The History Of The Rolling Stones Music

One of the legends of rock and roll are the Rolling Stones. The band was formed in April 1962 in England. Its founding members include Mick Jagger (vocals), Keith Richards (guitar), Ian Stewart (piano), and Brian Jones (guitar and harmonica). They started out by playing rhythm and blues music and just playing cover songs of other more famous bands. However, they later gained fame when they started to write their own songs, primarily because of the songwriting collaboration between Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. This launched the true Rolling Stones music that fans around the world would later learn to love.

The band’s early history.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were friends way back in the 1950s and they shared the same passion for rock music especially for Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters music. They soon met with Brian Jones, Ian Stewart, and Charlie Watts. The group then decided to play blues music together and would practice with the intention of starting their own rhythm and blues band.

A great influence to the band, not only with the Rolling Stones music, but more particularly with their name was Muddy Waters. Keith Richards once stated that it was Brian Jones who came up with the band’s name. Jones was then trying to get an advertisement about the band to be published on a local magazine. When he was asked what their name was, he saw a Muddy Waters LP that was lying on the floor beside him and immediately noticed the song “Rolling Stone”. He added “the” and the band finally got a name.

There were two major changes that the band made which greatly contributed to their success. The first would be their hiring of Andrew Loog Oldham as their manager and producer. At around that time, the Beatles were gaining fame around Britain and the United States and they had this good boy persona attached to them. Oldham thought that the Rolling Stones would be better off having a bad boy image, which eventually worked.

Oldham was also able to get Decca Records to sign the band with their first major record label. Decca executives at that time were feeling guilty for not signing the Beatles and so they gave the Rolling Stones more favorable terms in their contract such as more artistic freedom and better royalty fees. With the release of their first album, their popularity soared leading the way to even having Rolling Stones merch in major clothing stores to satisfy the wants of their fans.

The second great thing that worked to the advantage of the Rolling Stones was the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards songwriting collaboration. It was in a way to imitate the success met with the Lennon/McCartney songwriting duo. It also paved the way for the band to graduate into becoming a band that plays its own songs as to what they were previously doing, just covering songs.

Some band members have also come and gone but the most controversial would be that of Brian Jones. It was said that he felt he was slowly being left out from the band that he started. Jones drowned in his own pool in 1969.

A lot more history of fame and great songs followed for the Rolling Stones, but just like with any other music legend, it is the early years that are often deemed the most important.

Fans today and still showing their support through the songs that the Rolling Stones have released, the albums, the concerts and the band merch. It only means the band’s influence continuously span throughout the decades.