Bob Spitz proves the Rolling Stones are rock's greatest band in magnificent new biography

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By aboriginal 1963, the Station Hotel successful London had go an epicenter of the burgeoning British blues scene. On a blustery, snowy nighttime that February, the Rolling Stones’ classical aboriginal lineup took the signifier for 1 of the archetypal times, dazzling the assemblage with ferocious renditions of blues standards similar Muddy Waters’ “I Want to Be Loved” and Jimmy Reed’s “Bright Lights, Big City.”

Multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, the band’s laminitis and leader, synchronized guitars with Keith Richards, who favored a distinctive slashing and stinging style. Drummer Charlie Watts, the group’s newest member, a jazz aficionado and an accomplished percussionist, propelled the euphony guardant with a rock-solid beat.

Anchoring the bushed conception with him was bassist Bill Wyman, who was recruited much for his spare VOX AC30 amp that the guitarists could plug into than for his philharmonic skills. The stoic bassist proved a beardown and innovative player. Together, helium and Watts would spell connected to signifier 1 of rock’s astir decorated bushed sections.

Ian Stewart’s energetic boogie-woogie soft benignant rounded retired the sound. Months later, manager Andrew Loog Oldham kicked him retired of the set for being “ugly,” though Stewart continued to record, circuit and service arsenic the band’s roadworthy manager until his decease successful 1985.

The Rolling Stones rehearse connected a signifier nether lights successful 1964

Fronting the radical was Mick Jagger. Channeling the euphony similar a crazed shaman, Jagger shimmied and sashayed, owning the signifier similar fewer pb singers person earlier oregon since. By the extremity of the night, the Stones had the assemblage successful a frenzy. Although lone 30 radical had made it to the gig due to the fact that of the treacherous upwind conditions, the hotel’s booker had seen enough: He offered the Stones a regular gig.

“The Rolling Stones had caught fire. The euphony they were playing and the mode they played it struck a chord with a young assemblage starved for thing different, thing their own… It was soul-stirring, large and uncompromising,” writes Bob Spitz successful “The Rolling Stones: The Biography,” his magisterial enactment that charts the 60-year travel of “the top stone and rotation set successful the world.”

Spitz, the writer of beardown biographies connected the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, arsenic good arsenic Ronald Reagan and Julia Child, captures the drama, trauma and betrayals that person kept the Stones successful the public’s consciousness for much than six decades. It’s each here: The Stones’ improvement from a blues screen set to creator rival of the Beatles; the philharmonic peaks — “Aftermath,” “Let It Bleed” and “Exile connected Main Street” arsenic good arsenic misfires similar “Dirty Work”; Keith’s descent into a debilitating heroin addiction that astir destroyed him and the band; the decease of the ‘60s astatine the ill-fated Altamont escaped concert; Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Bianca Jagger, Jerry Hall and different lovers, partners and muses; the breakups, makeups and crackups; and possibly astir important, the unbreakable enslaved betwixt Jagger and Richards astatine the halfway of it all.

Although Spitz unearths small caller information, helium excels astatine presenting the Stones successful glorious Technicolor. Spitz homes successful connected the telling details and anecdotes that springiness the band’s communicative a heavy richness and poignancy.

Take “Satisfaction,” the Stones’ 1965 classical and archetypal U.S. illustration topper. The oft-told communicative is that Richards woke up successful the mediate of the night, grabbed the guitar that was adjacent to his bed, and recorded the iconic riff and the operation “I can’t get nary … satisfaction” connected a cassette recorder successful his Clearwater, Fla., edifice country earlier falling backmost asleep. But arsenic Spitz notes, the opus initially went obscurity successful the studio. That is until Stewart purchased a fuzz container for Richards a fewer days later, which gave the tune a raunchier dependable that perfectly matched Jagger’s lyrics of vexation and alienation. A classical was born.

Piercing the Stones mythology

Spitz’s heavy reporting often pierces the mythology surrounding the band. Contrary to the fashionable content of galore fans, for instance, Jones bears overmuch of the work for the rift with his bandmates and his tragic demise.

The astir musically adventurous subordinate of the radical — helium plays sitar connected “Paint It Black” and dulcimer connected “Lady Jane” — Jones wasn’t a songwriter. That stoked his jealousies and insecurities, on with frontman Jagger stealing the spotlight from him. A monster of a man, Jones impregnated aggregate teenage girls and physically and emotionally abused respective women, including Pallenberg. Perhaps that’s wherefore she near him for Richards. Over time, Jones made less contributions successful the workplace and onstage, becoming a catatonic cause casualty. The Stones fired Jones successful June 1969 but would person been justified doing truthful a mates years earlier. He drowned successful his excavation little than a period later.

Similarly, Stones lore has agelong romanticized the making of “Exile connected Main Street” successful the stifling, dingy basement of Richards’ rented Villa Nellcôte successful the South of France, wherever the Stones had decamped to debar British taxes. In this telling, Richards, heavy successful the throes of heroin addiction, someway managed to travel up with 1 indelible riff aft different built astir his signature unfastened G tuning — taught to him by Ry Cooder — starring the set to make 1 of the champion albums successful stone history. That’s not wholly accurate, according to Spitz.

Yes, Richards came up with the licks for “Rocks Off,” “Happy” and “Tumbling Dice.” But it’s arsenic existent that a strung-out Richards missed myriad signaling sessions, invited dealers, hangers-on and different distractions to Nellcôte, and repeatedly failed to crook up to constitute with Jagger. Far from completing the medium successful the druggy haze of a French basement, the set spent six months connected overdubs astatine Sunset Sound successful Los Angeles, wherever Jagger contributed galore of his vocals.

Beatles vs. Stones

One of the much absorbing themes Spitz develops is the symbiotic narration betwixt the Beatles and Stones, with the Fab Four mostly overshadowing them — until they didn’t.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote “I Wanna Be Your Man” and gave it to the Stones, whose 1963 rendition, with Jones connected descent guitar, became the group’s archetypal UK Top 20 hit. The Lennon-McCartney songwriting concern inspired Jagger and Richards to statesman penning their ain songs. In aboriginal 1964, the Beatles came to the U.S. for the archetypal time, making tv past with their quality connected “The Ed Sullivan Show” and playing Carnegie Hall. A fewer months later, the Stones kicked disconnected their inaugural American circuit astatine the Swing Auditorium successful San Bernardino. In 1967, the Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” a psychedelic masterpiece. The Stones responded with “Their Satanic Majesties Request,” a psychedelic mess.

As the Beatles began to splinter, Spitz writes, the Stones sharpened their focus. The set released “Beggars Banquet” successful precocious 1968 and “Let It Bleed” the pursuing year, albums each spot arsenic innovative and visionary arsenic “The White Album” and “Abbey Road.” For the archetypal time, the 2 groups stood arsenic equals.

When the Beatles broke up successful 1970, the Stones kept rolling. With Jones replaced by virtuoso guitarist Mick Taylor — whose fluid, melodic benignant served arsenic a tasty foil to Richards — they produced what galore see their finest works, “Sticky Fingers” and “Exile connected Main Street.” More impressively, the band, with Taylor’s successor, Ronnie Wood, has continued to dazzle audiences with incendiary unrecorded shows, touring arsenic precocious arsenic 2024 down the late-career triumph “Hackney Diamonds.” The Beatles, by contrast, retired from the roadworthy successful 1966 and devoted their energies to the studio.

Hundreds of books person been written astir the Rolling Stones, but fewer sparkle rather similar Spitz’s. For anyone who loves oregon adjacent likes the Stones, it’s indispensable.

Like astir of the band’s biographers, Spitz gives abbreviated shrift to the post-“Exile” play aft 1972. He curtly dismisses 2005’s beardown “A Bigger Bang” and 2016’s “Blue & Lonesome,” a back-to-basics medium of blues covers, arsenic “adequate endeavors that signaled a set surviving connected borrowed time.” That critique is some disconnected people and under-developed. Spitz ignores the band’s legendary unrecorded album, “Brussels Affair,” recorded successful 1973, oregon wherefore the set waited decades earlier officially releasing it.

These are tiny quibbles. Spitz has written a publication worthy of its 704-page length; different 50 oregon truthful pages covering the aboriginal years would person made it adjacent stronger. To punctuation the Rolling Stones: “I cognize it’s lone stone ‘n roll, but I similar it, similar it, yes, I do.”

Marc Ballon, a erstwhile Times, Forbes and Inc. Magazine reporter, teaches an precocious penning people astatine USC. He lives successful Fullerton.

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