An acclaimed rock and roll journalist evokes the legacy of The Rolling
Stones--iconic, granitic, commercially unstoppable as a collective; and
fascinating, contradictory, and occasionally disturbing as
individuals.
As Lesley-Ann Jones writes, the Rolling Stones are "still roaming the
globe like rusty tanks without a war to go to. Jumping, jacking,
flashing, posturing, these septuagenarian caricatures with faces that
might have been microwaved but coming on like eternal thirty-year-olds."
On 12th July 1962, the Rollin' Stones performed their first-ever gig at
London's Marquee jazz club. Down the line, a 'g' was added, a spark was
lit and their destiny was sealed. No going back. These five white
British kids set out to play the music of black America. They honed a
style that bled bluesy undertones into dark insinuations of women, sex,
and drugs. Denounced as 'corruptors of youth' and 'messengers of the
devil, ' they created some of the most thrilling music ever recorded.
Now their sound and attitude seem louder and more influential than ever.
Elvis is dead and the Beatles are over, but Jagger and Richards bestride
the world. The Stones may be gathering moss, but on they roll. Yet how
did the ultimate anti-establishment misfits become the global brand we
know today? Who were the casualties, and what are the forgotten
legacies? Can the artist ever be truly divisible from the art?
Lesley-Ann Jones's new history tracks this contradictory, disturbing,
granitic and unstoppable band through hope, glory and exile, into the
juggernaut years and beyond into rock's ongoing reckoning . . . where
the Stones seem more at odds than ever with the values and heritage
against which they have always rebelled. Good, bad, and often ugly, here
are the Rolling Stones as never seen before.
