirely original album – is considered the most important of their formative records. In 1967, they had the double-sided hit "Ruby Tuesday"/"Let's Spend the Night Together" and then experimented with psychedelic rock on Their Satanic Majesties Request. They went back to their roots with such hits as "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1968) and "Honky Tonk Woman" (1969), and albums such as Beggars Banquet (1968), featuring "Sympathy for the Devil", and Let It Bleed (1969), featuring "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Gimme Shelter". Let It Bleed was the first of five straight No. 1 albums in the UK. In 1969, they were first introduced on stage as 'The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World'.

Sticky Fingers (1971), which yielded "Brown Sugar", was the first of eight consecutive No. 1 studio albums in the US for the Rolling Stones. Exile on Main St. (1972), featuring "Tumbling Dice", and Goats Head Soup (1973), yielding the hit ballad "Angie", were also best sellers. They released successful albums until the early 1980s, including their two largest sellers: Some Girls (1978), featuring the disco-tinged "Miss You"; and Tattoo You (1981), featuring the hit rocker "Start Me Up". They then kept a low profile until 1989 when they released Steel Wheels, featuring "Mixed Emotions", which was followed by Voodoo Lounge (1994), a worldwide number one album that yielded the popular "Love Is Strong". Both albums were promoted by large stadium and arena tours as the Stones continue to be a huge concert attraction; by 2007 they had four of the top five highest-grossing concert tours of all time. Their latest album, Blue & Lonesome (2016), became their twelfth UK number-one album. Their recent No Filter Tour ran for two years concluding in August 2019. In total, they have released 30 studio albums, 23 live albums and numerous compilations.

History
Throughout their career, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards 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 & the Blue Boys. Shortly afterward, Richards joined the band. Within a year, they had met Brian Jones, 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 already had a wild life. He ran away to Scandinavia when he was 16 and had already fathered two illegitimate children. He returned to Cheltenham after a few months, where he began playing with the Ramrods. Shortly afterward, he moved to London, where he played in Alexis Korner's group, Blues Inc. Jones quickly decided he wanted to form his own group and advertised for members; among those he recruited was the heavyset blues pianist Ian Stewart.

As he played with his group, Jones also moonlighted under the name Elmo Jones at the Ealing Blues Club. At the pub, he became reacquainted with Blues, Inc., which now featured drummer Charlie Watts, and, on occasion, cameos by Jagger and Richards. Jones became friends with Jagger and Richards, and they soon began playing together with Taylor and Stewart; during this time, Jagger 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 it was rejected by EMI, Taylor left the band to attend the Royal College of Art; he would later form the Pretty Things. Before Taylor's departure, the group named itself the Rolling Stones, borrowing the moniker from a Muddy Waters song.

The Rolling Stones gave their first performance at the Marquee Club in London on July 12, 1962. At the time, the group consisted of Jagger, Richards, Jones, pianist Ian Stewart, drummer Mick Avory, and Dick Taylor, who had briefly returned to the fold. Weeks after the concert, Taylor left again and was replaced by Bill Wyman, formerly of the Cliftons. Avory also left the group -- he would later join the Kinks -- and the Stones hired Tony Chapman, who proved to be unsatisfactory. After a few months of persuasion, the band recruited Charlie Watts, who had quit Blues, Inc. to work at an advertising agency once that group's schedule became too hectic. By 1963, the band's lineup was set, and the Stones began an eight-month residency at the Crawdaddy Club, which proved to substantially increase their fan base. It also attracted the attention of Andrew Loog Oldham, who became the Stones' manager, signing them from underneath the Crawdaddy Club's Giorgio Gomelsky. Although Oldham didn't know much about music, he was gifted at promotion, and he latched upon the idea of fashioning the Stones as the bad-boy opposition to the clean-cut Beatles. At his insistence, the large yet meek Stewart was forced out of the group, since his appearance contrasted with the rest of the bandmembers. Stewart didn't disappear from the Stones, though; he became one of their key roadies and played on their albums and tours until his death in 1985. With Oldham's help, the Rolling Stones signed with Decca Records, and that June, they released their debut single, a cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On." The single became a minor hit, reaching number 21, and the group supported it with appearances on festivals and package tours. At the end of the year, they released a version of Lennon-McCartney's "I Wanna Be Your Man" that soared into the Top 15. Early in 1964, they released a cover of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away," which shot to number three. "Not Fade Away" became their first American hit, reaching number 48 that spring. By that time, the Stones were notorious in their homeland. Considerably rougher and sexier than the Beatles, the Stones were the subject of numerous sensationalised articles in the British press, culminating in a story about the band urinating in public. All of these stories cemented the group as a dangerous, rebellious band in the minds of the public, and had the effect of beginning a manufactured rivalry between them and the Beatles, which helped the group rocket to popularity in the U.S. In the spring of 1964, the Stones released their eponymous debut album, which was followed by "It's All Over Now," their first U.K. number one.

That summer, they toured America to riotous crowds, recording the Five by Five EP at Chess Records in Chicago in the midst of the tour. By the time it was over, they had another number one U.K. single with Howlin' Wolf's "Little Red Rooster." Although the Stones had achieved massive popularity, Oldham decided to push Jagger and Richards into composing their own songs, since they -- and his publishing company -- would receive more money that away. In June of 1964, the group released their first original single, "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)," which became their first American Top 40 hit. Shortly afterward, a version of Irma Thomas' "Time Is on My Side" became their first U.S. Top Ten. It was followed by "The Last Time" in early 1965, a number one U.K. and Top Ten U.S. hit that began a virtually uninterrupted string of Jagger-Richards hit singles. Still, it wasn't until the group released "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" in the summer of 1965 that they were elevated to superstars. Driven by a fuzz-guitar riff designed to replicate the sound of a horn section, "Satisfaction" signalised 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's Lonely. Hearts Club Band, 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 revitalised 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 realised that while it opened a new chapter of the Stones' history, it was also the end of their time with Brian Jones. Throughout the recording of Beggar's Banquet, Jones was on the sidelines due to his deepening drug addiction and his resentment of the dominance of Jagger and Richards. Jones left the band on June 9, 1969, claiming to be suffering from artistic differences between himself and the rest of the band. On July 3, 1969 -- less than a month after his departure -- Jones was found dead in his swimming pool. By the time of his death, the Stones had already replaced Jones with Mick Taylor, a former guitarist for John Mayall's Blues breakers. 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 comprised sessions with Jones and Taylor, yet it continued the direction of Beggar's Banquet, signaling that a new era in the Stones' career had begun, one marked by ragged music and an increasingly wasted sensibility. Following Jagger's filming of Ned Kelly in Australia during the first part of 1969, the group launched its first American tour in three years. Throughout the tour -- the first where they were billed as the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band -- the group broke attendance records, but it was given a sour note when they 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 unorganised and in shambles, and it turned tragic when the Angels killed a young Black man, Meredith Hunter, during the Stones' performance. In the wake of the public outcry, the Stones again retreated from the spotlight and dropped "Sympathy for the Devil," which some critics ignorantly claimed incited the violence, from their set. As the group entered a hiatus, they released the live Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! in the fall of 1970. It was their last album for Decca/London, and they formed Rolling Stones Records, which became a subsidiary of Atlantic Records.

During 1970, Jagger starred in Nicolas Roeg's cult film Performance and married Nicaragua model Bianca Perez Morena de Macias; 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 through their new label. Following its release, the band retreated to France in 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 band squandered that goodwill with the follow-up, Emotional Rescue, a number one record that nevertheless received lukewarm reviews upon its 1980 release. Tattoo You, released the following year, fared better both critically and commercially, as the singles "Start Me Up" and "Waiting on a Friend" helped the album spend nine weeks at number one. The Stones supported Tattoo You with an extensive stadium tour captured in Hal Ashby's movie Let's Spend the Night Together and the 1982 live album Still Life.

Tattoo You proved to be the last time the Stones completely dominated the charts and the stadiums. Although the group continued to sell out concerts in the '80s and '90s, their records didn't sell as well as previous efforts, partially because the albums suffered due to Jagger and Richards' notorious mid-'80s feud. Starting with 1983's Undercover, the duo were conflicted about which way the band should go, with Jagger wanting the Stones to follow contemporary trends and Richards wanting them to stay true to their rock roots. As a result, Undercover was a mean-spirited, unfocused record that received relatively weak sales and mixed reviews. Released in 1986, Dirty Work suffered a worse fate, since Jagger was preoccupied with his fledgling solo career. Once Jagger decided that the Stones would not support Dirty Work with a tour, Richards decided to make his own solo record with 1988's Talk Is Cheap. Appearing a year after Jagger's failed second solo album, Talk Is Cheap received good reviews and went gold, prompting Jagger and Richards to reunite late in 1988.

The following year, the Stones released Steel Wheels, which was received with good reviews, but the record was overshadowed by its supporting tour, which grossed over 140 million dollars and broke many box office records. In 1991, the live album Flashpoint, which was culled from the Steel Wheels shows, was released. Following the release, Bill Wyman left the band; he published a memoir, Stone Alone, within a few years of leaving. The Stones didn't immediately replace Wyman, since they were all working on solo projects; this time, there was none of the animosity surrounding their mid-'80s projects.

The group reconvened in 1994 with bassist Darryl Jones, who had previously played with Miles Davis and Sting, to record and release the Don Was-produced Voodoo Lounge. The album received the band's strongest reviews in years, and its accompanying tour was even more successful than the Steel Wheels tour. On top of being more successful than its predecessor, Voodoo Lounge also won the Stones their first Grammy for Best Rock Album. Upon the completion of the Voodoo Lounge tour, the Stones released the live "unplugged" album Stripped in the fall of 1995. Similarly, after wrapping up their tour in support of 1997's Bridges to Babylon, the group issued yet another live set, No Security, the following year. A high-profile greatest-hits tour in 2002 was launched despite the lack of a studio album to support, and its album document, Live Licks, appeared in 2004. A year later, the group issued A Bigger Bang, their third effort with producer Don Was.

In 2006, Martin Scorsese filmed two of the group's performances at New York City's Beacon Theatre. The resulting Shine a Light, which included guest appearances from Buddy Guy, Jack White, and Christina Aguilera, was released in theatres in 2008. The accompanying soundtrack reached the number two spot on the U.K. charts. Following Shine a Light, the Stones turned their attention toward their legacy. For Keith Richards, this meant delving into writing his autobiography Life -- the memoir was published to acclaim in the fall of 2010 and generated some controversy due to comments Keith made about Mick -- but the Stones in general spent time mining their archives, something they'd previously avoided. In 2010, they released a super-deluxe edition of Exile on Main St. that contained a bonus disc of rarities and outtakes, including a few newly finished songs like "Plundered My Soul." This was followed in 2011 by a super-deluxe edition of Some Girls that also contained unheard songs and outtakes. That same year, the Stones opened up their Rolling Stones Archive, which offered official digital releases of classic live bootlegs like 1973's The Brussels Affair.

All this was a prelude to their 50th anniversary in 2012, which the group celebrated with a hardcover book, a documentary called Crossfire Hurricane, and a new compilation called GRRR! The Stones also played a handful of star-studded concerts at the end of the year and in the first half of 2013, several of which featured guest spots from the long-departed Mick Taylor. These live shows culminated with a headlining spot at Glastonbury and two July 2013 concerts at Hyde Park; highlights from the Hyde Park shows were released that July and, later in the year, there was a home video/CD release of the concert called Sweet Summer Sun: Live in Hyde Park.

Over the next few years, the Stones played concerts regularly -- a highlight was a March 2016 concert in Havana, Cuba -- and slowly worked on an album that was teased in September 2016, the same week their London/Decca works were released as the box set The Rolling Stones in Mono. On December 2, 2016, the Stones released Blue & Lonesome, a collection of Chicago blues covers that was their first studio album in 11 years. The Stones had two major archival projects released in the last quarter of 2017: a 50th anniversary edition of Their Satanic Majesties Request and On Air, the first official release of their '60s BBC recordings. The band's 2018 No Filter tour of Europe spilled over into 2019 when they announced it would include a massive stadium tour of the U.S. The tour was delayed due to Jagger's need for emergency heart surgery -- he recovered successfully, and the band returned to the road -- but the release of the new compilation Honk was undisturbed. Concentrating on music made since 1971, Honk appeared in April 2019. Later that year came the arrival of the live LP/concert film Bridges to Bremen, which captured the group performing in the German city on September 2, 1998 in support of the Bridges to Babylon album. A 50th Anniversary edition of Let It Bleed also appeared in 2019. In April 2020, the Stones released the single "Living in a Ghost Town." It was their first new material since 2012, taken from sessions for a studio album that the band had been working toward since 2015. Later that year the band released a deluxe reissue of Goats Head Soup. Watts passed away on August 24, 2021.

Current members

 * Mick Jagger – lead and backing vocals, harmonica, rhythm guitar, percussion, keyboards, bass guitar (1962–present)
 * Keith Richards – rhythm and lead guitars, bass guitar, keyboards, percussion, backing and lead vocals (1962–present)
 * Ronnie Wood – lead and rhythm guitars, bass guitar, backing vocals, pedal steel guitar (1975–present)

Former members

 * Brian Jones – rhythm and lead guitar, harmonica, keyboards, sitar, various brass and wind instruments, percussion, backing vocals (1962–1969; died 1969)
 * Ian Stewart – piano, organ, percussion (1962–1963; touring and session member 1963–1985; his death)
 * Dick Taylor – bass guitar (1962)
 * Colin Golding – bass guitar (1962)
 * Ricky Fenson – bass guitar (1962–1963)
 * Carlo Little – drums (1962; died 2005)
 * Tony Chapman – drums (1962–1963)
 * Bill Wyman – bass guitar, keyboards, piano, backing and occasional lead vocals (1962–1993; guest 2011, 2012, 2023)
 * Charlie Watts – drums, percussion, occasional backing vocals (1963–2021; his death)
 * Mick Taylor – lead and slide guitars, bass guitar, synthesizers, congas, backing vocals (1969–1974; guest 1981, 2012–2014)

Touring musicians

 * Chuck Leavell – keyboards, backing vocals (1982–present)
 * Bernard Fowler – backing vocals, percussion (1989–present)
 * Matt Clifford – keyboards, French horn, musical integrator (1989–1990, 2012–present)
 * Darryl Jones – bass guitar (1994–present)
 * Tim Ries – saxophone, keyboards (1999–present)
 * Karl Denson – saxophone (2014–present)
 * Sasha Allen – backing vocals, co-lead vocals on "Gimme Shelter" (2016–present)
 * Steve Jordan – drums (2021–present)

Former touring musicians

 * Bobby Keys – saxophone (1970–1973; 1981–2014; died 2014)
 * Jim Price – trumpet, trombone (1970–1973)
 * Nicky Hopkins – piano (1971–1973; died 1994)
 * Billy Preston – keyboards, vocals (1973–1977; died 2006)
 * Ollie E. Brown – percussion (1975–1976)
 * Ian McLagan – keyboards, backing vocals (1978–1981; died 2014)
 * Ernie Watts – saxophone (1981)
 * Lisa Fischer – backing vocals, co-lead vocals on "Gimme Shelter" (1989–2015)
 * Blondie Chaplin – additional guitar, percussion, backing vocals (1997–2007)

Discography

 * 1) The Rolling Stones / England's Newest Hit Makers (1964)
 * 2) 12 X 5 (1964)
 * 3) The Rolling Stones No. 2 / The Rolling Stones, Now! (1965)
 * 4) Out of Our Heads (1965)
 * 5) December's Children (And Everybody's) (1965)
 * 6) Aftermath (1966)
 * 7) Between the Buttons (1967)
 * 8) Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)
 * 9) Beggars Banquet (1968)
 * 10) Let It Bleed (1969)
 * 11) Sticky Fingers (1971)
 * 12) Exile on Main St. (1972)
 * 13) Goats Head Soup (1973)
 * 14) It's Only Rock 'n Roll (1974)
 * 15) Black and Blue (1976)
 * 16) Some Girls (1978)
 * 17) Emotional Rescue (1980)
 * 18) Tattoo You (1981)
 * 19) Undercover (1983)
 * 20) Dirty Work (1986)
 * 21) Steel Wheels (1989)
 * 22) Voodoo Lounge (1994)
 * 23) Bridges to Babylon (1997)
 * 24) A Bigger Bang (2005)
 * 25) Blue & Lonesome (2016)
 * 26) Hackney Diamonds (2023)