ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME The Rolling Stones By Michael Hill M a y 1965: In a Florida hotel room, Keith Richards wakes up hearing a Richards had been childhood acquaintances but had drifted apart when riff in his head that he has to play for M ickjagger immediately. The pair Richards’s family moved out o f the neighborhood. The pair resumed their begin to work on a song that initially has a folkish feel but takes on a more friendship in 1960, after Richards, a technical-school dropout, bumped hard-edged shape a few days later at Chicago’s Chess Studio. W ithin a into Jagger, a student at the London School o f Economics, on a local train week, it’s completed at the R C A Studios in H ollywood. The song is and noticed the blues albums Jagger was carrying. The enterprising Jagger “Satisfaction,” and it’s destined for inclusion in their new album, Out o f was a serious collector, writing away to Chess Records, in Chicago, for ti­ O u r Heads. It’s also destined, with a deft leap to the top o f the American des he couldn’t secure at home, and he already fronted a group called Lit­ charts, to be the band’s first Number One, to define, decisively and dra­ tle Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. matically, the sound and die attitude o f the Rolling Stones. Richards, w ho leaned more to Chuck Berry’s rock fe? roll and the Even­ They had always wanted to sing the blues, and now they were do­ ly Brothers’ country-inflected pop, soon became a Blue Boy himself, as ing it - in their own fashion, with their own voice and with their own w ell as Jagger’s roommate. Together they scoured the London blues words. It was a different sort o f blues, for sure: “Satisfaction” simulta­ scene, which centered on the Ealing Club and its house band, Blues In­ neously suggested a pop star’s premature world-weariness, a consum­ corporated, featuring “the grandfather o f British rock,” Alexis Komer. It er’s constant confusion and a lover’s frustrated desire - set to the was there that Jagger and Richards first saw the already up-and-coming meanest groove east o f Detroit. On the surface, “ Satisfaction” was guitarist Brian Jones. They became fast friends, carousing, living and per­ crude and sexy, but beyond Jagger’s snarls and slurs and a riff that forming together. The trio, accompanied by Ian Stewart and Tony Chap­ would launch a thousand combos, the song was savvy and cynical, jab­ man, even recorded a demo tape, which was promptly rejected by EMI. bing social commentary wrapped in adolescent petulance. A s Jagger’s and Richards’s talents became apparent, they were wel­ The blues had brought the Rolling Stones together. Jagger and 9 comed into Komer’s musical circle. Jagger and Richards sat in with m ROCK AND ROLL. HALL OF FAME The Rolling Stones Blues Incoporated (although purists remained wary o f Komer’s predileo- Brian Epstein. Just as Epstein had happened upon tire Beatles at the C av­ tion for rock fe? roll). Blues Incorporated graduated to the larger Marquee ern Club and insisted then and there that he manage the group, Oldham Club, and that was where the earliest version o f the Rolling Stones made instantly saw in the Stones a chance to exploit the “opposite to what the its debut on July 12th, 1962. Beatles were doing,” something more raw, rough and even a little danger' Komer had skipped his usual gig to perform on a live BBC-radio broad' ous. “I was about forty'eight hours ahead o f the rest o f the business in cast, so J agger, who hadn’t been invited along, took the opportunity to getting there,” Oldham told the ls[ew Musical Express ten years later. The book himself, Richards, Jones, bassist Dick Taylor (a Blue Boy who later Stones, especially Jones, were impressed by Oldham’s brashness and felt joined the Pretty Things), drummer M ick Avory (who became a Kink) comfortable with his youth. Oldham brought in an older investor, Eric and keyboardist Ian Stewart (who would remain a behind'the'scenes Easton, and then set about making the Rolling Stones famous. Stone). For subsequent gigs, they advertised themselves as “Brian Jones Getting a record deal this time around wasn’t particularly difficult. and M ick Jagger and the Rollin’ Stones,” their group name paying horn' Dick Rowe, an Aèr’R man from Decca, known in the industry for having age to M uddy W aters in the way the Beatles’ moniker saluted Buddy turned down the Beatles, wasn’t about to lose out again after he received Holly’s Crickets, and they began to create a small stir for their unlikely a casual tip from George Harrison during a talent contest they were both mélange o f American blues and current Rfer’B. judging. Harrison had cornei» the Crawdaddy and liked what he saw. A The three principals carried on with a revolving'door rhythm section week after the Stones signed their contract with Oldham, they were in until they convinced a rather skeptical Charlie W atts, a former drummer Olympic Recording Studios, cutting their first sides for Decca - with for Blues Incorporated, to sign on. They auditioned an equally cautious Oldham, w ho had never before set foot in a studio, producing. Bill W ym an, whose professionaMooking amplifier, as w ell as his bass The result was their debut single, Chuck Berry’s “Come On,” backed playing, made him the most attractive candidate. with W illie Dixon’s “I W antrto Be Loved,” which reached Number In February 1963 iconoclastic entrepreneur Giorgio Gomelsky offered Twenty'one on the U.K. charts, and the Stones appeared on the T V the Stones a regular gig at his new Crawdaddy Club, at the Station Ho- sh o w Thank Tour Lucky Stars. One of the show’s producers took Old' tel, in Richmond. (The original house band, the Dave Hunt Rhythm 6? ham aside and advised him to dump “that viledooking singer with tire' Blues Band, featuring a guitarist named Ray Davies, was sacked after it tread lips.” They also scored a supporting berth on tour with the Everly failed to show up one night.) The Stones attracted a growing following o f Brothers and Bo Diddley. The follow'Up single, “I W anna Be Your fans, as w ell as fellow musicians, including various Beatles, and curious Man,” which cracked the British Top Twenty, had been given to them members o f the press. by its writers, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They also attracted an ambitious nineteenyearold named Andrew In January 1964 the Stones began their first headlining U.K. Loog Oldham, then employed as a press officer by Beatles manager 10 tour, accompanied by the Ronettes. Phil Spector saw sufficient ROCK AND R □ L l_ HALL DF FAME The Rolling Stones threat in the Stones’ image to send them a telegram ordering them to their hip suburban peers could understand. “stay away from my girls.” The Stones’ third single, a version o f Bud' Then came “Satisfaction.” dy Holly’s “N ot Fade Away,” made it to Number Three in Britain and Jagger and Richards won an audience beyond teens looking for new provided a modest entry to American radio via London Records. Ah frve raves to call their own. College kids, critics and assorted hipsters be' though Spector may have wanted to keep the Stones at bay where the gan to appreciate the Stones’ rebelliousness, arrogance, intensity and dew Ronettes were concerned, he was impressed w ith their music. He il'tnay'care look. They were the prototype for a new kind of youth style played maracas on “N ot Fade Aw ay” and co-wrote the B side, “Little that would evolve and grow as the music exerted an ever more powerful By Little,” w ith the group. influence on mores as w ell as fashion. The acclaim o f this burgeoning au' Spector also sat in on the sessions for the group’s first LP, The Rolling dience would be matched by outrage from the powers that be; even O ld' S tones. Released in April 1964, on Decca, the album caused a sensation ham would not be able to contain things once the press, not to mention throughout England. It knocked the Beatles from the top o f the charts the police, turned ugly. and generated both excitement and controversy for its interpretations o f In 1965 the Stones’ troubles remained fairly innocuous: they were the work o f such black American songwriters as Chuck Berry, Slim summoned to court for urinating on a gas'Station wall after they were re' Harpo, Jimmy Reed and Bo Diddley. Jagger responded those who fused admittance to the restroom. (They were ultimately fined three doubted the seriousness o f the group’s intentions in a letter to M elod y pounds each for “insulting behavior.”) “Satisfaction,” too, had the dis' M a\er: “To the critics, them, who think w e’re a beat group who came up tinction o f being banned on many American radio stations for its alleged' overnight, knowing nothing about it, w e invite them to examine o u r r e c' ly suggestive lyrics. (Thanks to Jagger’s delivery, programmers seemed ord collection. It contains things by Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Hooker more frightened o f what they couldn’t understand than the lyrics they and a stack o f private tapes by Little W alter.....” could decipher.) However pure the Stones’ musical aspirations might have been at A fterm a th , released in April 1966, was the first Stones album to com the time, the adult public was unanimous in its shock at the seeming tain all Jagger-Richards originals.