Ladies and Gentlemen! The greatest rock band in the world … The Rolling Stones!

It took a while for me to come to appreciate The Rolling Stones. But once I did, I was a huge Stones fan, all the way up to the release of Some Girls in 1978. That’s where they lost me. I felt they had lost their roots and had gone commercial. I stick with the early stuff!

The Rolling Stones formed in London in 1962 and were at the forefront of the British Invasion. The original line up of the band included Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want (Recorded live in London, 1968)

Over the years, I acquired many of their early albums, including Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Goats Head Soup, It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll, Black and Blue, and the live album Hot Rocks.

Several Stones songs were very popular with the soldiers serving in Vietnam including Gimme Shelter, Get Off My Cloud, Sympathy For The Devil, and Paint It Black.

Sympathy For The Devil (Tokyo Dome, 1990)

Like many bands, The Stones have had a few personnel changes over the year. Mick Taylor replaced Brian Jones, who died about a month later. Taylor was then replaced by Ron Wood. Current band members are still Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ronnie Wood.

Gimme Shelter (Bridges to Babylon Tour, 1998)

The Rolling Stones have performed over 2,000 concerts around the world beginning at the Marquee Club in London in 1962. During the 2006 Bigger Bang tour, the Stones performed in Rio de Janeiro for an audience of 1.5 million people

Paint It Black (Hyde Park, 2013)

During Middle School dances, the song Angie was the best slow dance song where we’d get out on the gym floor, belly rub, and try to steal a kiss from our girlfriends when the chaperones weren’t looking.

Angie (Goats Head Soup, 1973)

During my first year of college at Southeastern Massachusetts University, we had a guy in our dorm suite who was a great Mick Jagger impersonator. He would wrap a scarf around his neck, put on a Stones album, and keep us entertained for a long time.

I had another friend at SMU who embroidered his own Rolling Stones logo on the back of his denim jacket. He actually did a great job. It looked good. How’s that for DIY?

Were The Rolling Stones the greatest rock band in the world?

While you take the time to consider this, just go ahead and

Get Off My Cloud (1965)

And the list could go on and on; Wild Horses, Jumping Jack Flash, Mothers Little Helper, It’s Only Rock and Roll, Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown, Dance Little Sister, Satisfaction, Midnight Rambler, Let’s Spend the Night Together, Street Fighting Man, Brown Sugar, etc., etc., etc.

Many will argue over whether The Rolling Stone was the greatest rock and roll band in the world or not. But bear in mind, the videos in this post cover 50 years. And, the audiences didn’t seem to be getting any smaller.