consensus has accorded them
the title of the “World’s
Greatest Rock and Roll
Band.” Throughout five
decades of shifting tastes in
popular music, the Stones
have kept rolling, adapting to
the latest styles without
straying from their roots as a
lean, sinuous rock and roll
band with roots in electric
blues. In all aspects, theirs
has been a remarkable career.
The Rolling Stones’ origins
date back to the boyhood
friendship of Mick Jagger
and Keith Richards, forged in
1951. Their acquaintance was
interrupted when both
families moved in the midFifties but got rekindled in
October 1960, when the two
ran into each other at a train
station and Richards noticed
the imported R&B albums
Jagger was carrying under his
arm. Jagger, a student at the
London School of
Economics, was a hardcore
blues aficionado,