On July 12, 1962, the Rolling Stones performed their first show at London's Marquee Club. 1)
Despite their perceived competition, the Beatles were early supporters of The Rolling Stones, assisting them in finding a management and penning the Stones' first song, “I Wanna Be Your Man”. 2)
Drummer Charlie Watts worked as a graphic designer before joining the band. Many of the band's album covers, concert posters, and stage setups have been designed by him. 3)
Ian “Stu” Stewart, a piano player for The Rolling Stones, was a member of the band from the beginning. Stewart respectfully stood aside as the band's road manager because their manager, Andrew Loog-Oldham, thought he didn't “fit the image” of the band. Until his death in 1985, the band continued to include him in recording sessions. 4)
Stewart and the rest of the band were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.5)
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards originally met when they were five years old and attended basic school together until Jagger moved away in 1950. 6)
Jagger and Richards have written hundreds of songs, including fourteen of Rolling Stone magazine's “500 Songs of All Time.” In 1993, they were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. 7)
If it hadn't been for their manager, Andrew Loog-Oldham, Jagger and Richards might not have created a single song. He explained that they were running out of good songs to cover. When this failed to persuade Jagger and Richards, Loog-Oldham confined them in a kitchen and refused to let them out until they wrote an original song. 8)
In addition to writing the majority of The Rolling Stones' songs, Jagger and Richards have produced the majority of the Stones' albums since the 1970s, going by the alias “The Glimmer Twins”. 9)
Their 2006 show at Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach received 1.5 million watchers, either in person or via online streaming, making it the most watched concert in history. 10)
Both Richards and Jagger were imprisoned in 1967 for separate drug-related offenses and faced up to a year in prison. Their arrests sparked outrage in the music community, and even the stuffy Times of London accused the cops of persecution in an oddly worded editorial, “Who Breaks a Butterfly on a Wheel?” 11)
Throughout the 1960s, the Rolling Stones were positioned as a darker, more dangerous alternative to the Beatles, and the band tried their best to live up to the expectations, engaging in all manner of deceptive, hedonistic conduct. 12)
Windows spent $3 million to use the song in advertising for Windows 95 in 1995. It was the first time the Stones' music had been used in a commercial campaign. 13)
The Rolling Stones' most-played song in concert is “Jumpin' Jack Flash,” which they've performed over 1,100 times. 14)
One of the band's biggest songs was “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.” However, the song was almost never published by The Rolling Stones. 15)
The decision to release the song as a single was decided by the band in a 3-2 vote. The only people who disagreed were Jagger and Richards, who felt the song lacked commercial appeal. 16)