Biographic - Sunday March 26, 2006 Comic Strip Licensing and Permissions

Transcript

They were the first wild men of rock- thanks to the likes of "Satisfaction" "Honky Tonk Women" "Start Me Up" and a host of other rock classics, they have sold more than 100 million records.... and their tours are always the hottest tickets of the year! After four decades at the very top. The Rolling Stones can still legitimately lay claim to the title "Greatest Rock 'n' roll band in the world." Debuted in London in 1962, within a few months the settled lineup became Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, and Ian Stewart. The band's 19-year old manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, a former PR man for The Beatles began to promote them as longhaired delinquents, loutish counterparts to the lovable mop-top Beatles. Keyboard player Stewart was deemed too straight-looking and was relagated to the sidelines, although he remained an integral part of the band until his death in 1985, by the mid-'60s The Rolling Stones were one of the biggest- and baddest- bands in the world, thanks to a string of smash-hit singles and a seemingly limitless ability to create scandal, and outrage! Tragedy struck twice in 1969. Three weeks after being ousted from the band and replaced by guitarist Mick Taylor, 28-year-old Brian Jones drowned in the swimming pool of his Sussex home. A concert at California's Altamount Raceway was married by violence, resulting in four deaths, in the early 1970s, the band relocated to the South of France for a year to escape the punitive U.K tax laws of that time. By the mid-1970s, Mick Mayor had been replaced by Ronnie Wood of The Faces. Meanwhile, the tours had become more elaborate and extravagant. With The Beatles having been consigned to history, The Rolling Stones were now rocks undisputed kings. But by the late-1980s, a rift between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards seemed to signal the group's end. Yet the pair patched up their differences in time for the 1989 "Steel Wheels" tour, and The Stones have continued to roll since then (although Bill Wyman left in 1991). These days, the Erstwhile bad boys may now be elder statesmen... but their latest North American tour is still the highest grossing in history!

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