The Rolling Stones
Musical development

The Rolling Stones have assimilated various musical genres into their own collective sound. Throughout the band's career, their musical contributions have been marked by a continual reference to and reliance on musical styles including blues, psychedelia, R&B, country, folk, reggae, dance, and world music —exemplified by Jones' collaboration with the Master Musicians of Jajouka —as well as traditional English styles that use stringed instruments such as harps. Brian Jones experimented with the use of non-traditional instruments, such as the sitar and slide guitar, in their early days. The group started out covering early rock 'n' roll and blues songs, and have never stopped playing live or recording cover songs. According to biographer Stephen Thomas Erlewine, the Stones "pioneered the gritty, hard-driving blues-based rock & roll that came to define hard rock with a "strong yet subtly swinging rhythm" provided by Wyman and Watts.

Jagger and Richards had a shared admiration of Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf. Little Walter influenced Brian Jones. Richards recalls, "He was more into T-Bone Walker and jazz blues stuff. We'd turn him onto Chuck Berry and say, 'Look, it's all the same shit, man, and you can do it. ' " Charlie Watts, a traditional jazz drummer, was also introduced to the blues through his association with the pair, stating in 2003, "Keith and Brian turned me on to Jimmy Reed and people like that. I learned that Earl Phillips was playing on those records like a jazz drummer, playing swing, with a straight four." Jagger, recalling when he first heard the likes of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, Fats Domino, and other major American R&B artists, said it "seemed the most real thing" he had heard up to that point. Similarly, Keith Richards, describing the first time he listened to Muddy Waters, said it was the "most powerful music ever heard... the most expressive". He also recalled, "when you think of some dopey, spotty seventeen year old from Dartford, who wants to be Muddy Waters—and there were a lot of us—in a way, very pathetic, but in another way, very... heartwarming".

Despite the Rolling Stones' predilection for blues and R&B numbers on their early live set lists, the first original compositions by the band reflected a more wide-ranging interest. Critic Richie Unterberger described the first Jagger/Richards single, "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)", as a " pop rock ballad... When began to write songs, they were usually not derived from the blues, but were often surprisingly fey, slow, Mersey -type pop numbers". " As Tears Go By ", the ballad originally written for Marianne Faithfull, was one of the first songs written by Jagger and Richards and one of many written by the duo for other artists. Jagger said of the song, "It's a relatively mature song considering the rest of the output at the time. And we didn't think of it, because the Rolling Stones were a butch blues group." The Rolling Stones did later record a version which became a top five hit in the US.

Richards said of their early writing experiences, "The amazing thing is that although Mick and I thought these songs were really puerile and kindergarten-time, every one that got put out made a decent showing in the charts. That gave us extraordinary confidence to carry on, because at the beginning songwriting was something we were going to do in order to say to Andrew, 'Well, at least we gave it a try... ' " Jagger opined, "We were very pop-orientated. We didn't sit around listening to Muddy Waters; we listened to everything. In some ways it's easy to write to order... Keith and I got into the groove of writing those kind of tunes; they were done in ten minutes. I think we thought it was a bit of a laugh, and it turned out to be something of an apprenticeship for us."

The writing of "The Last Time", the Rolling Stones' first major single, proved a turning point. Richards called it "a bridge into thinking about writing for the Stones. It gave us a level of confidence; a pathway of how to do it." The song was based on a traditional gospel song popularised by the Staple Singers, but the Rolling Stones' number features a distinctive guitar riff, played by Brian Jones. Prior to the emergence of Jagger/Richards as the Stones' songwriters, the band members occasionally were given collective credit under the pseudonym Nanker Phelge. Some songs attributed to Nanker Phelge have been re-attributed to Jagger/Richards.

Beginning with Jones and continuing with Wood, the Rolling Stones have developed what Richards refers to as the "ancient art of weaving" responsible for part of their sound—the interplay between two guitarists on stage. Unlike most bands, the Stones follow Richards' lead rather than the drummer's. Likewise, Watts was primarily a jazz player who was able to bring that genre's influences to the style of the band's drumming. The following of Richards' lead has led to conflicts between Jagger and Richards, and they have been known to annoy one another, but they have both agreed it makes for a better record; Watts in particular has praised Jagger's production skills. In the studio the band have tended to use a fluid personnel for recordings and not use the same players for each song. Guest pianists were commonplace on recordings; several songs on Beggars Banquet are driven by Nicky Hopkins ' piano playing. On Exile on Main St., Richards plays bass on three tracks while Taylor plays on four.

Richards started using open tunings for rhythm parts (often in conjunction with a capo), most prominently an open-E or open-D tuning in 1968. Beginning in 1969, he often used 5-string open-G tuning (with the lower 6th string removed), as heard on the 1969 single "Honky Tonk Women", "Brown Sugar" (Sticky Fingers, 1971), " Tumbling Dice " (capo IV), " Happy " (capo IV), (Exile on Main St., 1972), and "Start Me Up" (Tattoo You, 1981).

The feuds between Jagger and Richards originated in the 1970s when Richards was a heroin addict, resulting in Jagger managing the band's affairs for many years. When Richards got himself off heroin and became more present in decision-making, Jagger was not used to it and did not like having his authority diminished. This led to the period Richards has referred to as "World War III". Of making albums with the Stones, Richards referred to it in 2023 as "controlled madness. Mick is the controller and I'm the madness."

Musical collaboration between members of the band and supporting musicians was key, due to the fluid lineups typically experienced by the band in the studio, as tracks tended to be recorded "by whatever members of the group happened to be around at the time of the sessions". Over time, Jagger has developed into the template for rock frontmen and, with the help of the Stones, has, in the words of the Telegraph, "changed music" through his contributions to it as a pioneer of the modern music industry.

Stephen Hyden writes:

The Rolling Stones turn 50 next year, an unprecedented milestone for a rock group and confirmation of an obvious truism: Nobody survives like the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band. Starting out as a purist blues combo that fronted a bad-boy image while recording the occasional Lennon/McCartney pop tune and string-laden ballad to help secure their popularity, the Stones deftly moved through a number of guises in the '60s and '70s while remaining essentially the same band at its core. When arena-rock reigned, the Stones became an excessive live act whose decadence was on par with Led Zeppelin; when David Bowie and glam became the hippest thing in England, Mick Jagger lathered on the mascara and campy posturing. By the time of 1978's Some Girls, the Stones absorbed the energy of New York City's punk and disco scenes so completely that it reinvigorated the band's career, spawning their final (to date) No. 1 single in the U.S., "Miss You."
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