Those strong R & B signature guitar lines were so danceable, the rhythms and weaving
guitars that were the basis for their music. The Stones were the first, biggest and the 'bad boys sexually
charged' rock band.
Brian Jones. It was Jones who started
the band and gave it their name and more than that their 'electric blues'
sound. He realised that the niche market for R & B could be taken to a
mainstream audience.
The lost boy, never satisfied and sadly he became the first of the '27 Club'. He was the UK's
first slide guitarist and one of the best blues guitarists in London at that time. Before he left his hometown, Jones said - 'I'm gonna move to London, start a band and
I'm going to become rich and famous.'
Every time 'Brown Sugar' played at student parties,
people took to the dance floor and the track never failed to get everyone on
their feet. Mick Jagger is rarely
still on stage - so does their music reflect his dancing or vice versa! The French students that were in abundance In
Princes street gardens Edinburgh
over the summer months in the city also loved the Stones. Former school mates Jagger and Keith Richards became the
main songwriting team in the band. At the start the band was led by Brian
Jones, known for his mop top long blond fringe and cool demeanour( he was the
hip mod), and they played mostly cover songs, that had been selected by Jones -
such as Little Red Rooster. I started
this blog a month ago as The Stones were another huge influence on my musical
tastes. The past week I noticed coincidentally that it is The Stones 50th
anniversary. I think I'm getting psychic over music now!
Brian Jones, The Stones 1962- 69. There is a very good article on Brian Jones, founder of The Rolling Stones
in Mojo - the band were initially called the 'Brian Jones Blues band.' He started the Stones sound and then was sadly sidelined, perhaps due to his own personal difficulties - drugs, abusing women and paying himself more than the rest of the band, not always the best idea. He brought the
tunes of Robert Johnston, Elmore Jones,
Muddy Waters, and leading British bluesman Cyril Davies. Jones unlocked the
blues secrets for Richards, taught Jagger the first rules of showmanship and
brought invention and flamboyance to the band's extraordinary run of 60s
singles. Try 'Singles Collection: The London
Years.'
While Jones'
main instruments were the guitar and the harmonica, he was also a talented multi-instrumentalist. Since his school days he
had a focused interest in the music of skiffle, trad jazz, modern jazz and the blues. He started out playing jazz with local bands
and later became Britain's
first slide guitarist. Jones studied American blues music and was influenced by
bluesman Cyril Davies, who was
himself a devotee of Leadbelly's.
Davies was perhaps the best player on the British trad and folk blues scene and
his playing matched the intensity of the Chicago
originals. Brian was influenced by Elmore Jones open D tuning on guitar and
also by bluesman at the crossorads Robert Johnston. Then the New Orleans styled jazz and blues band of Chris
Barber and Alexis Korner came to Cheltenham (Barber introduced Europe to the
music of Big Bill Broonzy, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Muddy Waters).
Jones moved
to London to
continue working on his music. There the opening of the damp basement 'Ealing
Club' became a defining place as the cradle of British rock, from The Stones to
Led Zepplin.
Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Dick
Taylor were the
first recruits for the 'Brian Jones Blues
band'. When they got a BBC session
Brian supplied the new name - the 'Rollin Stones' which was the title of a
Muddy Waters song. They started playing at the London's Marquee club and Charlie Watts
joined as the drummer. Glyn Jones, their first producer recalled, 'Brian was very much the leader, he was
quite specific about what they wanted.. He had a complete grip on everything.'
Another producer Eddie Kramer said,
'Brian was the most musically gifted. his sense of tone colour was magnificent,
he always thought out of the box. ..the marimbas on Under My Thumb. I can still
remember being amazed when he brought out the recorder for Ruby Tuesday.'
Jones sadly
was the Stone unable to gain satisfaction in life, pun intended! whether it was
with drugs or fast living. The lost boy, never satisfied. Bill Wyman remembers
Jones as a visionary who could not deal with the Jagger-Oldham-Richards trio
and he left it too late to fight back. However there were other issues too.
Jones didn't view himself as a team player, he kept to himself on tour and paid
himself more than the other band members. He was asked to leave in the band in
June and died a month later in July 1969. Original Stones bassist Wyman stated
about Jones, "...he formed the band. He chose the members. He named the
band. He chose the music we played. He got us gigs. Very influential, very
important, and then slowly lost it - highly intelligent - and just kind of
wasted it and blew it all away." Jones had close relationships and was
respected by other well known artists of the time - Dylan, Harrison, McCartney,
Townsend, Hendrix and more. These were
simpler times - no internet, or online scrutiny - simply the touring. The youth
culture had exploded with the baby boomers after the war. Basically Jones saw that mixing the new and
the old brought something exciting and fresh.
The success
of the Rolling Stones led to more popularity for blues music and musicians such
as Muddy Waters who wrote 'Rollin Stone' the song the band drew its name from. While they are best known for their No 1 rock
and roll dance tracks (Brown Sugar, Lets'
Spend the night Together, Satisfaction, Paint It Black, Little Red Rooster,
Gimme Shelter, Jumpin Jack Flash, Get Off My Cloud, Honky Tonk Woman), they
also played some unforgettable slow songs (Ruby
Tuesday, As Tears Go By,The Last Time, It’s All Over Now) Top Albums – Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Aftermath. A band for the road, The Rolling Stones have
probably spent more time on stage, performed more dates, been to more cities
and rocked more crowds than any other band. Ever.
The Stones
have had a prolific and long career and one of the longest of any rock
band. Also a prolific out put of
recorded music and live albums - 29 studio albums, 12 live albums, and 107
singles.
Footnote
: I took a listen to my favourite Stones
tracks -
Let It Bleed(69), Out Of Time (66), Under my Thumb (69), Time Is On my
Side (69 ) Rugby Tuesday (66),.Play With Fire (65), The Last Time (65)
The song Rugby Tuesday, such a classic -. Marianne Faithful recalled that Brian Jones presented an early version of
this melody to the rest of the Rolling Stones. According to Victor Bockris,
Richards came up with the basic track and the words and finished the song with
Jones in the studio. I began to think
Jones was the inspiration but that Richards and Jagger took it on to write future
songs and that much of the Stones best material was done while Jones was still
playing with the band he created.
The Rolling Stones 'endurance and
relevance' ( Quote critic and musicologist Robert Palmer) is due to the band
being 'rooted in traditional verities, in rhythm-and-blues and soul music'
while 'more ephemeral pop fashions have come and gone.' Though R & B and
blues cover songs dominated the Stones early material their repertoire has always
included rock and roll. (References from Mojo August 2012)
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