From a chance reunion at a train station to becoming "the greatest rock and roll band in the world" — the Stones' wild rise over six decades.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were childhood friends who lost contact in 1954, only to reunite by chance on October 17, 1961, at Dartford railway station. Jagger was carrying records by Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters, revealing a shared musical passion that sparked one of rock's greatest partnerships.
Brian Jones named the band during a phone call to Jazz News magazine. When asked for the band's name, he spotted a Muddy Waters LP on the floor — one of its tracks was called "Rollin' Stone." Jones served as the band's uncontested leader during its early years.
Manager Andrew Loog Oldham deliberately crafted the Stones as the dangerous counterpart to the Beatles, encouraging long hair, unmatched clothing, and provocative headlines like "Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?" He was only 19 when he took over — younger than anyone in the band.
Their first single, a cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On," was released on June 7, 1963. The band actually refused to play it at live gigs, and Decca Records bought only one ad to promote it. Fan-club members were directed to buy copies at chart-polled shops, pushing it to No. 21.
Decca Records, which had infamously declined to sign the Beatles, gave the Stones remarkably favorable terms: triple the normal royalty rate, full artistic control, and ownership of their master tapes. The band also got to record at independent studios instead of being locked into Decca's facilities.
On January 1, 1964, the Rolling Stones became the first band to perform on BBC's Top of the Pops, playing "I Wanna Be Your Man" — a song written for them by Lennon and McCartney. Their own version reached No. 12 on the UK charts.
Their first US tour in June 1964 was "a disaster" according to Bill Wyman, as they had no American hit record. Guest host Dean Martin openly mocked their hair and performance on The Hollywood Palace variety show.
The band recorded at Chess Studios in Chicago during that troubled 1964 tour, meeting heroes like Muddy Waters. Those sessions produced their first UK No. 1 single — a cover of Bobby and Shirley Womack's "It's All Over Now."
In 1970, the band launched Rolling Stones Records and debuted their iconic tongue and lips logo. Sticky Fingers (1971) was the label's first release and kicked off an astonishing streak of eight consecutive number-one studio albums in the US.
The Rolling Stones have sold over 250 million albums, won four Grammy Awards plus a Lifetime Achievement Award, and by 2007 had broken the all-time highest-grossing concert tour record three times. Their 2023 album Hackney Diamonds became their fourteenth UK number-one album.