The performance that personified the blues, according to Keith Richards
If you were to ask the manager of The Rolling Stones, Andrew Loog Oldham, what he wanted to get out of The Rolling Stones, his answer would be simple. He could see the potential of The Beatles and was witnessing how much success they were having, so he decided to replicate them but with a bit more edge. While The Beatles had a clean look and sound, The Rolling Stones grew their hair longer, were more outrageous and embodied the rebellious spirit of rock ‘n’ roll.
Of course, if you were to ask The Rolling Stones about what they wanted to achieve as a band, their answer would be slightly different. While image became important to them eventually, at first they were driven by a pure love of the blues and R&B. They wanted to establish this sound, which was pretty heavily associated with America, in the UK, and that meant starting their own band.
A lot of this can be traced back to a Muddy Waters tour in 1958. The guitarist came to the UK and blew the respective audiences’ minds with his soulful blues music and otherworldly guitar playing. A lot of people who would go on to form famous rock bands attended these gigs, including Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who would try to embody Muddy Waters’ sound into everything the Stones did.
Muddy Waters wasn’t the only musician who inspired the band, though. While he might have been one of the first blues performers to tour the UK for the younger generation to see with their own eyes, a lot of them had been listening to this music for years. Richards was already well and truly hooked on the blues before he had seen it played live, and the musician he was most obsessed with was Chuck Berry.
Richards (and, let’s be fair, a large portion of the world) was incredibly moved and excited by Chuck Berry. His music was great, sure, but there was a lot more to it than that. He didn’t just play his songs; he stepped into them, performing in a way that nobody else could emulate. The way he walked, sang, played, and connected with his crowd was unlike anybody else, and he really laid the foundations for rock ‘n’ roll and set the bar for artists with these captivating shows and performances.
One of his favourite songs by Richards was ‘Little Queenie’, which The Rolling Stones would eventually cover. “Chuck took them all by storm and played against their animosity,” he said, “To me, that’s blues. That’s the attitude and the guts it takes. That’s what I wanted to be, except I was white.”
Richards continued, “I listened to every lick he played and picked it up […] Chuck got it from T-Bone Walker, and I got it from Chuck, Muddy Waters, Elmore James and BB King. We’re all part of this family that goes back thousands of years. Really, we’re all passing it on.” The Rolling Stones took the sound of the blues and were one of the driving factors that turned it into rock ‘n’ roll. Every rock band you like now, all of them have their origin in the timeless sound of the blues and artists like Chuck Berry.
