Welcome to The Music of The Rolling Stones, 1962 through 1974.
We're going to start this first video by organizing the biography and
the music of The Rolling Stones, generally.
And really just sort of pulling together some names and
places, and things like that to sort of help give you some background information.
So as we do the subsequent lectures this week you'll already sort of be informed
about some of these names and places and companies, and things like that.
So let's start as we, as we begin this study of
The Rolling Stones' music with some of the band members from the group.
We should start with Brian Jones, born in 1942,
and unfortunately, passing away in 1969.
Brian, in many ways, was the leader of the group from the very beginning, and one of,
and the real catalyst around which the group formed.
Playing guitar, and as we'll find out during the course of
these seven weeks playing a lot of different instruments for the group.
Brian's the kind of guy who seemed to be able to pick up an instrument he'd never
played before and in no time at all,
be able to figure out how to make some music on it.
And so, especially as we get into the psychedelic recordings,
you hear Brian Jones playing a lot of different things in the group's music.
Mick Jagger, born in 1943.
Lead singer of the group.
Keith Richards, 1943 as well.
Mick and Keith, of course are, we'll begin to talk about them almost immediately,
as the most important songwriting force in the The Rolling Stones' music.
Bassist, Bill Wyman, who's somewhat older than the other guys, born in 1936.
Makes him seven years older, than Keith, and Mick.
And so we'll talk a little bit about that in a, a,
just a little bit, about how that affected his relationship with the group.
Drummer Charlie Watts, born 1941.
So about the same age as Brian, Mick and Keith.
And another guy who figures into the story in an interesting kind of way and
an original band member, and that is Ian Stewart on the piano, or
Stew as he was often called by the guys in the group.
Born in 1938, passing away in 1985, Stew was originally in the group.
But when as we'll talk about Andrew Lou Golden in just a minute, when he
took over the group, he wanted Stew out because Stew didn't have the right look.
Stew was a little bit older.
He looked you know,
a little, little straighter, a little less like a kind of a pop star.
And so you know, sort of guy that he was, he didn't take it personally.
He became the kind of band manager or, or equipment manager
sort of roadie kind of guy for the group helping to organize things off stage.
And he ended up playing piano on a bunch of tracks as well.
So we'll consider him kind of an original member here of the group.
So Brian, Mick, Keith, Bill, Charlie and Stew.
When we get to the managers and
producers of of The Rolling Stones, especially in these early years,
we'll do a special feature on manager Andrew Loog Oldham, born in 1944.
So actually, the youngest guy out of all of these band members from
the original crew there acted as manager and producer of the group.
Again, we'll talk some more about that later.
And then, he was partnered with a fella by the name of Eric Easton,
who was a business a music business guy.
And they just thought Er, Eric Easton was so old.
You know, it turns out that when Eric Easton was involved with the group,
he was still not yet 40 years old.
So, I'll bet to a lot of you watching this out there, 40 doesn't seem old.
It probably seems pretty young.
For those who think 40 seems old, don't worry, your time will come, too.
So we've got Andrew Loog Oldham and
Eric Easton managing the group at the very beginning.
Just before them sort of informally managing the group is a guy by
the name of Girogio Gomelsky.
And we'll talk a little bit about him coming up here, born in 1934.
It's also important that we know some of the Blues revivalists who were involved in
this the Blues revival scene out of which the Rolling Stones emerged as
musicians and as a band.
The first and most important of those is Alexis Korner born in 1928,
passing away in 1984.
So, you can see he really was a kind of an older guy about the same age actually as
Eric Easton, and had a kind of a, a paternal you know,
sort of older, older brother kind of relationship with a lot of these guys.
And Cyril Davies,
another important Blues musician working together with Alexis Korner initially.
Born in 1932, passing away in 1964.
We also want to talk about record company people.
For us right now,
the most important record company person to talk about is Dick Rowe.
Dick Rowe, famously, and we'll mention this a little bit later,
was known as the man who turned down The Beatles.
We'll tell that story a little bit later.
But he ends up being the guy who signs the Rolling Stones to Decca Records.
We can also talk about some of the places and
companies that will fit into our story here.
First and foremost among the places,
I suppose, has to be London, the home of the band and its members.
A group that really came up out of the London scene,
the London Blues revival scene.
That's very different from the story we tell of a group say, like The Beatles,
whose origins really have everything to do with Northern England and Liverpool and
came to London as outsiders.
The Rolling Stones really sort of grew up out of the London scene.
So it's going to be really important for us in the next video to talk about what
the London scene was that they emerged out of.