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.
