The Rolling Stones have been an iconic rock band since they first got together in 1962.
As the decades rolled on, members have come and gone, both in the studio and on tour. So,
what happened to all of the former members of one of rock's biggest groups?
When the Rolling Stones first hit the scene,
they were revolutionary — and it was Brian Jones who defended them to the naysayers, to the press,
and to the jazz musicians who didn't want these upstarts playing in their clubs.
"Brian very much pushed this band to be a band."
Life as a Rolling Stone was chaotic, and Jones' life in particular was filled with drug charges
and pressure. He announced — amid major conflict — that he was leaving the band on June 8,
1969. According to Rolling Stone magazine, he said,
"I want to play my own kind of music." He never got the chance.
On July 3 — less than a month later — his body was discovered in his pool.
The official cause of death was "drowning by immersion in fresh water associated with
severe liver dysfunction," which the inquest shortened to "misadventure."
Exactly what happened is one of rock's long-standing mysteries.
A 2020 documentary Life and Death of Brian Jones looked into long-whispered claims
that a friend either killed Jones, or was guilty of at least manslaughter and death
via negligence. Efforts to reopen the case have been unsuccessful, and questions remain.
The Scotsman calls Ian Stewart the "forgotten" bandmate, and
that's legit: It wasn't until 30 years after his death that the newspaper was
reporting on his recognition by the Scottish Music Awards.
Stewart was one of the founding members of the group,
and was brought in after answering a 1962 help wanted ad placed by Brian Jones.
Stewart was only on the official line-up for about a year, though, and was booted out by
then-manager Andrew Loog Oldham. Oldham claimed that there were too many people in the band,
and the burly Stewart was the odd man out as he just didn't look like he fit in.
Still, he continued to perform with the Rolling Stones for another
20 years. In addition to playing strings on studio albums, he went on the road, too.
He acted as a tour manager and a sessions manager up until his untimely death in 1985.
Stewart was in the waiting room of his doctor's office when he had a heart attack
and died almost instantly. Rolling Stone magazine
says he was there for a regular checkup and a follow-up on an old lung issue,
and he was just 47 years old. Stewart — who drank moderately, didn't partake in drugs, and loved
scuba diving and steam trains — was credited as being the guy who got the whole thing started.
The Scotsman reports Keith Richards as saying,
"The Rolling Stones are only here because of Ian
Stewart. […] I still have so much affection for the man."
Mick Taylor joined the Rolling Stones after the departure of Brian Jones,
and he was a huge part of the reason the Stones went from pop to critical acclaim
with albums like Exile on Main Street and Sticky Fingers. Charlie Watts called that
period in Stones' history "a creative peak," but Taylor's time with the group wrapped up in 1974.
He officially walked away from the group on December 12th of that year,
and his reasons were complicated. For starters,
he was the younger newcomer and as such, always felt out of place. He'd later say:
"Towards the end of my time with the Stones, it became very laborious,
and monotonous, and a lot of people around the Stones seemed to drag them down and
hold them back, and obviously, certain people's addiction to drugs didn't help."
Taylor later said that his own experiences with heroin
were enough to put the finishing touches on his desire to leave.
He went on to found another group with Jack Bruce, and to a career in his own right.
Keyboardist Ian McLagan is more heavily associated with the bands Small Faces and the Faces, but he
had a massive impact on some of the Rolling Stones' most popular songs, too. That's not
entirely surprising: His band became the Faces in 1969, when he was performing alongside Rod
Stewart and Ronnie Wood. That group split in 1975, and that's when he joined Wood in the Stones.
That's him on the electric piano on Some Girls, and that's definitely not the only place he
showed up after the Faces dissolved. He went on to become a massively in-demand session musician.
Mac, as everyone called him, died on December 3,
2014. His unexpected passing came after he suffered from a massive stroke, and tributes
poured in for not just his music and his group, the Bump Band, but for his unwavering kindness.
Tony Chapman was an early, early member of the Rolling Stones.
How early? When Time magazine did a piece on musicians who left bands before they became big,
they didn't even have a photo for Chapman with the Stones, and
neither do we. That's because he left in 1962 — before they even recorded anything.
He was, at one point, however,
one of the six-member lineup that Brian Jones dubbed the Rolling Stones,
and he did have a long-lasting impact: he's the one who invited Bill Wyman along for the ride.
Chapman wasn't keen on the musical direction the Rolling Stones were going in,
and found them a bit too experimental for his tastes. When he left, he stayed in the music
world and ultimately founded the Preachers — which would later include Peter Frampton.
His longtime friendship with Wyman led to the Stones' bassist producing the Preachers' debut
and recording several of the songs he'd written, but when that group broke up in 1966,
Chapman faded into obscurity.
Charlie Watts was one of the originals, joining the Rolling Stones way back in January 1963.
His last in-concert appearance was on August 30, 2019 — he was 78 years old at the time,
and the band was performing in Miami. The COVID-19 pandemic derailed other planned performances,
but he did also appear on a livestream with the rest of the band in April 2020.
When the Rolling Stones went back on the road in August 2021,
it was fully assumed Watts was going to be where he always was:
behind the drum kit. Until... he wasn't. He pulled out of the tour with apologies to fans, writing:
"For once, my timing has been a little off. I am working hard to get
fully fit but I have today accepted, on the advice of experts, that this will
take a while. [...] I have therefore asked my great friend Steve Jordan to stand in for me."
Just 20 days after his August 4 announcement, news broke that he had passed away. The cause
was unspecified, and tributes poured in from across the music industry.
"How much longer you gonna be with the Rolling Stones? How much longer are they gonna be around?
Are you tired of it yet?" " About twenty minutes." "Twenty more minutes and that's it?"
Bill Wyman was a member of the Rolling Stones for an impressive 31 years, until he announced
that he was leaving in 1992. His exit — and his replacement, bassist Darryl Jones — were made
public in 1993, by which time Wyman had already seen it all with the band. That included things
like the 1969 Altamont concert stabbing, an event he called, quote, "an awful, awful thing."
What's he been up to since? Firstly, he says there's no hard feelings, telling the Telegraph,
"... they didn't want me to leave, but we get on great now. I had 30 years with them,
then a really nice divorce and, corny as it may sound, we are still family."
Wyman rejoined the Rolling Stones in 2012 for the band's 50th anniversary tour, and offstage,
he splits his time between homes in London and France. He opened a restaurant called
Sticky Fingers in London (and filled it with memorabilia), regularly performs with a group
called the Rhythm Kings, and has an interest in painting, photography, and archaeology.
Texas native and saxophonist Bobby Keys was never an official member of the Rolling Stones,
but given that he toured with and performed alongside the group
for more than 45 years, it's safe to say he paid his dues.
After starting alongside fellow Texan and friend Buddy Holly,
Keys was one of the major backup saxophonists throughout the 1960s. He hooked up with the
Stones late in the decade, and that's him on Exile on Main Street, Sticky Fingers, and Let It Bleed.
Keys was super regular until one night in 1973:
Rolling Stone magazine says that there was a bit of a falling-out when he missed a show,
and Keith Richards later found him in a bathtub of champagne with a random woman. His off-stage
hell-raising was too much even for them, and Keys became an occasional player rather than a regular.
He was always close to Richards, though — they shared a birthday — and in 1989,
Richards campaigned to get him on board in a more permanent way. Mick Jagger absolutely wasn't
happy, but the sound made up for it. Keys remained a fixture, but when he missed a tour in Australia,
rumors started circulating that he had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver.
When Keys passed away in 2014, Richards issued a statement:
"I have lost the largest pal in the world and I can't express
the sense of sadness I feel, although Bobby would tell me to cheer up."
While Merry Clayton might not be considered a band member in the traditional sense,
her contributions to one of the Rolling Stones' most iconic songs — and the
sacrifice she made to sing it — is one that needs to be remembered.
Clayton didn't even know who she was going to the studio to meet when friend and producer Jack
Nitzsche called her in the middle of the night and asked her to go to the studio for a duet
with "some guys in town from England." There were some initial protests, as it was late
and Clayton was extremely pregnant at the time. Still, she got out of bed,
went to the studio, and absolutely nailed the haunting vocals that open "Gimme Shelter."
For a long time, she wasn't even able to listen to the song, much less perform it.
After she left the studio that night, she suffered a miscarriage. She later said,
"We lost a little girl. It took me years and years and years to get over that.
You had all this success with 'Gimme Shelter' and you had the heartbreak
with this song. […] It left a dark taste in my mouth. It was a rough, rough time."
Clayton has had a long and incredibly successful career. From working with
Bobby Darin at 14 to coming back from a 2014 car accident that resulted in the
amputation of her legs and then finally releasing the album Beautiful Scars,
her sister explained to the Guardian, quote, "If she's singing, she's fine."
How long does a backup singer have to tour and perform with a band before they're a part of
the group? Just ask Lisa Fischer what she thinks — she toured with the Rolling Stones
for a whopping 26 years before playing her last show with them on July 15, 2015.
That's when she left to concentrate on her own group, Grand Baton.
She was touring with her band when she talked to the Times Colonist in 2018, saying of the Stones,
"They have been so supportive and loving and kind to me. I miss them. I love them to
the ends of the earth. [But] I got to the point where I was running myself ragged,
and I felt like I wasn't giving my best because I was so exhausted. It was a scary time for me,
so I finally had to make a decision. I cried when I made that phone call."
Fischer has also performed with acts including Aretha Franklin,
Luther Vandross, and Dolly Parton, and her career spanned 40 years.
She told the Guardian that it was Vandross who encouraged her to break out of being a backup
singer and kick off her own solo career, which she did in 1991, winning a Grammy a year later.
It was Bill Wyman who called Nicky Hopkins "the greatest
rock 'n roll piano player in the world," according to the Independent.
Hopkins, sadly, never toured with the Rolling Stones, as chronic ill health made it impossible
for him, and he was never officially a member of the band. He was, however,
one of the band's most valuable session musicians, and was crucial to the sound and success of albums
like Exile on Main Street and Let It Bleed. But in spite of all his success in the studio,
he never managed to break out and make it as a solo artist — and he did try.
That said, session work was absolutely his thing — and he turned down offers to join the Stones
(and Led Zeppelin) on a more permanent basis to keep playing with other groups.
Hopkins died in 1994. He was 50 years old, and the official cause of death was
reported as "complications from previous intestinal surgeries."
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