The Rolling Stones

There is an argument that will never end about who the greatest band in history is, but there is one that has been settled: nobody has lasted like the Rolling Stones. Six decades. On stage since 1962, with the same singer and the same guitarist out front, still filling stadiums past the age of eighty. It is not just longevity; it is an almost supernatural stubbornness, that of a band that decided rock and roll does not retire, and proved it until it became obvious.

The blues, first

Before the anthems and the stadiums, the Rolling Stones were a handful of English kids obsessed with the Black blues of the United States. They took their name from a Muddy Waters song. Their mission, at first, was almost missionary: to bring British youth the music of Chicago and the Delta, which almost nobody over there knew. And that root never left them. Underneath "Satisfaction", "Gimme Shelter" and "Paint It Black", the blues is always beating, that dirty, sexual, sad thing that Jagger and Richards stole with devotion and gave back transformed into the biggest rock on the planet.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards knew each other as children, met again as young men over some blues records one of them was carrying under his arm, and out of that reunion came one of the most fertile songwriting partnerships in history. They fought a thousand times, split apart artistically, always made up. The engine never went out completely.

Charlie

But if we are going to talk about the soul of the Rolling Stones, it is neither of the two who appeared on the cover. It is the one who sat at the back, quiet, elegant, with the look of a man who did not quite belong in such a circus: Charlie Watts, the drummer. A man who loved jazz more than rock, who dressed like an English gentleman, who hated touring and did it anyway for half a century. Charlie was the pulse. While Jagger danced and Richards went up in flames, he held everything together with a sober precision, without ornament, without ego. The wildest band in the world had the calmest man at its heart.

Charlie Watts died in 2021, and with him went an irreplaceable part of what the Stones were. Almost sixty years playing together, and all at once the heartbeat stopped. There is no way to replace someone like that; you can only carry on in his honour.

The record they dedicated to him

And that is what they did. In 2023, the Rolling Stones released "Hackney Diamonds", their first record of new songs in eighteen years. A record almost nobody expected from a band that age, and which turned out to be alive, sharp, hungry. Two of its tracks carry Charlie's own drumming, recorded before he died: the heartbeat kept sounding on the record, one last time, from the other side. Those who were left dedicated the work to the one who had gone, and went out on tour again, because it is the only thing they know how to do and the only thing they want to do.

Jagger put it his own way: when you've got it, flaunt it. In their eighties, with one companion fewer, they are still flaunting it.

What to remember

The Rolling Stones are living proof that rock and roll has no expiry date. They were born out of a love for the Black blues, built with Jagger and Richards one of the greatest songbooks in history, and lasted longer than anyone. They lost Charlie Watts, their silent heart, and instead of stopping they dedicated a new record to him with his drumming inside it, and went out on tour again.

Remember it like this: you can argue forever about whether they are the best band in the world, but not about whether they are the most stubborn. Sixty years on, with the heart stopped, the Stones kept beating. That is also a form of greatness: not knowing how, not wanting to, not being able to stop.

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Sources

The Rolling Stones, British band formed in London in 1962, with Mick Jagger (vocals) and Keith Richards (guitar) —childhood friends reunited by their shared love of the blues— as its songwriting core, alongside Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts and, later on, Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood. The name comes from the Muddy Waters song "Rollin' Stone". The band started out from a devotion to American blues and developed a songbook that includes "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", "Gimme Shelter", "Paint It Black" and other classics. Charlie Watts, a drummer with a jazz background, was part of the band from 1963 until his death on 24 August 2021. "Hackney Diamonds", released in October 2023, was their first album of original material in eighteen years (since "A Bigger Bang", 2005) and includes two tracks with drums recorded by Charlie Watts before he died; Steve Jordan took over the drums on the rest. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, CBS News, NPR, Rolling Stone, Al Jazeera and other coverage.