Formed: 1962 in London, England
Although they have been known as "The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band" for decades, in the beginning, the Rolling Stones were the biggest and baddest blues-rock band on the planet. Named after a Muddy Waters' song, and pursuing a singular vision of rockin' blues and R&B, the Stones eclipsed contemporaries like the Animals and Them to dominate the early-1960s British blues-rock scene.
Alexis Korner's Blues, Incorporated
Vocalist Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards first met each other as young students, but later became reacquainted while attending college in 1960. Both played with mutual friend Dick Taylor in the blues band Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. A friendship with guitarist Brian Jones led to Jagger and Richards frequently sitting in with Alexis Korner's Blues, Incorporated, which included future Stones drummer Charlie Watts. Taylor would go on to form the Pretty Things, and through one event or another, the four remaining friends would come together as the Rolling Stones.
An eight-month residency at The Crawdaddy Club in London built an early fan base, and brought them to the attention of their future manager, Andrew Loog Oldham. Oldham got the Stones a deal with Decca Records, and the band's first hit single was a cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On." The band would continue to record other covers, scoring hits with songs like Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" and Howlin' Wolf's "Little Red Rooster." Eventually Oldham pushed Jagger and Richards to begin writing their own original material.
The Making Of A Legend
The band's original material - songs like "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "Get Off My Cloud," and "Paint It Black" - not only signaled the maturing of Jagger/Richards as songwriters, but also moved the band away from pure blues and R&B towards harder rock and psychedelic rock. Brian Jones would leave the band in 1969, after the release of the band's landmark album Beggar's Banquet, replaced by former Bluesbreakers' guitarist Mick Taylor, who would later be replaced by Ron Wood of the Faces.
Throughout the 1970s and into the '90s, the Stones would experiment in a wide range of styles of music, but Jagger and Richards returned to uncompromising blues-rock for 2005's A Bigger Bang album.
Recommended Albums: Rolling Stones Now is the album to turn to if you want to hear the band's original, explosive blues-rock sound.
