The Rolling Stones
| The Rolling Stones | |
|---|---|
| The Rolling Stones, 2006. The Rolling Stones, 2006.
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| Background information | |
| Origin | London, England |
| Genre(s) | Rock and roll, blues, country, R&B, psychedelic rock, reggae |
| Years active | 1962 – Present |
| Label(s) | Decca Rolling Stones Records Virgin Records |
| Website | RollingStones.com |
| Members | |
| Mick Jagger Keith Richards Charlie Watts Ron Wood | |
| Former members | |
| Bill Wyman Brian Jones† Mick Taylor Ian Stewart† | |
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band whose blues and rhythm and blues-infused music propelled them to the heights of popularity during the "British Invasion" in the early 1960s. Originally formed in London in 1962 by Brian Jones the band was later led by the songwriting partnership of singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards. Drummer Charlie Watts, and bassist Bill Wyman completed the early lineup. Jones died in 1969 shortly after being fired from the band, and a number of personnel changes have followed over the band's long career. Known as rock-and-roll's bad boys in distinction from the Beatles' relatively unthreatening demeanor, their image unkempt and surly youth is one that many musicians still emulate.
Named after a line from a blues song by Muddy Waters, the Rolling Stones have released more than 50 albums of original work and compilations, and have had 32 UK and US top-ten singles. They have sold more than 200 million albums worldwide. In 1971, Sticky Fingers began a string of eight consecutive studio albums that reached number one in the United States. In 1989, "The Stones" were inducted into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2004 they were ranked number four in Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Band history
Founding: 1960-1962
In 1951, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were classmates at Wentworth County Junior High School In Engalnd. They met again in 1960 while Richards was attending Sidcup Art College. With mutual friend Dick Taylor (later of Pretty Things), they formed the band Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. Meanwhile, Stones founders Brian Jones and pianist Ian Stewart were active in the London R&B scene fostered by Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner. Jagger and Richards met Jones when Jones was playing slide guitar sitting in with Korner's Blues Inc. Korner had also periodically hired Jagger and future Stones drummer Charlie Watts.
The band's first rehearsal was organized by Jones and included Stewart, Jagger, and Richards, who came along at Jagger's invitation. In June 1962, the lineup was: Jagger, Richards, Stewart, Jones, Taylor, and drummer Tony Chapman. Taylor then left the group and Jones renamed the band The Rollin' Stones, after the song "Rollin' Stone" by Muddy Waters.
1962-1964
On July 12, 1962, the group played its first formal "gig" at the Marquee club in central London. The line-up was Jagger, Richards, Jones, Stewart on piano, Taylor on bass, and Tony Chapman on drums. Jones intended for the band to play primarily Chicago blues, but Jagger and Richards brought the rock and roll of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley to the band. Bassist Bill Wyman joined in December and drummer Charlie Watts the following January to form the Stones' long standing rhythm section.
Their first EP, The Rolling Stones and album (titled England's Newest Hit Makers in the US), were composed primarily of covers drawn from the band's live repertoire. A notable hit from the album was the band's first top-40 single written by Jagger and Richards, "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)," backed by the Willie Dixon-penned "I Just Want to Make Love to You," which had earlier been an R & B hit for Muddy Waters. After signing with Decca Reocrds, the Stones began touring the UK and Europe. On their first tour of England, they were billed with American stars including Ike and Tina Turner, Bo Diddley, The Ronettes, The Everly Brothers, and Little Richard. The first tour also cemented the Stones' shift from a rhythm-and-blues band to more of a pop band, resulting in a reduction in the number of blues songs the band played live.
The Rolling Stones' first UK chart-topper was the cover of "It's All Over Now" in June 1964. The UK album, The Rolling Stones No. 2 (The Rolling Stones, Now! in the United States), released in 1965, reached number one in the UK and number five in the US. It contained mainly cover tunes but was augmented by songs composed by Jagger and Richards.
During their first American tour in 1964, the Stones began years of recording at American Chess Studios in Chicago and RCA Studios in Los Angeles. The Stones' version of “Little Red Rooster,” another Willie Dixon composition that had earlier been released by Howlin' Wolf, went to number one in the UK, but was banned in the U.S. because of its sexually suggestive lyrics about sexual impotency.
Oldham crafted the band's image of long-haired tearaways "into the opposite of what the Beatles [were] doing." The Stones also appeared on American variety shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan reacted to the pandemonium the Stones caused and promised to never book them again, though he later did book them repeatedly . They also played on the The Hollywood Palace where host Dean Martin made fun of their longish hair, which was considered provocative. In October, the band appeared immediately after James Brown in the filmed theatrical release of The T.A.M.I. Show, which showcased American acts with British Invasion artists.
1965-1969
The first Jagger/Richards composition at number one in the UK was "The Last Time" in early 1965. The U.S. version of that year's Out of Our Heads LP contained seven original songs, including "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," which became the band's first number one in the U.S. where it remained for four weeks in July and established the Stones as a worldwide premier act. Shortly thereafter, they released their second number one, "Get Off of My Cloud." Out of Our Heads and the U.S.-only released December's Children were also the last Stones albums to predominantly feature covers. The release Aftermath (UK number one ; U.S. two) in the late spring of 1966 was the first Stones album to be composed only of Jagger/Richards songs. The American version of the LP included the chart-topping, Middle Eastern-influenced "Paint It, Black," the ballad "Lady Jane," and the almost 12-minute long "Going Home," the first extended jam on a top-selling rock-and-roll album; later Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and other sixties and seventies bands would release long jams routinely.
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Amid this, January saw the release of Between the Buttons (UK number three;U.S. two). The U.S. version included the double A-side singles of "Let's Spend the Night Together" and "Ruby Tuesday." The Stones performed the former on The Ed Sullivan Show, where Jagger was forced to mumble the song's lyrics and change the chorus to "Let's Spend Some Time Together" due to the threat of censorship. The album was Oldham's last venture as the Stones' producer (and, effectively, manager as well.)
December 1967 saw the release of Their Satanic Majesties Request (UK number three; U.S. two), released shortly after the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Jagger was a strong advocate of the psychedelic sound of the album, but rarely have any songs from the record been played live. Though the band has released psychedelic tracks, Satanic Majesties is an anomaly. It also marked the first time the Stones produced their own album.
By early 1968, the Stones had acquired Allen Klein as their new manager. The band spent the first few months of the year compiling material for their next album. Those sessions resulted in the song "Jumpin' Jack Flash," released as a single in May. The song, and later that year the resulting album, Beggars Banquet (UK number three; U.S. five), marked the band's return to its blues roots with new producer Jimmy Miller. Featuring the album's lead single, "Street Fighting Man," and the opening track "Sympathy for the Devil," Beggars Banquet is another eclectic mix of country and blues-inspired tunes and was hailed as an achievement for the Stones at the time of its release. During this time, Richards started using open tunings, most prominently a 5-string open-G tuning (with the lower 6th string removed), as heard on the 1969 single, "Honky Tonk Women," "Brown Sugar" (Sticky Fingers, 1971), "Tumbling Dice," "Happy," (Exile on Main St., 1972), and "Start Me Up" (Tattoo You, 1981). Open tunings lead to the Stones' (and Richards') trademark guitar sound.
1969-1974
Despite the death of Brian Jones two days previously, a scheduled concert in London's Hyde Park went ahead in front of an estimated 250,000 fans. The band had just released "Honky Tonk Women" on July 3, coinciding with the death. The band's performance was captured by a Granada Television production team, later to be shown on British television as Stones in the Park. Jagger read an excerpt from Percy Bysshe Shelley's elegy Adonais and released thousands of butterflies in memory of Jones.
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The release of Let It Bleed (UK number one ; U.S. three) came in December. Their last album of the 1960s, Let It Bleed featured "Gimme Shelter," "You Can't Always Get What You Want," "Midnight Rambler," as well as a cover of Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain." Most of these songs became part of the live show for the resulting tour of America, their first in three years. Making their way from New York to California, the tour culminated with the band's staging of the Altamont Free Concert, at the disused Altamont Speedway, east of San Francisco. The concert was a disaster, due in part to the hiring of Hell's Angels to undertake security. Meredith Hunter, a young man, was stabbed and beaten to death by the Angels. The tour and "Altamont" were documented in Albert and David Maysles' film Gimme Shelter. As a response to the growing popularity of bootleg recordings, the live album Get Yer Ya-Yas Out! (UK number one; U.S. number six) was released in 1970.
By 1969, the band's 1963 contract with Decca Records ended, and the Stones formed their own record company, Rolling Stones Records. Sticky Fingers (UK number one; U.S. number one), released in March 1971, was the band's first album on their own label. The album contains one of their best known hits, two of which, "Brown Sugar" and the country-influenced "Wild Horses," were recorded at Alabama's Muscle Shoals Sound Studio during the 1969 American tour. Sticky Fingers continued the band's immersion into heavily blues-influenced compositions.
Following the release of Sticky Fingers, the Stones left England after allegations by the UK Inland Revenue service of unpaid income tax. The band moved to the South of France where Richards rented a chateau, Villa Nellcôte, and sublet rooms to band members and entourage. Using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, they continued recording sessions that stretched as far back as 1969. The subsequent recordings were finished at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles by the band. The resulting double album, Exile on Main St. (UK number one; U.S. number one), was released in May 1972.
In November 1972, the band began sessions in Kingston, Jamaica for their follow-up to Exile, Goats Head Soup (UK number one; U.S. number one) (1973). The album spawned the worldwide hit "Angie," but proved the first in a string of commercially successful, but tepidly received studio albums. The sessions for Goats Head Soup led to a number of outtakes, most notably an early version of the popular ballad "Waiting on a Friend," not released until Tattoo You eight years later.
The band went to Musicland studios in Munich to record their next album, 1974's It's Only Rock 'n Roll (UK number two; U.S. number one), but Jimmy Miller, who had drug abuse issues, was no longer producer. Instead, Jagger and Richards assumed production duties and were credited as "the Glimmer Twins." Both the album and the single of the same name were hits, even without an immediate tour to promote them.
1974-1982
The Stones used the recording sessions in Munich to audition replacements for Taylor. When Ron Wood walked in and jammed with the band, Richards and everyone else knew he was the one. Wood had already recorded and played live with Richards and already contributed to the recording and writing of It's Only Rock 'n Roll. The 1976 album, Black and Blue (UK number two; U.S. number one), featured all their contributions. Though he initially declined Jaggers offer to become a full member of the Stones because of his ties to the The Faces, Wood committed to the Stones in 1975 for their upcoming Tour of the Americas. At the insistence of Wyman and Watts, Wood was eventually made a full member in the 1980s. The 1975 Tour of the Americas featured stage props including a giant phallus and a rope on which Jagger swung out over the audience.
Although The Rolling Stones remained popular through the first half of the 1970s, music critics had grown increasingly dismissive of the band's output, and record sales failed to meet expectations. Jagger had booked a live recording session at the El Mocambo club in Toronto to balance a long-overdue live album, 1977's Love You Live (UK number three; U.S. number five), the first Stones' live album since 1970s Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!. 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 to Bianca ended in 1977. By this time, punk rock had become influential, and the Stones were criticized as decadent, aging millionaires, and their music considered by many to be stagnant or irrelevant.
In 1978, the band released Some Girls (UK number two; U.S. number one), which included the hit single "Miss You," the country ballad "Far Away Eyes," "Beast of Burden," and "Shattered." In part a response to punk, many songs were fast, basic, guitar-driven rock and roll. The album's success re-established the Stones' immense popularity among young people. After the US Tour 1978, the group did not tour Europe the following year, breaking the routine of touring Europe every three years that the band had followed since 1967.
Entering the 1980s on a renewed commercial high due to the success of Some Girls, the band released its next album Emotional Rescue (UK number two; U.S. number one) in mid-1980. The recording of the album was reportedly plagued by turmoil, with Jagger and Richards' relationship reaching a new low.
In early 1981, the group reconvened and decided to tour the U.S. that year, leaving little time to write and record a new album, as well as rehearse for the tour. That year's resulting album, Tattoo You (UK number two; U.S. number one) featured a number of outtakes, including lead single "Start Me Up." Two songs ("Waiting on a Friend" and "Tops") featured Mick Taylor's guitar playing, while jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins played on "Slave" and dubbed a part on "Waiting on a Friend." The Stones' American Tour 1981 was their biggest, longest, and most colorful production to date.
In mid 1982, to commemorate their twentieth anniversary, the Stones took their American stage show to Europe. European Tour 1982 was their first European tour in six years. The tour was essentially a carbon copy of the 1981 American tour. For the tour, the band was joined by former Allman Brothers Band piano player Chuck Leavell, who continues to play and record with the Stones. By the end of the year, the band had signed a new four-album, 28-million-dollar recording deal with a new label, CBS Records.
1983-1991
was designed by John Pasche.[1]
Before leaving Atlantic, the Stones released Undercover (UK number three; U.S. number four) in late 1983. Despite good reviews, the record sold below expectations and there was no tour to support it. Subsequently, the Stones new marketer/distributor CBS Records took over distributing the Stone's Atlantic catalogue.
By 1985, Jagger was spending more time on solo recordings and much of the material on 1986's Dirty Work (UK number four; U.S. number four four) was by Keith Richards, with more contributions by Ron Wood than on previous Stones albums. Reviews were mixed, although many fans at this time feel it was the nadir of the group. The Stones were awarded a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement. With the Stones inactive due to Jagger's solo career and feeling he was backed into a corner, Richards released his first solo album in 1988, Talk Is Cheap (UK number 37; U.S. number 24), which fans and critics received well, going Gold in U.S. Included on the Talk Is Cheap album was the song "You Don't Move Me," Richards' stab at his estranged songwriting partner.
In early 1989, The Rolling Stones, including Mick Taylor, Ronnie Wood, and Ian Stewart (posthumously), were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Jagger and Richards appeared to have developed a new understanding and they recorded an album as The Rolling Stones, which became Steel Wheels (UK number two; U.S. number three).
The subsequent U.S. Steel Wheels Tour saw the Stones touring for the first time in seven years (since Europe 1982), and it was their biggest stage production to date. The opening acts were Living Colour and Guns N' Roses. By the time the tour reached Europe in 1990, the name had been changed to the Urban Jungle Tour. This tour was the last for Bill Wyman, who left the band, although it was not made official until 1993. He then published Stone Alone, an autobiography, based on memoirs he had been writing since the early days in London. A few years later, he formed Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings and began recording and touring again.
1992-1999
After the successes of Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle tours, the band took a break. Charlie Watts released two jazz albums; Ronnie Wood made his fifth solo album, the first in 11 years, called Slide On This; Keith Richards released his second solo album in late 1992, Main Offender (UK number 45; U.S. number 99) and did a small tour including big concerts in Spain and Argentina. Mick Jagger got good reviews and sales with his third solo album Wandering Spirit (UK number 12; U.S. number 11). The album sold more than two million copies worldwide, going Gold in U.S.
After Wyman's departure, the Stones' new distributor/record label, Virgin Records, remastered and repackaged the band's back catalogue from Sticky Fingers to Steel Wheels without the three live albums, and issued another hits compilation in 1993 entitled Jump Back (UK number 16; U.S. number 30). By 1993, the Stones set upon their next studio album. Darryl Jones, former sideman of Miles Davis, and Sting, was chosen by Charlie Watts as Wyman's replacement for 1994's Voodoo Lounge (UK number one; U.S. number two). The album met strong reviews and sales, going double platinum in the U.S. Reviewers took note of the album's "traditionalist" sounds, which were credited to the Stones' new producer Don Was. It would go on to win the 1995 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.
The accompanying Voodoo Lounge Tour began in 1994 and lasted into 1995. Various recorded shows and rehearsals (mostly acoustic) made up Stripped (UK number nine; U.S. number nine), which featured a cover of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," as well as infrequently played songs like "Shine a Light," "Sweet Virginia," and "The Spider and the Fly."
The Rolling Stones ended the 1990s with the album Bridges to Babylon (UK number six; U.S. number three), released in 1997 to mixed reviews. Despite the lack of a hit single from the album, sales were reasonably equivalent to those of previous records, and the subsequent international tour Bridges to Babylon Tour that crossed Europe, North America, and other destinations proved the band to be a strong live attraction. Once again, a live album was culled from the tour, No Security (UK number 67; U.S. number 34). In 1999, the Stones staged the No Security Tour in the U.S and continued and finished the Babylon tour in Europe. The No Security Tour was a stripped down affair without all the pyrotechnics and mammoth stages.
2000-present
In late 2001, Jagger released his fourth solo album Goddess in the Doorway (UK number 44; U.S. number 39), which met mixed reviews. Jagger and Richards took part in "The Concert for New York City," performing "Salt of the Earth" and "Miss You" with a backing band.
In 2002, the band announced the Licks Tour and released Forty Licks (UK number two; U.S. number two), a greatest hits album 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" and the 2002-2003 Licks Tour gave people that chance. On July 30, 2003, the band headlined the Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto concert in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to help the city—which they had frequently used for rehearsals—recover from the 2003 SARS epidemic. The concert was attended by an estimated 490,000 people.
On November 9, 2003, the band played its first concert in Hong Kong as part of the Harbor Fest celebration, also in support of the SARS-affected economy. In November 2003, the band exclusively licensed the right to sell their new 4-DVD boxed set, Four Flicks, recorded on the band's most recent world tour, to the U.S. Best Buy chain of stores. In response, some Canadian and U.S. music-retail chains (including HMV Canada and Circuit City) pulled Rolling Stones CDs and related merchandise from their shelves and replaced them with signs explaining the situation.
On July 26, 2005, Jagger's birthday, the band announced the name of their new album, A Bigger Bang (UK number two; U.S. number three), which was released on September 6 to strong reviews. The album included the most controversial song from the Stones in years, "Sweet Neo Con", a criticism of American Neoconservatism from Jagger.
The subsequent A Bigger Bang Tour began in August 2005, and visited North America, South America, and East Asia. In February 2006, the group played the half-time show of Super Bowl XL in Detroit, Michigan. By the end of 2005, the Bigger Bang tour set a record of $162 million in gross receipts, breaking the North American mark also set by the Stones in 1994. Later that month, the band played to a claimed 1.5 million on the Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro in a free concert. After performances in New Zealand, Keith Richards went to hospital on May 2006 for brain surgery after a dubious "fall from a coconut tree" on Fiji, causing a six-week postponement of the European leg of the tour. The following month, it was reported that Ron Wood was entering rehabilitation for alcohol abuse.
The Stones returned to North America for concerts in September 2006, and returned to Europe on June 5, 2007. In late October 2006, filmmaker Martin Scorsese filmed the Stones at New York City's Beacon Theater, featuring an audience that included several world leaders, for release in 2008 titled Shine a Light.
On March 24, 2007, the band announced a tour of Europe called the "Bigger Bang 2007" tour, which became the highest-grossing tour of all time, earning $437 million and a place in the latest edition of Guinness World Records. The North American leg brought in the third-highest receipts ever ($138.5 million), trailing their own 2005 tour ($162 million) and the U2 tour of that same year ($138.9 million). The Stones show in Horsens, Denmark, drew 85,000 people, the largest audience at any show on the scheduled part of the tour.
On June 10, 2007, the band performed their first gig at a festival in 30 years at the Isle of Wight Festival, to a crowd of 50,000.
June 12, 2007 saw the release of the Stones' second four-disc, seven-hour DVD set entitled The Biggest Bang, featuring the band's shows in Austin, Rio de Janeiro, Saitama, Japan, Shanghai, and Buenos Aires, as well as extras. As with their first DVD set, the collection was to be sold exclusively through Best Buy.
Jagger released a compilation of his solo work called The Very Best Of Mick Jagger including new songs on October 2, 2007.
Legacy
The Rolling Stones are extremely notable in modern popular music for assimilating various musical genres into their recording and performance; ultimately making the styles their very own. The band's career is marked by a continual reference and reliance on musical styles like American blues, country, folk, reggae, dance; world music exemplified by the Master Musicians of Jajouka; as well as traditional English styles that use stringed instrumentation like harps. The band cut their musical teeth by covering early rock and roll and blues songs, and have never stopped playing live or recording cover songs.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Booth, Stanley Booth. The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2000. ISBN 1-55652-400-5
- Booth, Stanley. Dance With the Devil: The Rolling Stones and Their Times. New York: Random House, 1984. ISBN 0-394-53488-3
- Booth, Stanley. Keith: Standing In the Shadows. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995. ISBN 0-312-11841-4
- Carr, Roy. The Rolling Stones: An Illustrated Record. New York: Harmony Books, 1976. ISBN 0-517-52641-7
- Greenfield, Robert: S.T.P.: A Journey Through America With The Rolling Stones. De Capo Press, 2002. Cambridge, Mass.: ISBN 0-306-81199-5
External links
- Official website
- The Rolling Stones discography at MusicBrainz
- The Rolling Stones at Rolling Stone
- The Rolling Stones songs in the charts
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