Monday, July 11, 2011

Mick Jagger and the Rollin' Stones

And then there were five...although no drummer. But after Brian Jones placed an advertisement in the music magazine Melody Maker, within days Tony Chapman (who at the time played with Bill Wyman's band The Cliftons) and Mick Avory (who would later join The Kinks) showed up at the Bricklayer's Arms for auditions. And although Ian Stewart held the view that Chapman wasn't a good drummer, the latter kept rehearsing with the yet unnamed band, be it not on a permanent basis. Rehearsals then continued at the Wetherby Arms, Chelsea.

Quite unexpectedly, things went fast when on June 30, 1962 another music magazine, Disc, wrote that Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated was to appear at the BBC programme Jazz Club on July 12. A week later Disc added that owing to the Jazz Club broadcast Korner's band would not be featured in their weekly Thursday session at the Marquee International Jazz Club that night, and that their place would be taken by a new rhythm and blues group, Mick Jagger and the Rollin' Stones.

Rollin' Stones? As soon as he learnt of the upcoming Marquee gig, Brian Jones finally named the band: the Rollin' Stones, after Muddy Waters' song "Rollin' Stone". So if we look back at it now the birthdate of the Rolling Stones, as we've known them ever since, can be placed somewhere between late June and the early days of July 1962. Stu, in the meantime, thought the new band's name was a terrible name. It sounded, he argued, like the name of an Irish show band, 'or something that ought to be playing at the Savoy'.


Adapted from the following sources:
Massimo Bonanno, Aftermath, 2007.
Bill Wyman, Stone Alone, Penguin Books, 1990.

No comments:

Post a Comment