Gathering no Moss

In 1962,childhood friends Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards formed a band in London with Watts on drums,Brian Jones on rhythm guitar and Bill Wyman on bass. The band took their name from a Bob Dylan lyric. The release of their first album was a response to the success of the boys from Liverpool,The Beatles,just two years before. From then till today,the Stones and the Beatles share a healthy rivalry,begging the question,which is the greatest rock band of all time. But in the 60s,they,along with the Yardbirds and the Honeycombs,were considered part of a musical movement,which brought together American blues with British rebellion,called the British Invasion.

In their formative years,the Stones began by covering artists like Bo Diddley,Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley,but soon developed their unique sound and an evolving stage presence. Bands of this era shared the airwaves with American artists like The Beach Boys,Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye. Of the many bands in this first wave of the British Invasion,the Stones quickly cemented an image of decadence and defiance that would define them. The explosive relationship of Jagger and Richards,both onstage and off,became the stuff of legends,influencing almost every band that followed.

By the Sixties,performers like Cream,Jimi Hendrix,The Doors,The Beach Boys,and The Beatles were ushering in a new sound of peace,love and psychedelia. The Rolling Stones came up with albums like Beggars Banquet and Exile on Mainstreet as well as films like Rock and Roll Circus,making them the quintessential bad boys of rock. They transformed the look of rock and roll musicians from the clean-cut mop tops of the 60s to the glammed-up psychedelia of the 70s. Guns n Roses,Aerosmith,NY Dolls,Led Zeppelin and U2 follow a path forged by Stones. For Axl and Slash,Page and Plant,Tyler and Perry,the book was written by Jagger and Richards.

I remember growing up in the 80s watching the Stones struggle through the awkwardly changing tides of the MTV generation. Artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna had redefined pop music in the 80s,and bands like the Stones appeared outdated. Other bands from the 60s and 70s struggled to be a part of the new video age but few rose to the status that they enjoyed in the decades past. A few like Elton John,David Bowie,Yes,Jefferson Airplane and Genesis reinvented themselves in the ambiguous Eighties,yet this proved to be more difficult for bands like the Stones,which were so definitive in the shaping of modern music in the 60s and 70s.

The 90s,however,proved to be a renaissance for a newly-awakened Rolling Stones and for a new generation of fans with the Steel Wheels album and the world tour. I remember the time well music was moving in different directions in the early 90s. Alternative rock and hip-hop began to take over the airwaves,Guns n Roses and Nirvana had changed the synth pop-heavy landscape,but it was the return of the Stones which,for me,defined the end of an era and the beginning of another in music. The Stones were all over on the charts,on MTV,touring the world,reminding everyone what a true rock star is and ought to be. This second coming of Rolling Stones has continued. Though they have all explored solo projects,and in some cases,taken time off,they always seem to return as a relevant piece of the musical puzzle. Having collaborated with contemporary artists like Bono,Black Eyed Peas and Lenny Kravitz,and being covered by artists like Pink and Britney Spears,they have reminded a newer generation what they laid down for us all. Today,the Stones continue to reinvent their sound while retaining the classic swagger that has kept them on the musical map,50 years and counting.

The writer is a musician,composer,producer and multi-instrumentalist