Brian Jones
British musician, founder of the Rolling Stones (–)
For other people named Brian Jones, see Brian Jones (disambiguation).
Musical artist
Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones (28 February – 3 July ) was an English musician and founder of the Rolling Stones. Initially a slide guitarist, he went on to sing backing vocals and played a wide variety of instruments on Rolling Stones recordings and in concerts.
After he founded the Rolling Stones as a British blues outfit in and gave the band its name, Jones's fellow band members Keith Richards and Mick Jagger began to take over the band's musical direction, especially after they became a successful songwriting team.
When Jones developed alcohol and drug problems, his performance in the studio became increasingly unreliable, leading to a diminished role within the band he had founded. In June , the Rolling Stones dismissed Jones; guitarist Mick Taylor took his place in the group. Less than a month later, Jones died by drowning at the age of 27 in the swimming pool at his home at Cotchford Farm, East Sussex. His death was referenced in songs by many other pop bands, and Pete Townshend and Jim Morrison wrote poems about it. In
10 Things You Never Knew About&#; Brian Jones
As The Rolling Stones celebrate their fiftieth anniversary, Clash looks back at the band’s forgotten founder member who set out the template for the ‘Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World’.
1. While many consider Keith Richards the epitome of rock ‘n’ roll behaviour, he was still a fresh-faced youngster while Jones was in full debauched stride, even before The Stones had been formed. And Jagger’s hip-shaking, crowd taunting moves? Pilfered from a certain blonde-bobbed guitarist who hit the ground running when stardom came calling.
2. Like all good rock stars Jones gave himself a pseudonym, favouring the nom-de-blues of Elmo Lewis, a corruption of the name of his blues idol Elmore James. James’ song ‘Dust My Broom’ is a key song in the early Stones history, as it was the song Jones was playing with Alexis Korner when Mick and Keith first set eyes on him.
3. It was widely acknowledge that Brian was an incredible natural musician, quickly moving on from his mastery of slide guitar to more exotic instruments like the auto-harp, sitar and marimba. Many credit th
Some of Mr. Trynka’s account is not new, having appeared in “Stone Alone,” the often overlooked memoir of the Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman, or other books written by band outsiders. What makes Mr. Trynka’s book fresh and interesting, and gives it credibility, is the length he has gone to find witnesses to corroborate and elaborate on those stories.
It’s not just that Mr. Trynka has sought out those who worked with the band on the creative side, such as the singer Marianne Faithfull, the arranger Jack Nitzsche and the recording engineers Eddie Kramer, Glyn Johns and George Chkiantz. He has also interviewed those with more of a worm’s-eye view: drivers, roadies, office staff, old girlfriends and former roommates like James Phelge, whose surname the band would appropriate to designate songs that were group compositions rather than Jagger-Richard numbers.
“Brian Jones was the main man in the Stones; Jagger got everything from him,” the drummer Ginger Baker, who played in the band at some of its earliest shows and went on to become famous as a member of Cream, says in the book. “Brian was much more of a musician than Jagger will ever be — although Jagger’s a great econo
For the first time, the complete story of the enigmatic founder of the Rolling Stones and the early years of the band .Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones
Brian Jones was the golden boy of the Rolling Stones—the visionary who gave the band its name and its sound. Yet he was a haunted man, and much of his brief
time with the band, before his death in at the infamous age of twenty-seven, was volatile and tragic. Some of the details of how Jones was dethroned are well
known, but the full story of his downfall is still largely untold.
Brian Jones is a forensic, thrilling account of Jones’s life, which for the first time details his pioneering achievements and messy unraveling. With more than new interviews, Trynka offers countless new revelations and sets straight the tall tales that have long marred Jones’s legacy. His story is a gripping battle between
creativity and ambition, between self-sabotage and betrayal. It’s all here: the girlfriends, the drugs, and some of the greatest music of all time.
Victors get to write history—but it’s rarely fully true. The complete, magnificent story of the Rolling Stones can never be told until we disentangle all the t