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 killed during
the Stones' show. But
the Stones never stopped going. For the next 30 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
Taylor and
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 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 the group's schedule became too hectic. By 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 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 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" 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 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. 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" 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 --
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 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 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 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 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. 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
Flashpoint, which was culled from the
Steel Wheels shows, was released. Following the release of
Flashpoint,
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 theaters 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; it generated some controversy due to comments
Keith made about
Mick -- but
the Stones in general spent time mining their archives, something they 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 new 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.
Guy didn't enjoy immediate success in Chicago, and struggled to find gigs until his fiery guitar work and flashy stage style (which included hopping on top of bars and strutting up and down their length while soloing, thanks to a 100-foot long guitar cable) made him a regular winner in talent night contests at Windy City clubs. Guy struck up friendships with some of the city's best blues artists, including Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, Freddie King, and Magic Sam, and landed a steady gig at the 708 Club, where he became known as a talent to watch. In 1958, Magic Sam arranged for Guy to meet Harold Burrage, the owner of local blues label Cobra Records, and Guy was soon signed to Cobra's sister label Artistic Records. Willie Dixon produced Guy's debut single, "Sit and Cry (The Blues)," as well as the follow-up, "This Is the End," but in 1959, Cobra and Artistic abruptly closed up shop, and like labelmate Otis Rush, Guy found a new record deal at Chess. Guy's first single for Chess, 1960's "First Time I Met the Blues," was an artistic triumph and a modest commercial success that became one of his signature tunes, but it was also the first chapter in what would prove to be a complicated creative relationship between Guy and label co-founder Leonard Chess, who recognized his talent but didn't appreciate the louder and more expressive aspects of his guitar style. While Guy enjoyed minor successes with outstanding Chess singles such as "Stone Crazy" and "When My Left Eye Jumps," much of his work for the label was as a sideman, lending his talents to sessions for Muddy Waters, Koko Taylor, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and many others. And one of Guy's definitive recordings of the '60s wasn't even issued by Chess; Guy had been performing occasionally with blues harpist Junior Wells, and Guy and his band backed up Wells on the 1965 Delmark release Hoodoo Man Blues, a masterful exercise in the Chicago blues style, with Guy credited as "Friendly Chap" on initial pressings in deference to his contract with Chess.
Chess didn't issue an album on Guy until the 1967 release of I Left My Blues in San Francisco, and when his contract with the label ran out, he promptly signed with Vanguard, who put out A Man and the Blues in 1968. As a growing number of rock fans were discovering the blues, Guy was finding his stock rising with both traditional blues enthusiasts and younger white audiences, and his recordings for Vanguard gave him more room for the tougher and more aggressive sound that was the trademark of his live shows. (It didn't hurt that Jimi Hendrix acknowledged Guy as an influence and praised his live show in interviews.) At the same time, Guy hadn't forsaken the more measured approach he used with Junior Wells; Buddy and Wells cut an album that also featured Junior Mance on piano for Blue Thumb called Buddy and the Juniors, and in 1972, Eric Clapton partnered with Ahmet Ertegun and Tom Dowd to produce the album Buddy Guy and Junior Wells Play the Blues. In 1974, Guy and Wells played the Montreux Jazz Festival, with Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones sitting in on bass; the show was later released as a live album, Drinkin' TNT and Smokin' Dynamite, with Wyman credited as producer.
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By the end of the '70s, Guy was without an American record deal, and his career took a hit as a result; while he recorded some material for specialist labels in Europe and Japan, and Alligator issued two collections in 1981, Alone and Acoustic and Stone Crazy, for the most part Guy supported himself in the '80s through extensive touring and live work, often appearing in Europe, where he seemed better respected than in the United States. Despite this, he continued to plug away at the American market, buoyed by interest from guitar buffs who had heard major stars sing his praises; in 1985, Eric Clapton told a reporter for Musician magazine, "Buddy Guy is by far and without a doubt the best guitar player alive...he really changed the course of rock & roll blues," while Vaughan declared, "Without Buddy Guy, there would be no Stevie Ray Vaughan." In 1989, Guy opened his own nightclub in Chicago, Buddy Guy's Legends, where he frequently performed and played host to other top blues acts, and in 1991, after a well-received appearance with Clapton at London's Royal Albert Hall (documented in part on the album 24 Nights), he finally scored an international record deal with the Silvertone label, distributed by BMG. Guy's first album for Silvertone, Damn Right, I've Got the Blues, featured guest appearances by Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Mark Knopfler, and featured fresh versions of several fan favorites as well as a handful of new tunes; it was the Buddy Guy album that finally clicked with record buyers, and became a genuine hit, earning Guy a gold album, as well as a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Guy wasted no time cutting follow-ups, releasing Feels Like Rain in 1993 and Slippin' In in 1994, both of which racked up solid sales figures and won Guy further Grammy Awards.
In 1993, Guy reunited with Junior Wells on the stage of his Legends club; it would prove to be one of Wells' last live performances, and the show was released in 1998, several months after Wells' passing, on the album Last Time Around: Live at Legends. While most of Guy's work in the late '90s and into the new millennium was the sort of storming Chicago blues that was the basis of his reputation, he also demonstrated he was capable of exploring other avenues, channeling the hypnotic Deep Southern blues of Junior Kimbrough on 2001's Sweet Tea and covering a set of traditional blues classics on acoustic guitar for 2003's Blues Singer. In 2004, Guy won the W.C. Handy Award from the American Blues Foundation for the 23rd time, more than any other artist, while he took home his sixth Grammy Award in 2010 for the album Living Proof. Guy also received the National Medal of the Arts in 2003, and was awarded with Kennedy Center Honors in 2012. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, with both Eric Clapton and B.B. King presenting him with his award, and in 2012 he performed a special concert at the White House, where he persuaded President Barack Obama to join him at the vocal mike for a few choruses of "Sweet Home Chicago." Guy continued his late-career revival with the 2012 memoir When I Left Home: My Story and the summer 2013 release of the ambitious, guest star-laden double album Rhythm & Blues.
