THE ROLLING STONES (England's Newest Hit Makers) @ 60

Celebrating its 60th anniversary today is the eponymous debut LP from the legendary Rolling Stones, which was released in the UK on this day, April 17th, 1964. The slightly altered US edition came out on May 29th. While The Beatles were selling a relatively wholesome "mop top" version of the looming "British invasion", The Rolling Stones were digging deep into the grit and grime of American blues & R&B to fashion their "bad boy" counterpoint.

With roots that go back as far as 1950, when Keith Richards & Mick Jagger first became classmates and friends, the real genesis of the band would come in 1961 when the pair would reacquaint themselves on the platform of the Dartford railway station. Jagger was carrying records by Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters, which revealed to Richards a shared interest. A musical partnership began shortly afterwards, a relationship that was solidified when the pair responded to an ad in the music press from Brian Jones, who was looking to put together a new band after having split from his previous group.

For the next two years, the band would build their following, taking their cue from The Beatles, but self-consciously crafting their image so as to contrast against the "fab four". While they initially dabbled with the whole "matching suit" look, their manager quickly abandoned that approach and realized that the Stones could benefit by cultivating a style and aesthetic that was counter to The Beatles more approachable & family friendly vibe. Instead, the Stones would go for a messy, unkempt and raunchier look and feel, coming off as the kind of lads parents would definitely NOT want their daughters bringing home for dinner!

For their first LP, recording was completed in only five days scattered across January and February of 1964. At this point, the songwriting prowess of the Jagger/Richards duo was barely starting to take root, so only one of their compositions was included, and that was only on the UK version of the LP. There were also a couple of songs from these sessions credited to "Nanker Phelge", which was a pseudonym used by the band from 1963 to 1965 to designate songs they'd collectively written. The selection of covers reflects the group's focus on American blues & R&B classics. The US version had a slightly different track list, plus the subtitle, "England's Newest Hit Makers", which eventually became adopted as the official title for the album on later reissues.

While the group's sense of originality and identity were still developing, their debut LP still manages to stand as one of the best examples of the British blues scene of that era, full of vitality, rawness and edge. It became one of the UK's biggest selling albums that year, holding the #1 LP slot for no less than 12 weeks. And while it lacks the iconic hit singles that would soon define the band, it still represents the group in their early prime, poised to become one of the most important rock bands of all time.