The Rolling Stones: A Brief History
From smoky London blues clubs to sold-out stadiums across the world, The Rolling Stones have lived out one of the most extraordinary journeys in rock ’n’ roll.
More than sixty years on, they remain both a working band and a living cultural force. Their story is not just one of longevity, but of constant reinvention, musical restlessness, and an instinctive understanding of how rock music should sound, look, and feel.
The Rolling Stones – at a glance
Formed: 1962, London
Founding members: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones
Classic lineup: Jagger, Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman
Breakthrough: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (1965)
Defining album run: Beggars Banquet to Exile on Main St.
Origins of the Stones (1962)
The story begins in London in 1962. Childhood friends Mick Jagger and Keith Richards reconnected on a train platform, bonding over their shared love of American blues records.
Soon after, they fell in with multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, pianist Ian Stewart, bassist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts. Their early gigs at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond drew crowds hungry for raw blues, and by 1963 the Stones were already positioning themselves as the darker, more dangerous alternative to the Beatles’ clean-cut charm.
The band’s name came from the blues. In 1962, when asked for a name during a phone call with Jazz News magazine, Brian Jones glanced at a Muddy Waters record lying nearby. One track, Rollin’ Stone, caught his eye, and in that moment the Rolling Stones were born.
Original Rolling Stones members
Mick Jagger – lead vocals (1962–present)
Keith Richards – guitar (1962–present)
Brian Jones – founder, multi-instrumentalist (1962–1969)
Charlie Watts – drums (1963–2021)
Bill Wyman – bass (1962–1993)
Ian Stewart – piano (1962–1985)
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Mick Taylor – guitar (1969–1974)
Ronnie Wood – guitar (1975–present)
Turbulence and Transformation
The Stones’ reputation and success came quickly. Within months they had outgrown the Crawdaddy Club, replaced there by another up-and-coming band, the Yardbirds, featuring Eric Clapton. By 1964 they had released their debut album and were already drawing teenage hysteria on both sides of the Atlantic.
The turning point came in 1965 with (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, their breakout hit and first US number one. If the Beatles had their coronation on The Ed Sullivan Show, the Stones’ appearances there sealed their status as the dangerous alternative, the band parents did not want their daughters chasing.
Between 1964 and 1969 they released a remarkable run of albums — Out of Our Heads, Aftermath, Between the Buttons, and Beggars Banquet — that built their reputation for menace, swagger, and some of the most enduring songs in rock history.
Loss and change
Success came at a price. By the late 1960s, Brian Jones was struggling, his role in the band diminished. In 1969, just as the Stones were preparing for a US tour, Jones was found dead in his swimming pool at Cotchford Farm. He was only 27.
The band recruited guitarist Mick Taylor, whose fluid playing shaped albums such as Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. Taylor’s tenure was short but brilliant, and in 1975 he was replaced by Ronnie Wood, who became an official Stone on the 1976 album Black and Blue.
Exile on the Riviera: Villa Nellcôte
The Stones’ 1972 masterpiece Exile on Main St. was born in unusual circumstances. Facing a punishing tax bill in the UK, the band relocated to the South of France. Keith Richards rented Villa Nellcôte, a Belle Époque mansion overlooking the Mediterranean at Villefranche-sur-Mer.
Down in the villa’s humid basement, the Stones recorded much of Exile, producing an album that felt as sprawling and chaotic as the sessions themselves. The house became a place of excess and myth-making, as much a character in the record as the music.
Today, Nellcôte remains one of rock’s most mythologised houses, a touchstone for both Stones fans and South of France dreamers.
The Classic Album Run
From 1968’s Beggars Banquet through to Exile on Main St. in 1972, the Stones delivered a sequence of albums that remain cornerstones of rock music. They captured the chaos of the era — Altamont, riots, drug busts — while creating songs that endure: Sympathy for the Devil, Gimme Shelter, Brown Sugar, and Tumbling Dice.
This was the Stones at their dangerous peak.
Stadium spectacle and endurance
By the 1980s the Stones were elder statesmen of rock, but they did not slow down. Tattoo You gave them Start Me Up, still their most reliable show opener. Steel Wheels in 1989 ushered in a new era of mega-touring.
The Urban Jungle Tour that followed set the template for the modern rock spectacle, with pyrotechnics, giant screens, and Jagger commanding crowds of 70,000 a night. It was also my second true stadium show, and one that stayed with me forever.
In later decades, the Stones maintained that same scale and precision, including unforgettable performances at Desert Trip in California. It was the last time I saw Charlie Watts behind the kit.
The Rolling Stones today
Six decades on, the Stones remain more than a band. The loss of Charlie Watts in 2021 was a seismic moment, but the group carried on with Steve Jordan on drums, just as Watts himself had urged.
Their later work showed there was still fire left, decades into their story. On stage, Jagger continues to move with the same electricity that defined him in the early 1960s.
The legacy of the Rolling Stones
Few bands have lasted so long, with such cultural impact. From the tongue-and-lips logo to instantly recognisable riffs like Satisfaction, the Stones are as much symbols as they are musicians.
They began as London blues disciples. They became the greatest rock ’n’ roll band in the world. And they remain proof that rock music, and some rock stars, can defy time.