When did the Rolling Stones play their first gig? Properly, the story begins in the summertime of 1962. Blues Included, Alexis Korner’s band had an everyday Thursday night time gig on the Marquee Membership in London’s Oxford Road. Within the first week of July, Korner was provided a spot on BBC Radio’s Jazz Membership, which didn’t go down properly with Harold Pendleton, the person who ran the Marquee’s. Pendleton issued a blunt ultimatum: “If you leave this Thursday to do the broadcast, I will not guarantee your gig the Thursday after.”
Korner had a plan. He requested his buddies and acolytes, Mick Jagger, Ian Stewart, Keith Richards, and Brian Jones to deputize for him on the Marquee. Having secured the gig, Mick Jagger’s first-ever utterance within the press was carried by Jazz Information: “I hope they don’t think we’re a Rock ‘n Roll outfit..”
There was additionally the small matter of what the band ought to name themselves. Based on Dave Godin, a buddy from Kent, the place Mick and Keith grew up, “I was there when they decided on the name, and there is no way that it came from the Muddy Waters 78 “Rolling Stone Blues.” Nobody could be seen useless with 78s, we solely had 45s and seven″ EPs. I had the Muddy Waters “Mississippi Blues” EP on London that features “Mannish Boy” which has the interjection ‘Ooo I’m a rollin’ stone’.” Not everybody preferred the identify, notably Ian Stewart, “I said it was a terrible name. It sounded like the name of an Irish Show Band, or something that ought to be playing at the Savoy.”
Jazz Information previewed the primary Rolling Stones gig as such: “Mick Jagger, R&B vocalist, is taking an R&B group into the Marquee tomorrow night, while Blues Incorporated do their Jazz Club gig. Called The Rollin’ Stones. The line-up is: Mick Jagger (vocals), Keith Richards & Elmo Lewis (guitars), Dick Taylor (bass), Ian Stewart (piano), & Mick Avory (drums). A second group under Long John Baldry, will also be there.”
Mick Avory, who later joined the Kinks, didn’t attend the gig on July 12, 1962, and nobody can appear to recall if there even was a drummer – it could be six months earlier than Charlie Watts was lastly persuaded to hitch.
Based on the handwritten set checklist, among the many numbers they carried out had been songs by their heroes Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Chuck Berry, and Fat Domino like “Kansas City,” “Confessin’ The Blues,” “Bright Lights Big City,” “Down The Road A Piece,” and “Dust My Broom.” Whether or not the Stones truly performed them we’ll by no means know, nevertheless it provides us a captivating perception into what they had been listening to and rehearsing.
On the fiftieth anniversary of the Rolling Stones’ first gig, Mick Jagger gave an interview with Rolling Stone in 2012 saying, “Still the same name. It’s only Keith and myself that are the same people, I think. I’ve tried to find out when Charlie’s first gig was, and none of us can really remember and no one really knows. But it’s an amazing achievement.”
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