The Rolling Stones - The Origin of The Species

by Alan Clayson

No book on the Rolling Stones is ever considered complete without an overview - even if brief - of the impulses, cicrcumstances and influences that brought the group together. Yet until now, there has never been a study devoted solely to that often ghostly period, detailing what it took for The Greatest Rock'N'Roll Band In The World to smolder into form.

Finishing at a point where most Stones biographies leave the runway, Origin Of The Species travels from the prelude of World War II to the early 1960s, piecing together this fascinating tale of both the early lives of the individual Stones, and the development of the burgeoning rhythm and blues scene from which the "classic" line-up emerged, not quite fully mobilized but ready to take on the world.

With the help and support of many of the dramatis personae, pop historian Alan Clayson has spent many years researching this valuable, insightful and, crucially, entertaining unfolding of what can only be described as the dawning of a new rock era, arguably the most important ever in the saga of British - and global - rock.

The early history of the Rolling Stones?long shrouded in myth and confusion as a result of 40 years of the rock and roll lifestyle?is made clear in this concise account. Chronicling the band members from boyhood through the band's first record, cut in 1963, this biography contains rare photographs and never before published interviews with family members as well as every member who played with the band prior to the recognized line-up?including pre-Watts drummers Erky Grant and Mick Avory; Mick Jagger's cousin, Rick Huxley; early Stones member Dick Taylor; and Phil May, a schoolmate of Jagger and Richards and member of The Pretty Things. Every aspect of the band's development is explored, from their recording sessions to landing on the music charts, in this myth-shattering musical history.