"Keith cannot be killed by conventional weapons"

Waynes World II

"I want to be like Roy Rogers and play guitar," Keith Richards told Mick Jagger, soon after they met in 1951 at Wentworth Primary School. Since opportunities for singing cowboys were hard to come by in London´s suburban sprawl, he badgered his mother into buying a guitar, in due course, he redirected to fanatically regearsed Chuck Berry riffs – though his love of music also found a rather different outlet via his stint as a boy soprano chorister of sufficient purity to sing, on one occasion, for the Queen at Westminster Abbey.

Not close as children, Keith and Mick drifted apart through the teens. The more academic Jagger securing a university place at the London School Of Economics while Richards went to Sidcup Art School. But, in 1961, they happened to bump into each other at Dartford railway station, and Mick almost dropped the imported Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry albums. So… they started talking.

Jagger wanted Richards to join his band. Little Boy Blue & The Blue Boys, and soon they were denizens of Ealing Jazz Club in West London. Frequented by fresh-faced R&B fans like Eric Clapton, Ron Wood, Dave Davies and Jeff Beck, the venue often featured Alexis Korner´s Blues Incorporated with drummer Charlie Watts and guitar guest ´Elmo Lewis´, aka Brian Jones.

Then, in April 1962, jones was introduced to Jagger and Richards at the club, he spotted kindred spirits and pulled them into his band, unnamed until that June when they started gigging as The Rollin´Stones – taken from Muddy Water´s line "I´m a rollin´stone" in ´Mannish Boy´. The line-up included Ian Stewart on piano and former Blue Boys bassist Dick Taylor, withno permanent drummer. Bill Wyman´s book Stone Alone notes that they made their debut at The Marquees in London, on July 12 1962.

Jagger, Richards and Jones moved into a legendarily dirty flat in the West London neighbourhood of Chelsea. Constant jamming developed the two guitarists´innovative style of seamless lead and rhythm playing. But their first demo of Muddy Water´s, Jimmy Reed and Bo Diddley covers produced nothing.

In December 1962, Bill Wyman joined on bass, partly because he had a spare Vox AC30 amplifier (Dick Taylor moved on to The Pretty Things). He dropped into an unusual rhythmic slot: following the beat set by Richards – which, says Wyman, "is the reason for our sound". The revised line-up first played at Berkshire´s Ricky Tick Club on 11 January 1963 – six days before The Beatles´first big hit, ´Please Please Me´, entered the UK chart.

Then Andrew Loog Oldham entered the scene. A 19-year-old publicist who had worked for designer Mary Quant and Beatles manager Brian Epstien, he saw them play and, in May 1963, took on their management (with his partner Eric Easton).

His first gambits included installing himself as producer, replacing the ´g´in Rolling, cutting the ´s´off Richards, and pushing Ian Stewart into the background (he remained as road manager, occasional pianist and the ´sixth Stone´until his death in 1985).

On 9 May, the Stones signed to Decca. The following day they recorded their first single, a cover of Chuck Berry´s ´Come On´. "It really was shit," Jagger moaned later on. "God knows how it ever got in the charts." The next month they were at UK No.21 and on TV Pop show Thank Your Lucky Stars. The race was on.

Their next hit arose when Oldham brought John Lennon and Paul McCartney to a Stones´rehearsal. On the spot, The Beatles finished writing ´I wanna Be Your Man´and gave it to their rivals. It went to UK No.12 in December 1963, propelling the Stones to co-headline status with The Ronettes on a UK package tour.

Oldham made most impact by telling them they wouldn´t last as a covers band and locking Jagger and Richards in a room until they had a song. While their next hits were Buddy Holly´s "Not Fade Away"´, Bobby Womack´s ´It´s All Over Now´(their first UK No.1) and Willie Dixon´s ´Little Red Rooster´, early Jagger-Richard songs went to Gene Pitney (´That Girl Belongs To Yesterday´) and Marianne Faithfull (´As Tears Goes By´), soon Jagger´s girlfriend.

Their debut album The Rolling Stones ousted With The Beatles from Uk No.1 in May 1964. The following month Oldham took them to America for their first time, after which the album went to US No.11. The trip also included an interlude at Chess Studios, Chicago, where they met Muddy Waters – he was painting the ceiling – and recorded ´It´s All Over Now´.

Although 1965 began with the Stones arraying themselves at the feet of Howlin´Wolf on US TV´s Shindig!, it soon produced their first Jagger-T´Richards UK No. 1, ´The Last Time´. They confirmed their writing ability with a drum-roll of immortal hits: ´(I Can´t Get No) Satisfaction´(their first US No.1), ´Get Off Of My Cloud´, ´19^th Nervous Breakdown´and ´Paint It Black´.

While the Stones concentrated on hits, their US label London assembled tracks recorded for British EP´s to make 12x5 (1964), The rolling Stones No.2, The Rolling Stones Now, the US No.1 Out Of Our Heads and December´s Children (all 1965). Buried in a mass of R&B covers were diamonds like the menacingly acoustic ´Play With Fire´, the proto-punk ´She Said Yeah´and the optimistic ´I´m Free´ ( a 1990 smash for bandwagon-hoppers The Soup Dragons).

Aftermath was the turning point. " A good album" , said Jagger, "and the first one for which we wrote all the songs". Pop´s first really long album (52 minutes, of which 11 are ´Goin´Home´) cemented Stones lyrical motifs, notably drugs (´Mother´s Little Helper´) and feminine failings (´Stupid Girl´). In the latter category fell ´Under My Thumb´, whose ominous mood and marimbas, coupled with the sitar-driven drama of ´Paint It Black´´ and dulcimer-driven ´Lady Jane´ - all the produvt of Jones´musical ambition – helped to push Rock above its R&B roots (though Dylan´s Blonde On Blonde and The Beatles´Revolver, both also from 1966, nabbed the credit).

Meanwhile, the Stones forged a reputation as the ´bad boy´antihesis of The Beatles. There was rioting at gigs (50 in casualty after a Blackpool gig in July 1964), uproar on staid TV shows (Ed Sullivan warned "They´ll never be back" after audience disorder, but later relented) and a legendary garage wall urination (Jagger, Wyman and Jones were fined for "insulting behaviour" in July 1965). During 1965, hardnosed American manager Allen Klein ousted Easton as their co-manager. The Stones did not appear to be in training for the summer of love; in fact, their most notable shows of 1967 were in court rooms. In February, police raided Richards´country house, Redlands in Sussex, charging him and Jagger with narcotics offences. They were convicted and Richards sentenced to a year in prison, Jagger to three months.

Bailed after a night in jail, they became a cause célèbre, most notably for Times editor William Rees-Mogg, whose headline qouted Alexander Pope: "Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?". Richards´conviction was quashed because of a trial irregularity and Jagger´s sentence reduced to a conditional discharge.

Jones, depressed at losing control of the band he had founded to Jagger and Richards and also losing his girlfriend, actress Anita Pallenberg, to Richards, sank into a mire of personal problems. Arrested at his home in May 1967 for possesion of drugs, he avoided a prison sentence only because his lawyer pleaded that he was showing "suicidal tendencies". In September 1967 the Stones split with Oldham, signing wholly to Klein.

Musically too, unease prevailed Got Live If You Want It! (1966) was exciting but patchy; Between The Buttons (1967) was, said Jagger. "more or less rubbish"; and Their Satanic Majestic Request (1967) betrayed the promise of their first, thrilling hop aboard the psychedelic bandwagon, the post-trial hit, ´We Love You´.

In May 1968, the new single, ´Jumping Jack Flash´, exulted in the first of a new generation of Richards´power-riffs and a new production partnership with Jimmy Miller.

After a last psychedelic pratfall in the ill-conceived Rock And Roll Circus film (with The Who and John Lennon) – which the band refused to release until 1997 – the Stones strutted into their dark prime. Beggars Banquet (1968) reflected Richards´having "had the time to foll around and figure out som of those old Blus tunings" – hence much of the album´s acoustic earthiness. Its best-known cuts, however, are the Satanic samba ´Sympathy For The Devil´and the ragged rocker ´Street Fighting Man´- later victims of covers by, respectively, Guns N´Roses and Oasis.

The sleazy, magnificent ´Honky Tink Women´- their last UK and US No.1 – was their keynote single of 1969, the year in which Jones left ("I no longer see eye to eye with the others over the discs we are cutting," he announced), then died in his pool on 3 July (coroner´s verdict: "drowned while under the influence of alcohol and drugs"). Two days later, their colossal free gig in Hyde Park, London, turned into a memorial to Jones. It was also the initiation of former John Mayall band guitarist Mick Taylor. Days later, after Jagger flew to Australia with Marianne Faithfull to film Ned Kelly, she took an overdose and lay in a coma for eight days

The band closed the peace and love decade with Rock´s most notorious convert. At Californis Altamont speedway track on 6 December, they precided over a day of seething menace. When Meredith Hunter, an 18-year-old standing in front of the stage, pulled a gun, he was stabbed to death by Hell´s Angels whom the Stones, on The Grateful Dead´s advice, had put in charge of security – an event recorded for the 1972 movie Gimme Shelter.

The film took its title from the lead cut on Let It Bleed (1969). That album and Sticky Fingers (1971) – recorded around the same time – alternately dressed their sex, death ´n´drugs themes in monolithic Rock (´Gimme Shelter´, ´Sway`), Wiry R&B (´Live With Me´) or scary Blues (´Midnight Rambler´, ´Moonlight Mile´). In between, the live Get Yer Ya Ya´s Out (1970) documented a 1969 return to the road that ushered in the band´s mega-touring.

Their lyrics and lifestyles now the epitome of 70s decadence, the Stones sailed into high finance and high society. In July 1970, they severed ties with Klein, placed their affairs with financial adviser (and minor Austrian royal) Prince Rupert Loewenstein and launched suits against both Klein and Oldham-Easton. Klein doggedly held the rights to the 60s material for the nesxt three decades. The band quit Decca with the unreleasable ´Cocksucker Blues´and launched their Rolling Stones Records label, complete with a now immortal, Andy Warhol-designed tongue logo.

Jagger´s movie career took its first steps in 1970 with the dire Ned Kelly and controversial Performance, the latter co-starring Anita Pallenberg and yielding the scabrous solo single ´Memo From Turner´. Jagger grabbed more of the limelight on 12 May 1971 by marrying Nicaraguan model Bianci Moreno de Macias. As they moved among the glitterati, Richards plunged into heroin addiction, but drove the Stones´music to its ecstatic peak. At his home in Nellcôte, France, where they´d decamped for tax purposes, he charged the Stones £250 a week each for room and board and bridled every time Jagger slunk to Paris to see gangoutcast Bianca. Nonetheless, the resulting Exile On Main Street (1972) alchemized its sprawling blend of spooky Gospel, blitzed Blues and fuel-injected Rock ´n´Roll into a gripping whole.

After Exile, Richards confessed, " It tailed off a little bit… that was not so much to do with being the 70s rich-jet-set-superstar-Rock ´n´Roll-whatever, but more to do with the fact that, in order to keep the band together, we´d had to leave England." However, the sloppy Goat´s Head Soup (1973) spawned the weepy US No. 1 ´Angie´, It´s Only Rock ´N´Roll (1974) was self-mocking but strong and Black And Blue (1976) was a tragically underrated immersion in Funk and Reggae (trailed by It´s Only Rock ´N´Roll´s ´Fingerprint File´and ´Luxury´) that also boasted two of their greatest ballads, ´Fool To Cry´ and ´Memory Motel´. All three topped the US chart.

With Richards consumed by heroin, Jagger took over the motivator role: "Mick had to cover for me. He did exactly what a friend should do." He kept the money.making machine running, especially on the US stadium circuit, with spectacular shows and effects, such as 1975´s giant, unfolding lotus-shaped stage and 20ft inflatable penis. But chaos kept veering towards collapse. Richards was repeatedly busted for drugs, driving and even weapons offences and, in 1976, his son Tara died at 10 weeks. Mick Taylor, who had contributed hugely, succumbed to heroin and, in December 1974, had to quit and "move on to something new" – a modest career of occasional sessions and solo ventures.

His successor, The Faces´Ron Wood, was the man the Stones always wanted, despite auditioning other players on Blavk And Blue. Their long jamming friendship convinced Richards that he would prove the true substitute for Brian Jones, bonding lead and rhythm where the Taylor-Richards tandem had found it necessary to divide them. "Me and Woody don´t know who played the last lick. It´s as close as that," Richards once observed.

The Stones´redemption – a peculiar concept – began amid their worst crisis. On 28 February 1977, Richards and Pallenberg were arrested in Toronto and charged with possession of heroin and cocaine. The meida focused even more on the band when Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau´s wife Margaret joined the Stones´entourage. Amid the outraged decency and outlaw surrounding the "worlds most elegantly wasted human being", Richards began to hawl himself back from the brink.

The case hanging over him for more than a year threatened his own liberty and his band´s ability to travel the world. Richards – who re-apodted his terminal ´s´ following constant repetition of his proper name in court reports – sought out Dr Meg Patterson, whose ´black-bx´method of applying low-voltage electric current had helped to cure Eric Clapton. A first try failed: he used heroin while recording Some Girls (1978). But with Jagger and his new girlfriend Jerry Hall in attendance while the album was mixed in New York, he put himself through a personal variant of the Patterson process, which embraced cocaine and alcohol as an alternative to heroin. Surprisingly, it seemed to work.

The Stones were buoyed by the frazzled Love You Live (1977), although that was eclipsed by 1978´s quadruple-platinum Some Girls (1978). Though its biggest hits were the Disco-ish US No.1 ´Miss You´and witty ´Beast of Burden´, the best cut was Richards autobiographical but cheerful ´Before They Make Me Run`.

Appropriately, when he finally stood trial in October 1978, he received only a suspended sentence and an order to play a gig to benefit the Canadian National Institute For The Blind. The lifestyle transition was completed when, in July 1980 (shortly before Jagger and Bianca´s divorce), he parted from Pallenberg to set up house with his future wife, American model Patti Hansen.

The stones crashed the new decade with Emotional Rescue (1980) which, reported author Nocholas Schaffner, "sparked a running debate in The Village Voice over whether its contents are magnificently contrived junk or just plain unredeemed junk".

There was less debate about Tattoo You (1981). Ranging from the riffmasterly trhowback ´Start Me Up´to the sun-drenched ´Waiting On A Friend´, it heralded the most lucrative concert tour ever (a record the Stones broke again in the 80s and 90s) – hence 1982´s Still Life (American Convert 1981). They rounded off the resurgence with Undercover (1983) – source of the Funkfuelled, plasma-splattered hits Úndercover Of The Night´and ´Too Much Blood´. Their gory videos went out of their way to court controversy ine the wake of belated establishment recognition – they had won a 1982 Silver Clef award for Outstanding Contribution To British Music.

But by then they were drifting apart. Wyman – who had scored minor hits with Satanic Majesties ´In Another Land´, Monkey Grip (1974) and Stone Alone (1976), hit big with ´(Si SI) Je Suis Un Rock Star´from Bill Wyman (1981). Wood took to painting and watts practised his passion for jazz with his Big Band. The Stones´shaky state made 1984´s excellent Rewind (1971-1984) look like an epitaph, an impression strengthened when they played seperately at Live Aid (Jagger with Hall & Oates and Tina Turner, Richards and Wood with Dylan).

Most damaging to the band´s future was Jagger´s solo career. Having duetted with The Jacksons on ´State Of Shock´(1984), he stepped out alone with She´s The Boss (1985), which coincided with an attempt Stones revival. But the sessions were riddled with rows: Richards felt Jaggers was committing the cardinal sin of not putting the Stones first; Jagger reasonably pointed out that everyone else had done solo projects, so why should´t he?

They squeezed the underrated Dirty Work (1986), but its only hit was a cover of Soul duo Bob & Earl´s ´Harlem Shuffle´. Their own Óne Hit (To The Body) – with uncredited lead guitar by Jimmy Page – was the first Stones single not to chart in the UK, Irking Richards even more, Jagger refused to tour, arguing that the band – still dogged by dring and drugs – "couldn´t walk across the Champs Èlysées, much less go on the road".

The split looked even more serious when Jagger made 1987´s Primitive Cool. Even Richards went solo: he (with Wood) guested on Aretha Franklin´s cover of ´Jumping Jack Flash´(theme to the movie of the same name), then helmed 1987´s chuck Berry tribute movie Hail! Hail! Rock´n´Roll – Richards had inducted Berry into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1986, admitting "I lifted every lick he ever played". Finally, he let loose the fantastic solo album Talk Is Cheap (1988), a return to Exile-ish Rock.

When the Stones gathered for a meeting at the Savoy Hotel, London, on 18 May 1988, it was the first time had been in a room together for two years. The following January, Jagger and Richards reconvened in Barbados and, after a spirited shouting match, clicked back into writing like old times. A few days later, aptly, they were inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

Steel Wheels (1989), including US No.5 ´Mixed Emotions´, was their biggest seller since Tattoo You and proved the platform for their middle-aged glory days of colossal, cleverly paced tours, surpassing all previous profits. Rolling Stone magazine´s readers rewarded them with Best Artist, Best Band, Best Tour and Best Comeback of the year awards (as well as Worst Album Cover).

Their stately tread through the 90s was marked by 1991´s live Flashpoint, 1994´s patchy Voodoo Lounge (the first Stones album without Wyman, who retired in March 1992 and was replaced by Darryl Jones), 1995´s live Stripped (including a cover of Dylan´s ´Like A Rolling Stone´) and 1997´s Bridges To Babylon (including the hit Ánybody Seen My Baby, whose inadvertent resemblance to ´Constant Craving´won kd lang a co-credit). Meanwhile, finally reconciled to the idea of solo albums, Richards made the tedious main Offender (1992) and Jagger weighed in with more ambitious but equally unmemorable Wanderinf Spirit (1993).

To purist chagrin, they also explored more tangential sources of income: Making $2.8 million when Klein allowed Snickers to use ´(I Can´t Get No) Satisfaction´in a 1991 TV ad, launching a Rolling Stones credit card for the Voodoo Lounge tour, and selling ´Start Me Up´for $5 million to advertise Microsoft´s Windows ´95.

With Jagger a grandfather and elected Honorary President of his LSE alma mater ahead of both Mother Theresa and Carlos The Jackal, the Stones have passed beyond criticism and censure into the realm of myth. The approaching millennium found them on a year-long Bridges To Babylon tour, with Richards and Wood solo albums on the stock and reviews for Jagger´s role as a drag queen in a Nazi concentration camp in the movie Bent (1998) suggesting he might have a future as an actor after all.