Almost 60 years have passed since they released their first single but even today, Wild Horses can’t hold The Rolling Stones back.
And ahead of the landmark anniversary of Come On’s release in June, the band shows no sign of slowing down.
The world’s longest performing rock group’s three surviving members – Mick Jagger, 79, Ronnie Wood, 75, and Keith Richards, 79 – performed a huge anniversary Sixty Tour last year, despite having a combined age of 233.
During their six decades together, they’ve clocked up eight UK No.1 singles and 13 chart-topping albums.
But today, their first manager goes back to their roots and reveals that in June 1963, the recording birth of the then-blues covers band was very much a case of You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
Andrew Loog Oldham, 75 – who also worked with The Beatles – says: “We didn’t know what we were doing. The Stones knew what they wanted but none of us knew how to get it.
“I had never been in a studio before, except to visit The Beatles at Abbey Road during the four months I did their PR for them.
“I knew that the lab coat ‘finish at 5pm’ mentality was working for them, but it wouldn’t work for the Stones.
“We had 40 quid and three hours. I had asked guitarist Brian Jones – he was the quasi-group-leader at the time – to pick the five most commercial songs they had. Come On, a Chuck Berry B side, was one of them.”
So the original line-up – Brian, Mick, lead guitarist Keith, drummer Charlie Watts and bass player Bill Wyman – got to work.
“We started at 3pm,” Andrew recalls. “Everyone was in their Sunday best, which was funny given we were only recording, but it was a special occasion – the beginning of it all.
“At five minutes to six, I said, ‘OK, that’s it’. The engineer looked at me as if I were nuts. ‘What about mixing it?’ he asked. I said, “What’s that?’ A year later, I was an expert.”
Come On was released by the Decca label on June 7 and reached No.21 in the UK singles chart.
Not long before the band’s first single, Barry May, a teen reporter on a weekly paper, wrote the very first review of the band, who had a residency at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, South West London.
He wrote: “A musical magnet is drawing the jazz beatniks to Richmond.”
Brian liked it so much, he kept the article in his wallet.
Barry, now 79, remembers: “The day after the piece appeared, The Beatles went to the Crawdaddy to hear
the Stones. It brought them to the attention of music movers and shakers.”
Andrew later used his Fab Four links to get John Lennon and Paul McCartney to write for the Stones. The result – I Wanna Be Your Man – became the first song performed on TV’s Top of the Pops, and reached No.12 in the charts.
Of the Stones’ lengthy career, Barry says: “No one imagined they’d last so long. When Jagger was 26, he said,
‘At 33, I’ll quit. I don’t want to be a rock ’n’ roll singer all my life’.
“There were a lot of one-hit wonders then but the Stones kept their fan base from one generation to another.”
The women of the Rolling Stones
It takes a brave woman to step out with someone as famous as a Rolling Stone.
But, despite the pressures of stardom, drummer Charlie Watts and his wife Shirley had one of showbiz’s most enduring marriages and had been together for more than 50 years when he died in 2021.
Likewise, while Keith Richards dated actress Anita Pallenberg many years ago, he has been happily married to model Patti Hansen since 1983.
Ronnie Wood, however, has been married three times - to Krissy Findlay, mother of his son Jesse; Jo Wood, mother of Leah, Tyrone and his adopted son Jamie; and his current wife Sally Humphreys, mum to twins Gracie and Alice.
Guitarist Brian Jones also dated Anita Pallenberg, but was with model Anna Mohlin when he died in 1969, apparently from an accidental drowning, and she dragged his body from his swimming pool.
Former Stones bassist Bill Wyman - who left the band in 1993 - controversially married 18-year-old model Mandy Smith in 1989, who he had been dating since she was just 13.
Meanwhile, legendary womaniser Mick Jagger dated model Chrissie Shrimpton in the band’s early days. But, traumatised by his infidelity, she took an overdose and they split after three years.
Then he dated singer Marianne Faithfull, who he had been seeing behind Chrissie’s back. But Marianne battled drug problems - which are said to have contributed to their break-up - and there were rumours that she bedded Richards as revenge for Jagger’s affair with Anita Pallenberg.
In 1969 he dated US model Marsha Hunt.
Just before she gave birth to his daughter Karis in 1970, Jagger met Bianca Perez-Mora Macias at a party.
Married within a year, she was pregnant with Jade when they wed.
Divorced in 1979, Bianca blamed Jagger’s affair with model Jerry Hall, who was previously linked with Bryan Ferry.
Dating Jagger from 1977, they tied the knot in a Hindu ceremony in Bali in 1990, but the marriage was later deemed invalid.
They had four children - Elizabeth, James, Georgia and Gabriel - before parting in 1999, when it was revealed Jagger had fathered a child with Brazilian model Luciana Gimenez. During his time with Hall, he famously cheated with model Carla Bruni, who was dating Eric Clapton. She later married former French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Jagger met model L’Wren Scott in 2001, who was his partner when she took her own life in 2014, aged 49, while the Stones were on tour.
Meeting American choreographer Melanie Hamrick, 36, the same year, in 2016 she gave birth to their son Devereaux, Jagger’s eighth child.
Jumpin' Jack's facts are a gas
* Keith Richards says Brian Jones was on the phone trying to book a gig when he was asked for the band’s name. He looked down at a Muddy Waters LP, saw a track named “Rollin’ Stone Blues,” and said, “Rollin’ Stones”. Their first manager Andrew Loog Oldham later added a g!
* A staggering 1.5 million fans watched The Stones perform their Copacabana Beach gig in 2006, making it the largest rock concert ever.
* Mick Jagger attended the London School of Economics before quitting to become a rock star.
* The Rolling Stones popularised tequila sunrise cocktails while on tour in the US in 1972. They were partying at a bar in San Francisco when the barman handed Jagger a drink he called a tequila sunrise, made with grenadine, orange juice and tequila. It became their drink throughout the tour, which was dubbed ‘the cocaine and tequila sunrise tour.’
* Jagger provided backing vocals and Brian Jones played the oboe on The Beatles’ Baby You’re a Rich Man.
* Legendary designer John Pache created the Stones’ famous lips and tongue logo, allegedly inspired by the Hindu goddess Kali.
