While the Beatles and other exponents of "the British Invasion" served an updated version of rock 'n' roll to the United States, the Rolling Stones emerged in 1963-1964 as the most prominent of the British acts who brought the Afro-American musical form of blues to a young, white American audience. The group was at the peak of their musical and cultural significance at the end of the 1960s, when their violent lyrics and brooding blues-rock seemed to reflect the potentially cataclysmic clefts in American society. After the early 1970s, the Rolling Stones made very few musically or politically radical records, but their famous 1960s songs continue to resound.

The Rolling Stones

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards attended the same primary school in Dartford, England, during the late 1940s, but lost touch until a legendary reunion at Dartford railway station in 1961, when Richards' interest was...