According To The Rolling Stones

Clearly inspired by ‘The Beatles Anthology’, According To The Rolling Stones tells the forty-year history of the band almost exclusively from the perspective of its four current members: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ron Wood. From a design standpoint, this book is far cleaner and more readable than the busy Anthology, and it strikes a more serious tone.

The reader is never permitted to forget that these men are musicians first, cultural icons second. In interviews conducted during the past year, the Stones recover the passion for the blues, R&B and rock & roll that first brought them together. Anyone who believes, for example, that Jagger thinks exclusively about twenty-year-old models will be stunned by his smart dissection of the drumming on Fifties records by Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. The sources of Jagger’s style as a harmonic player are discussed, and Watts routinely references the jazz musicians, some quite obscure, who form his pantheon.

The controversial aspects of the band’s career receive responsible, if officially sanctioned, attention. Richards agonizes for pages about the group’s decision to kick out pianist Ian Stewart (he became the Stones’ road manager), and Jagger coolly observes, “It was obvious that Ian Stewart didn’t fit the picture”. Jagger disappears during the lengthy section in which Richards, Watts and Wood recollect the Jagger-Richards feud of the Eighties. The most poignant moment comes when Richards says, “I love Mick dearly…. But sometimes you think… ‘Where’s the reciprocation?’ Maybe I fucked it in those ten years when I was on the dope and there is no reciprocation.”

By the time the Nineties roll around, everyone has made up – or shut up – and the band members’ dutiful praising of each other grows tedious. But According To The Rolling Stones is a pleasurable read and, because of its many terrific photographs, fun to look at, as well – a deft blend of substance and style worthy of its subject.

Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, 30 October 2003

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