The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones formed in London in 1962, coalescing around the shared obsession of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards with American blues and R&B, particularly the work of Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, and Jimmy Reed. The band's original lineup included Brian Jones, who gave the group its early direction and its name, as well as drummer Charlie Watts and bassist Bill Wyman.^[1]

Where the Beatles represented the sunnier face of the British Invasion, the Stones inhabited a darker, more confrontational space. Their early recordings captured a raw, unpolished blues energy that set them apart from their contemporaries and made them a target of both moral panic and devoted fandom. By the mid-1960s they had become one of the most commercially successful and critically significant bands in the world.

The late 1960s brought upheaval. Brian Jones, the band's founding force, descended into severe drug addiction and became impossible to work with in the studio. He was fired in June 1969 and was found dead in his swimming pool on July 3, 1969, aged 27.^[3] Guitarist Mick Taylor joined as his replacement and appeared on several key recordings before eventually departing in 1974.

The late 1960s also marked a period of deliberate intellectual expansion for Jagger. His engagement with literature, particularly Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita (introduced by his partner Marianne Faithfull) and the work of Charles Baudelaire, fed directly into the songwriting on Beggars Banquet.^[6] Jagger also participated in a 25,000-person anti-Vietnam War march at London's Grosvenor Square in March 1968, an experience that contributed directly to "Street Fighting Man." The band's music of this period drew not just on blues and rock roots but on a wide range of literary, historical, and political sources.^[4]

The period from 1968 to 1972 -- spanning the albums Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main St. -- is widely considered one of the most remarkable creative runs in rock history. The Jagger-Richards songwriting partnership, the band's blues-rooted but constantly evolving musical approach, and the creative contributions of producer Jimmy Miller and engineer Glyn Johns resulted in recordings that defined an era.^[2]

December 1969 brought the Altamont Free Festival, a hastily organized concert at which a concertgoer was killed by a Hells Angel during the Stones' headline set. The tragedy was captured on film by the Maysles Brothers and released as a documentary titled Gimme Shelter in 1970, cementing Altamont as a definitive symbol of the end of 1960s idealism.^[1]

The band continued recording and touring through subsequent decades, with personnel changes including the departure of Bill Wyman in 1993 and the death of drummer Charlie Watts in 2021. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have remained at the core of the band throughout. The Rolling Stones are among the highest-grossing touring acts in history and continue to perform and record into the 2020s.

The mid-1960s brought a pivotal shift in the band's creative identity. With Aftermath (1966), the first Stones album composed entirely of original Jagger-Richards compositions, the group demonstrated it could match The Beatles not just in commercial appeal but in artistic ambition. Brian Jones's multi-instrumental contributions on the album, including sitar on "Paint It, Black," marimba on "Under My Thumb," and dulcimer on "Lady Jane," gave the record a sonic range that went far beyond standard rock arrangements.^[2] "Paint It, Black," released as a single in May 1966, became the first US and UK number one single to feature a sitar, introducing raga rock to mainstream audiences.^[3]