Rolling Stones,
English rock music group
that rose to prominence in the mid-1960s and continues to exert great
influence. Members have included singer Mick Jagger (Michael
Phillip Jagger),
1943–;
guitarists Brian Jones (Lewis Brian Hopkin-Jones),
1944–69, Keith Richards or Richard
1943–, and Ron Wood (Ronald David Wood), 1941–;
bassist Bill Wyman, 1941–, b. William George Perks, who
left the band in 1993; and drummer Charlie Watts (Charles
Robert Watts), 1941–. The group was originally formed in 1962 by
guitarist Brian Jones, who was influenced by the popularity of American
blues music in England along with early rock and roll. In 1963, they hired
Andrew Loog Oldham as their manager, who promoted them as the "bad boys" of
the British Invasion, versus the squeaky clean image of the Beatles. Oldham inspired them to begin
recording their own songs, mostly by Jagger and Richards, including their
initial hits "Satisfaction" (1965), "Paint It Black (1966)," and "Let's
Spend the Night Together"(1967), all number 1 hits in the UK and US. Their
1968 album, Beggar's Banquet, featured a wider variety of
songs including the political commentary of "Street Fighting Man" and the
controversial "Sympathy for the Devil." During this period, Brian Jones was
increasingly sidelined by drugs, and was fired from the band and replaced by
guitarist Mick Taylor in 1969, who remained with them through 1974; in June
1969, Jones drowned in his own swimming pool. The Stones' next album,
Let It Bleed, featured the hit "Gimme Shelter" (1969);
it was followed by their appearance at the infamous Altamont Speedway
outside of San Francisco, where the Hell's Angels notoriously beat and
murdered members of the crowd, documented in the documentary film
Gimme Shelter (1970).
In 1971, the group formed their own record label, releasing the album
Sticky Fingers, featuring the #1 hit, "Brown Sugar." To
avoid the high rate of taxes in Britain, the band moved to the South of
France where they recorded Exile on Main Street (1972), a
#1 album. However, Richards was increasingly suffering from heroin
addiction. Other early '70s hits included "Angie" (1973) and "It's Only Rock
and Roll" (1974). Guitarist Ronnie Woods, formerly with the Faces, was hired
in 1975 to replace Taylor. The band enjoyed a second period of commercial
success beginning with the album Some Girls, which featured
the disco-flavored “Miss You” (1978), followed by
“Emotional Rescue” (1980) from their next album. By 1983,
however, Jagger and Richards were openly feuding, and the band teetered on
the edge of breaking up, with both releasing solo albums; they reconciled by
1991, with the release of the album Steel Wheels. Wyman
left the group in 1993 and was replaced by bassist Darryl Jones (who has
never been made a full member of the band). Since then, the band has
extensively toured on a regular basis and issued a variety of albums from
new material to an album of blues covers. Their most recent release
“Living in A Ghost Town” was issued in 2020, which was
completed with the band working remotely during the time of COVID. The
band's original lineup was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
1989.
See memoirs by B. Wyman (1990) and K. Richards (2010, with J. Fox); S. Booth,
The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones (2000), P.
Norman, The Stones (upd. ed. 2002), B. Wyman,
Rolling with the Stones (2002) and From the
Inside (2020), R. Greenfield, Exile on Main Street
(2008), T. Sanchez, Up and Down with the Rolling
Stones (2011), S. Egan, Keith Richards on Keith
Richards (2013), P. Trynka, Brian Jones: The Making of
the Rolling Stones (2014), R. Cohen, The Sun, The Moon,
and the Rolling Stones (2017), P. Norman, Mick
Jagger (2018).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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