Former Rolling Stone Says Mick Jagger ‘Didn’t Form’ The Band, He Was Just Another Member
Mick Jagger is the well-known frontman of one of the most iconic bands in history. But a former bandmate is angry after a commemorative plaque claims that Mick Jagger formed the famous rock band.
According to WTOP, the plaque reads, “Mick Jagger and Keith Richards met on platform 2 on 17 October 1961 and went on to form The Rolling Stones – one of the most successful rock bands of all time.”
Now former Stones bassist Bill Wyman, who left Jagger and the other Stones 22 years ago, said that the plaque left him feeling “disgusted” because it wasn’t the truth.
Wyman spoke with the BBC about the plaque and the dishonesty behind it, explaining that it was the Stones’ original guitarist Brian Jones who is to thank for the creation of the rock band, not Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Brian Jones, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger working on Sympathy for the Devil at the Olympic Sound Studios, London pic.twitter.com/hqcLMptkww
— chikashi (@chikashiojima) June 26, 2015
Wyman said, “Brian Jones wanted to form a blues band and he enlisted each member one by one.”
“He gave the name The Rolling Stones, he chose the music and he was the leader,” Wyman further explained.
Wyman also said, “Mick Jagger and Keith Richards didn’t create the Rolling Stones – they were part of The Rolling Stones like all of us.”
Jones, the real founder of the Stones, died in 1969, drowning in his swimming pool after taking a cocktail of drugs and alcohol in East Sussex.
The plaque, which was placed in Dartford station in southeast England to mark the spot where Jagger and Stones guitarist Richards in 1961, also included one more piece of information that wasn’t the whole truth.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had met years before and already knew each other. Mick Jagger and Richards originally met at Wentworth Primary School, where both attended as young boys. Jagger, who was carrying “a cache of blues records on his way to the London School of Economics,” and Richards, who was carrying his guitar on his way to art school, shared a love for blues music and met up again in 1961 at Dartford station where the plaque now stands.
Local Dartford council leader Mr. Kite stated that the plaque “was intended to commemorate the meeting of the two Dartford sons, not the formation of The Rolling Stones.”
Kite then stated that he would be amending the plaque, explaining, “Accuracy in history is really, really important and we want it to be right. We will create a new plaque which makes it clear that this is where Mick met Keith and went on to be part of The Rolling Stones.”
While the former Rolling Stones member had quite a bit to say about the plaque, neither Mick Jagger nor Keith Richards has commented on the plaque or the “disgusted” comments.
