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The Rolling Stones are a British rock and roll band who rose to prominence during the mid-1960s. The Rolling Stones were original in weaving together various strands of American composition into a new form of popular music, and have been called "The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band".

Early history: 1961-1967
The Rolling Stones, 1964. (From left) Bill Wyman, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

Early in their career they played covers of blues, rhythm and blues, country, and rock and roll music. Their first recordings were covers of Chuck Berry, Robert Johnson, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Muddy Waters, and Hank Williams songs, among others. Although founding members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are regarded as one of the greatest songwriting teams in the history of popular music, the band never stopped being inspired by other genres. Reggae, punk, and dance, country music and even Arab music have leaked into their recordings. They are the longest surviving rock & roll band in history, and, in their own words, the greatest.

Sex, Drugs, Death and Rock & Roll: 1967-1971
. By now the band had become almost synonymous with the rebellious spirit of the 1960s, and in particular a more relaxed attitude towards drug use. Brian Jones faced several court appearances during 1967, accused of possession of drugs, and the pressure on him began to show. The British Sunday tabloid newspaper News of the World targetted the Stones and their perceived debauched lifestyles, and allegedly tipped off the police leading to a search of Keith Richard's country home, "Redlands" in West Wittering, Sussex.

The February 1967 raid, now legendary in the band's mythology, occurred during one of the regular parties held there, and police discovered a moderate quantity of cannabis. The raid also served as a source of apocryphal stories, mainly concerning the appearance and demeanour of Mick Jagger's girlfriend Marianne Faithfull, which only served to augment their reputation for debauchery. It was also rumoured that the raid was delayed on police instructions to allow another guest, George Harrison, to leave. Richards was charged and a few months later stood trial for allowing drug use in his home. Jagger was charged with possessing amphetamine tablets, which though bought legally in Italy, were still obtained without a doctor's prescription.

Amidst intense press interest they were convicted. Richards was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, Jagger to four months, prompting The Times newspaper to run an editorial criticising the verdict. Beneath the title "Who Breaks A Butterfly On A Wheel" editor William Rees-Mogg wrote:

"If we are going to make any case a symbol of the conflict between the sound traditional values of Britain and the new hedonism, then we must be sure that the sound traditional values include those of tolerance and equity."

During the furor, Decca shrewdly released Flowers in the United States. Despite being a quickly cobbled-together collection of hits and studio outtakes, it was nevertheless a hit. The Who also rush-released a single covering two Stones originals "Under My Thumb" and "The Last Time" in a show of solidarity.

With Richards and Jagger out on bail and shortly to be acquitted on appeal, Jagger was immediately whisked off in a helicopter to appear on a BBC television programme " World in Action " taking part, along with members of the British establishment, in a live debate discussing the morals of modern society. Maybe as a result of the pressure he was feeling, he looked out of his depth and his arguments cut little ice with his fellow participants. The band then set about recording a new single "We Love You", officially as a thank you for the loyalty shown by their fans, though privately it was seen as a barbed attack on their perceived persecutors; the News of the World, the Metropolitan police force and members of the British judiciary.

The record featured the sounds of footsteps and a cell door banging shut, and which it is rumoured was taken from a secret recording from within Wormwood Scrubs; the London prison where Richards was held overnight. Work then commenced on a new psychedelic album, which Jagger envisioned as the group's response to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper. The record, which would eventually be released as Their Satanic Majesties' Request was recorded in difficult circumstances with various members of the band living under the threat of imprisonment, so much so, that Bill Wyman was able to get one of his songs "In Another Land" onto the album.

The resulting record received lukewarm reviews observing that the songs and arrangements did not lend themselves to the band's natural style, and the increasingly strung-out Brian Jones contributed little. Despite Keith Richards later harshly pronouncing it "crap", a number of songs showcased the improving songwriting of Jagger and Richards, in particular the spacey "2000 Light Years From Home", which has been revived for recent live performances. Within the band, however, the two principal writers were steadily wresting power from their former leader Jones.

After the excesses of Satanic Majesties, and with personal relations between Jones and Richards increasingly frayed, 1968's Beggars Banquet saw a return to the blues that had originally inspired the band. Despite the tension, and aided by an excellent sound from an up-and-coming producer named Jimmy Miller, Jagger and Richards produced some of their most memorable work, including the distorted acoustic guitar-driven "Street Fighting Man" and the anthemic "Sympathy for the Devil" and the Stones entered the phase that would see them billed as "The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band". The songs themselves were firmly rooted in the blues, but tempered by the changes that occurred in 1960s music and assimilating the imagery of Dylan and the emergent heavy rock of Cream and Jimi Hendrix. In contrast to its predecessor, however, it was a clear rejection of the hippie ethos, replacing the platitudes of "free love" with a layer of sleaze. Two other events contributed to the change in The Stones' sound. First, Keith Richards played extensively with Ry Cooder, and was taught his open-G guitar tuning (as used by John Lee Hooker), later admitting "I took Ry Cooder for all I could get". Secondly, both Jagger and Richards befriended Gram Parsons, who introduced them to country music with which he had grown up. Music was not all the Stones and the independently wealthy Parsons had in common: "We liked drugs," Richards said later, "and we liked the finest quality."

An ever-increasing consumption of drugs, however, were making Brian Jones less and less reliable. The ill-fated Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus was one of his last projects with the band. Increasingly, he was either absent from recording sessions by choice, or simply not invited to attend. With only a minimal contribution to Beggar's Banquet, he found himself forced out of the band for good after an infamous late-night visit to his rural home from Jagger and Richards in May 1969, to be replaced by the young, jazz-influenced guitarist, Mick Taylor, drafted in from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

Jones retreated to his Cotchford Farm home in Kent, a house formerly owned by Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne, drinking heavily in the local pub and planning his comeback with a blues band. However, within two months, and a matter of two days before the new-look band were due to play a free concert in Hyde Park, London he was dead; found at the bottom of his swimming pool which was surrounded by statues of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. Although his death was recorded as being by misadventure, the cause of the drowning to this day remains a mystery. A recent death-bed confession to murder by Frank Thorogood, a builder employed by Jones at the time, has only served to cloud the issue further.

Despite the tragedy, the Hyde Park concert went ahead, with an audience of up to half a million fans, with Jagger reading from Shelley's "Adonais" and releasing hundreds of butterflies by way of tribute to the late guitarist. The band's performance, under-rehearsed and suffering from some of the remaining members' narcotic intake, was somewhat shambolic and was captured by a Granada Television production team, later to be shown on British television as "Stones in the Park". The band had released the first recording with the new line up, a single called "Honky Tonk Women", which was recorded with Jones but had his guitar part edited out and Taylor's part dubbed in at the last minute. It was released on July 3, 1969, co-inciding with the death of Jones, and remains the band's last number 1 single in the UK. An album Let It Bleed followed in December and was rapidly hailed as another classic, featuring the slow and brooding "Gimme Shelter," "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (featuring a boys choir) and a further nod to their roots with a cover of Robert Johnson's "Love In Vain". It was to become the defining Rolling Stones album. Immediately, the band set off on another US tour, characterised by the hedonism that their position in rock's aristocracy afforded them.

This was like no other tour the band had yet undertaken. Away from the stage since 1966, they found that live performing had moved on since then. Rather than performing in small and medium sized venues to audiences of screaming girls, they were booked into huge baseball and football stadiums with crowd sizes to match. They blazed a trail for a multitude of stadium tours by the super-bands of the seventies, which continue to this day.

In an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of Hyde Park, and as a reaction to the Woodstock festival, the tour culminated in a free concert given at Altamont, a disused racetrack located about 40 miles east of San Francisco. Originally, the Stones' appearance was to be a surprise for the festival in San Franciso's Golden Gate Park. Jagger's decision to announce at a press conference that the Stones would be performing at the event, possibly to ensure a sufficient audience for the concert movie, resulted in the city of San Francisco denying permits.

This lead to numerous problems as the event organizers had to scramble to plan the event. As a result, on-site security was provided by the Hells Angels at the suggestion of the Grateful Dead.

The concert was a disaster. Jagger's refusal to perform during the day, again to ensure a better film with lighting at night, resulted in an escalation of violence between fans and security. The running battles between fans and security reached a head when Meredith Hunter, a young black fan who had unwisely brought a pistol (and a white girlfriend) to the show, was stabbed and beaten to death by the Angels during the band's performance of "Under My Thumb". The Altamont concert would be documented in Albert and David Maysles' film Gimme Shelter.

Many cultural scholars of the time opined that Altamont marked the de facto end of the 1960s decade.

The murder, coming so soon after the death of Brian Jones, had a harrowing effect on Keith Richards, and his reaction to the events was to increase his usage of heroin. He would spend the best part of the next decade as an addict, taking occasional cures in private clinics but always returning to the drug, and each subsequent tour would become a logistical nightmare to ensure a regular supply in the face of trouble from the police and customs officers. Richards has always maintained that the one facet of his life that was unaffected was his live performance. Concert tapes, however, including a time in 1976 when he fell asleep on stage, do not bear this out.

Sticky Fingers released in March (1971), the band's first record under their own Rolling Stones Records label, continued where Let It Bleed had left off, featuring "Brown Sugar" — another big hit, the country-styled "Wild Horses" which caused a disagreement between Gram Parsons and Mick Jagger over songwriting credits, although the FAQ on www.gramparsons.com denies he contributed to the song, the moody "Moonlight Mile" featuring Paul Buckmaster's evocative string arrangement, and a version of Marianne Faithfull's "Sister Morphine", about her own ambiguous relationship with heroin. Mick Taylor collaborated heavily on this album with Jagger — probably because Richards was unable to contribute as constructively as usual due to his drug problems, and the sprawling " Can't You Hear Me Knockin' " attests to Taylor's influence. However, all the songs were credited as usual to 'Jagger/Richards' which frustrated Taylor.

Letting it bleed: 1972-1981
As Keith Richards removed himself from society, Mick Jagger began to move in more elevated social circles. He married the Nicaraguan model Bianca Perez Moreno de Macias, and the couple's jet-set lifestyle put further distance between himself and Richards. Pressured by the UK Inland Revenue service about several years of unpaid income tax, the band were forced to quit Britain for the South of France. The band members took to this enforced change of lifestyle with varying degrees of success. Bill Wyman, in particular, soon felt at home in his new mountainside house and became friendly with French painter Claude Chagall. Richards, however, adopted a more head-in-the-sand approach, ensconced in his London Cheyne Walk home in a state of insurrection until the very last minute.

Once in France he rented a gothic chateau "Villa Nellecote", which had been used as the headquarters for the local Nazi SS during the Second World War, and sublet rooms to the band members and a multitude of assorted hangers-on. Using the recently completed mobile studio, they set about recording the double album Exile on Main St. (1972) in the basement of their new home, reputedly using electricity purloined from nearby railway lines. Dismissed by some on its release as sprawling and self-indulgent, the record is now considered among the band's (and Rock & Roll's) greatest. The film Cocksucker Blues (never officially released) documents the subsequent American tour.

By the time Exile on Main St. had been completed Jagger had made the other band members aware that he was more interested in the celebrity lifestyle than working on its follow-up, and increasingly their records were made piecemeal, with tracks and parts laid down as, and when, the band, Jagger and Richards in particular, could get together and remain amicable sufficiently long enough to do so. When it finally arrived, Goats Head Soup (1973) was disappointing, and memorable largely for the hit single "Angie," popularly believed to be about David Bowie's new wife, but in reality another of Richards' odes to Anita Pallenberg.

Interestingly, the popular ballad "Waiting on a Friend" was recorded during the Goats Head Soup sessions, but not released until Tattoo You, nearly ten years later. The making of the record was not helped by another legal battle over drugs, this one dating back to their stay in France. But the tour of Europe in the fall of 1973 showed the Rolling Stones in top form, particularly Taylor, who played extensive solos on songs like "Midnight Rambler" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in an exciting interplay with Richards on rhythm guitar.

A live recording made in Brussels on 17 October was intended for an official release, but due to legal problems it only appeared only on bootlegs (Nasty Music, The Bedspring Symphony and Brussels Affair). Many fans and critics regard these as the best Rolling Stones concert recordings.

By the time they came to the Musicland studios in Munich to record 1974's It's Only Rock'N'Roll, there were even more problems. Regular producer Jimmy Miller was not asked to participate in the sessions because of his increasing unreliability and drug use. Critics generally wrote the album off as uninspired from a band perceived as stagnating, but both album and single of the same name were huge hits, even without the customary tour to promote them.

Intra-band strife continued. Ironically, It's Only Rock'N'Roll was a return to form, being more akin to the great albums the band released between 1968 and 1972. Mick Taylor's intricate lead style lent itself well to the hard-rocking record though his shy persona never quite matched Keith Richards' outspoken image and basic, Chuck Berry-inspired rhythm work. By this time Richards was reportedly berating Taylor during recording sessions, and he contributed little to the album. Irked by perceived mistreatment, and a small share of the band's royalties, Taylor announced he was leaving the band shortly before sessions commenced for the next album, Black and Blue (1976).

The band used the album's recording sessions (again in Munich) to audition possible replacements. Guitarists as stylistically far-flung as Humble Pie lead Peter Frampton and ex-Yardbirds impressario Jeff Beck were auditioned. American session players Wayne Perkins and Harvey Mandel appeared on much of the album, but the band settled on Ron Wood, a long time friend of Richards' and guitarist with The Faces, whose singer Rod Stewart had recently gone solo.

Wood had already contributed to It's Only Rock'N'Roll, but his first public act with the band would be the 1975 United States tour. The shows featured a new format for the Stones with their usual act replaced by increasingly theatrical stage props and gimmicks, including a giant inflatable phallus and a cherry picker on which Jagger would soar out over the audience. This represented a further breakdown in Jagger and Richards' relationship ≈the pragmatic Richards considering it entirely superfluous and distracting from the music.

Again, Jagger was, if nothing else, shrewdly interpreting market trends ≈the mid-1970s were the era of flashy stage acts such as Queen and Elton John, and the band's tours were to become even more expensive and elaborate in the years to come.

Although The Rolling Stones remained hugely popular through the 1970s, music critics had grown increasingly dismissive of the band's output until the seminal late-1970s album Some Girls. Keith Richards would have more serious concerns in 1977: Despite having spent much of the previous year undergoing a series of drug therapies to help withdraw from heroin, including (allegedly) having his blood filtered, Richards and Pallenberg were arrested in a Toronto hotel room and charged with possession of heroin. The case would drag on for a year, with Richards eventually receiving a suspended sentence and ordered to play a concert for a local charity.

This motivated a final, concerted attempt to end his drug habit, which proved largely successful. It also coincided with the end of his relationship with Anita Pallenberg, which had become increasingly strained since the tragic death of their third child (an infant son named Tara).

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 would end in 1977. By this time punk rock had become highly influential, and the Stones were increasingly criticized as being decadent, ageing millionaires and their music considered by many to be either stagnant or irrelevant. The Clash vocalist Joe Strummer even went so far as to declare "No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones in 1977." What people did not realise at the time was that many punk bands idolised The Stones, Keith Richards in particular, and in hindsight this does not seem surprising given the band's earlier rebellious image.

In 1978 the band recorded Some Girls, their most focused and successful album in years, despite the perceived misogyny of the title track. Jagger and Richards seemed to channel much of the personal turmoil surrounding them into renewed creative vitality. With the notable exception of the disco-influenced "Miss You" (a hit single and a live staple) and the droll, country-ballad "Far Away Eyes", the songs in this album were fast, basic guitar-driven rock and roll or impeccable ballads like "Beast of Burden", and the album was widely praised as both a Stones classic and a summation of late 1970s music trends. Emotional Rescue (1980) was in a similar vein, but lacked the redeeming features of its predecessor.

Tattoo You (1981), was composed partially by using new material and by using unused songs from earlier recording outings (the ballad "Waiting on a Friend" dated back to the Goats Head Soup sessions). It also featured the hugely popular single "Start Me Up," showing that Richards was still capable of writing monster guitar parts of the same calibre as ten or fifteen years earlier. Tattoo You and the subsequent tour were major commercial successes.

Mixed emotions: 1981-1999
Throughout the early 1980s the Jagger/Richards partnership continued to falter, and their records would suffer because of it. 1983's Undercover was widely seen as Jagger's attempt to make the Rolling Stones' sound more compatible with current musical trends. The album's slick production and violent political and sexual content were coolly received by both critics and fans, though not without controversy (the video for Undercover of the Night was said to include real assassination footage from Latin America and the guilty-pleasure Too Much Blood was criticized for being inspired too closely by slasher films and imagery).

To make matters worse, Ron Wood was now suffering from his own growing drug habit. In 1982 Jagger had signed a major solo deal with the band's new label, CBS Records. This move angered Richards, who saw it as a lack of commitment to the band. Indeed, Jagger was spending a great deal of time on his solo recordings, and most of the material on 1986's turgid Dirty Work was authored solely by Keith Richards. The album again sold poorly, and sales were probably hurt by Jagger's decision not to tour in support of the album.

To add to the band's woes in 1986, longtime collaborator and unofficial band member Ian Stewart (often called the sixth Rolling Stone) died of a heart attack. The Rolling Stones' only live appearance during this time was a tribute to Stewart. However, a bright spot that year was when they were awarded a Grammy for lifetime achievement. But by this point Jagger and Richards had begun openly criticizing each other in the press, and many observers assumed the band had broken up. Both quality and sales of Jagger's solo records (She's the Boss (1985) and Primitive Cool (1987)) did not live up to expectations, but ironically, Richards' first solo record, Talk is Cheap (1988), which he had been reluctant to make because of his loyalty to The Stones, was well received by both fans and critics.

A rapprochement was reached by Richards and Jagger, who decided to shelve his own solo career and reform the group for 1989's Steel Wheels album and massive tour. Widely heralded as a return to form, the album even included a song called "Continental Drift" which featured the musicians of the Morroccan mountain village of Joujouka, who had previously been recorded by Brian Jones during the ill-fated 1967 trip to North Africa with Keith Richards and Anita Pallenburg. 1989 also saw Stones inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 1991 Bill Wyman finally left the band after years of deliberation and had published Stone Alone, a frank autobiography. After his departure, the band continued as a foursome. Charlie Watts was asked to choose a bass player, and he selected the respected session musician and Miles Davis sideman Darryl Jones, who appeared on Voodoo Lounge (1994) and played on the supporting tour. Bridges to Babylon (1997) featured another prolific bassist, Doug Wimbish, a journeyman session player and solo artist. Wimbish was offered the permanent position of bass player by the band, but declined in order to focus on his own material, and so did not play on the ensuing tour. Jones was brought back and has remained with the band since the Bridges tour. Both Voodoo Lounge and Bridges To Babylon were highly praised by fans and critics alike.

The Stones' song "Start Me Up" was used by Microsoft to launch their Windows 95 operating system. Some critics noted that the group who epitomised the way that rock and roll commercialised earlier rhythm and blues by delivering it to a global audience, provided the soundtrack for the corporation which did the same with software. (Critics of Windows also noted the song's lyric "You make a grown man cry.")

The Rolling Stones had previously never licensed their music for commercial use. According to legend, Microsoft founder Bill Gates asked Jagger how much the rights to the song would cost; rather than refuse outright, Jagger replied with $13 million ≈ a sum that he thought would be self-evidently outrageously high. Gates, however, immediately agreed to the amount.

In 2002, the Rolling Stones released Forty Licks, a greatest hits album that spanned their career, 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". On July 30, 2003, the band headlined the Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto concert in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to help the city recover financially and psychologically from the effects of the 2003 SARS epidemic. It was attended by an estimated 490,000 people, the largest single-day ticketed event in world history. On November 9, 2003, the band played its first ever concert in Hong Kong as part of the Harbour Fest celebration. In November of 2003 the band exclusively licensed the right to sell their new 4-DVD boxed set, Four Flicks, recorded on their most recent world tour, to the U.S Best Buy chain of stores. In response, other music retail chains (including Tower Records, Virgin Megastore and HMV) pulled all Rolling Stones CDs and related merchandise from their shelves and replaced them with signs explaining the situation.

The Stones completed sessions with Don Was as producer for a new studio album in Paris in December 2004, with Jagger and Richards writing and recording new songs. It was said the Stones would reconvene after the Christmas holidays and that the tracks recorded so far were significantly different to anything he has worked on with The Stones before. Charlie Watts also attended the Paris sessions and was reported to be in excellent health after being treated for throat cancer. On July 26, 2005, coinciding with Jagger's birthday, the band announced the name of their new album, A Bigger Bang, which will be released September 6th. On May 10, 2005 the Stones announced plans for another world tour starting on August 21st at Fenway Park in Boston. The tour is expected to include dates throughout the USA and Canada before going to South America, Asia and Europe. Launching the tour at the Julliard School in New York, Mick Jagger told reporters that it would not necessarily be their last and declared that work on a new album was "85 percent" complete.

In the last few years, Toronto, Ontario has been chosen as a pre-tour venue for the Rolling Stones. They have played at smaller venues such as the Palais Royale and The Phoenix prior to the full tour. In the wake of the SARS outbreak, the Stones came to Toronto to host a relief concert. Toronto has become something of a headquarters for the Stones, and they are considered there Toronto's stepchild of rock and roll.

The group kicked off their Bigger Bang world tour 2005≈2006 with two shows at the historic Fenway Park, Boston, where The Stones' huge stage caused extensive damage to the outfield, so that approximately 40,000 square feet (4,000 m╡) of sod had to be brought in to repair it, and a subsequent baseball game held at the park three days later had to be pushed back an hour to give the grounds crew more time to complete the repairs.

The group will play during half-time of Super Bowl XL. The Stones are also taking part in creating promotions throughout the entire NFL season which feature music from their new album, "A Bigger Bang" and footage from their supporting world tour as well. [1]

Line-ups
1992 to present

 Mick Jagger — Vocalist

 Keith Richards — Guitarist

 Ron Wood — Guitarist

 Charlie Watts — Drummer

1975 to 1992

 Mick Jagger — Vocalist

 Keith Richards — Guitarist

 Ron Wood — Guitarist

 Bill Wyman — Bassist

 Charlie Watts — Drummer

1969 to 1974

 Mick Jagger — Vocalist

 Keith Richards — Guitarist

 Mick Taylor — Guitarist

 Bill Wyman — Bassist

 Charlie Watts — Drummer

1963 to 1968

 Mick Jagger — Vocalist

 Keith Richards — Guitarist

 Brian Jones — Guitarist

 Bill Wyman — Bassist

Charlie Watts — Drummer

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