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The Rise of the Rolling Stones 

It was a cold October day in 1960, when Mick Jagger travelling to the London School of Economics, and Keith Richards, on his way to Sidcup Art College ran into each other on Dartford Railway Station. It would be the first time since their days at Wentworth County Primary that they had seen each other, and today they would rekindle their friendship through their discovery of a mutual love and affection for American rhythm and blues.

Michael Philip Jagger was born on 26 July 1943 in Dartford, Kent. His father, Basil Joe Jagger, came from Lancashire, and his mother, Eva Mary, was born in Australia. Mick went to Wentworth Junior County Primary School, where he made his early friendship with Keith, who had been born on 18 December 1943, to staunch working-class parents.

'We lived on the same block for a while when we were kids,' recalls Mick. 'Another guy who lived on the block was the painter Peter Blake, but it was a pretty rough block. Keith and I went to the same school at one point and we walked home together. Then I met him later on and we really remembered each other.'

After completing school, Mick won a scholarship tot he London Scool pf Economics to study law, and it was during his time there that he met up with Keith again. Their regular get-togethers resulted in a band, Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. The pair formed the band together with school chums Dick Taylor, Bob Beckwith and Allan Etherington and concentrated on imitating the early recordings of Jimmy Reed and Chuck Berry. 'I can remember Mick practising with a group of boys outside our house in Beckwith,' recalls Mrs Taylor, Jagger's neighbour and mother of group member, Dick Taylor. 'We used to sit in the next room and crease up with laughter. It was lovely, but so loud. I always heard more of Mick than I saw of him. I didn't dream they were serious. I thought it was just for fun.' At this time Mick was still supposedly studying at the LSE and he dragged himself their just often enough to avoid being thrown out and losing his college grant.

Keith was far more into imagery than Mick at this time. He had already been through his “teddy boy” period, wearing drainpipe trousers and lurid pink socks, while he was at Dartford Technical College before going on to do three years at Sidcup College of Art.

At the time Keith met Mick, teenagers were slowly being turned on to the blues, signalling a major musical shift away from jazz. The musical giants of this new music were people like Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters.

In Britain, Chris Barber, jazz band leader, co-founder of the first working skiffle group, and blues lover of many years standing, decided he wanted to include a taster of this new American music into his show. Eventually settling for a Chicago Blues spot for his wife, Odele Paterson, he got in touch with Alexis Korner, who, by early 1959 had earned himself a name for playing the blues; real blues. Alexis was introduced to Cyril Davies.

'In our search for a guitar player who understood the blues, Chris couldn't think of a practising expert guitar player, but he did know a fan who could play the guitar", recalls Harold Pendleton, Chris's business associate and at that time the manager of the Marquee Club in London. 'He'd known Alexis for many years. He'd been to all our concerts when we brought in people like Sonny and Brownie, Muddy Waters and so on. Chris realised that Alexis knew what was required, so we dropped the horns, trumpet, clarinet and trombone and added Cyril and Alexis to the rhythm section. We started these half hour sets of rhythm and blues down at the Marquee on a Wednesday night, which the audience really seemed to appreciate.'

As time progressed Alexis earned himself a name for playing with people like Ken Coyler, and also for running the London Club known as The Blues And The Barrelhouse; but eventually he wanted to break away musically with his own group. He had never really been that comfortable with the jazz part of Barber's set, so the split was not that surprising. However, Korner quickly found that there was a lack of clubs and venues prepared to book anything else other than jazz bands. He was aware that there was a huge audience of rhythm and blues fans waiting to be captured, so he decided to start his own club in Ealing Broadway, calling it the Ealing Club. Soon his band, Blues Incorporated, was playing to capacity audiences in the back room behind the ABC Bakery.

Meanwhile, Mick and Keith were rehearsing with their band in Kent, and a brilliant guitarist from Cheltenham called Brian Jones was looking for the chance to play the interval spot for Blues Incorporated. He got in touch with Korner and pleaded to be given the opportunity.

Brian Lewis Hopkins-Jones was born on 28 February 1942, to Lewis Blont and Louise Beatrice Jones. Lewis, worked as an aeronautical engineer and Louise taught the piano. Brian attended Dean Close Public School as a day boy before going to Cheltenham Grammar, where he was suspended for a short time after encouraging rebellion against prefects, though he managed to leave with nine 'O' levels and two 'A' levels. By 1958, Brian's interest in music had lead him to be the secretary of the local 66 Jazz Club. By then, he was playing saxophone in several local jazz bands including Bill Nile's Delta Jazz Band. This was followed by a spell with The Ramrods, a loud rock band that played gigs at local dances and art schools. Brian became estranged from his family after leaving several young girls pregnant, and rather than go to University, he chose to work, starting out with a job on the buses, then as a coalman, and finally in a record shop.

Alexis could not deny Brian his break, so in the March 1962, Brian sat in with Korner's band for the first time. By chance, Korner had also invited Mick, who like Brian, had asked to fill the interval slot.

'I remember when Mick and Keith first came down to the club,' recalls Long John Baldry, who was at that time the vocalist of Blues Incorporated. 'Basically Mick's repertoire was all Chuck Berry things, but the first ever thing I heard Mick play and sing was Beautiful Delilah. Keith had a tatty old guitar then, but then I don't think anybody had particularly good electric guitars at that time. Even so, Keith's was pretty primitive. It was at that same time that I can remember Brian coming down from Cheltenham but he wasn't playing electric guitar then, as far as I recall he played acoustic.'

It was not until Brian grabbed a second spot guesting with Blues Incorporated on the 7 April, that he met Mick, Keith and Dick Taylor. That meeting allowed the guys that would eventually form the greatest rock n roll band in the world to acquaint themselves with each other. But Brian had already made plans to start his own band. He had placed an advertisement in Jazz News asking for interested musicians to attend a rehearsal. Jagger and company were not invited to drop by so, for the time being, at least, Mick, Keith and Dick continued their visits to the Ealing Club, with Mick sitting in with Alexis's band whenever he could.

'It was ever so wet,' remembers Mick, 'so wet that Cyril had to put a sort of horrible sheet up over the bandstand so the condensation didn't drip directly on us - it just dripped through the sheet onto us instead of directly. It was very dangerous too, because of all this electricity and microphones but I never got a shock.

'It was so primitive... and there was old Alexis with his guitar with a pick-up across it. I remember scenes with John Baldry and Paul Jones, who was very cool in those days. He used to get up there with shades on, trying to be ever so cool with a donkey jacket, but he used to sing quite nicely, quite sort of mature. I could never get in key - it was always a problem 'coz I was quite often drunk. The first time I sang down there I was really nervous because I'd never sung in public before. I remember I used to sing Got My Mojo Working with John Baldry and Paul Jones sometimes, but they were all much taller than me so I always used to feel very small. But that was at the very beginning of everything. Tuesday nights down there were amazing, about six people used to come and it was so cold that we had to play with our coats on.'

In the meantime Brian was auditioning the musicians who had respinded to his Jazz News advertisement. One musician who dropped by to take a look was a boogie woogie pianist from Cheam in Surrey, called Ian Stewart. 'From my point of view the Stones started with Brian really, in that he was the first one I met. There was only him and a couple of other guys at the rehearsal. He didn't like the piano player he'd got, so I just started playing piano and we went through different people. This was at a time when the Ealing thing was starting, and of course, Brian knew Alexis, and so he got to know Mick, Keith and Charlie.'