Mick Jagger

• 1. Introduction

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  Mick Jagger was carrying records by Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters on Platform Two of Dartford railway station on the 17th of October 1961. The man he met there was Keith Richards. The records revealed a shared passion for rhythm and blues, and a musical partnership began shortly afterwards. Sir Michael Philip Jagger went on to become the lead singer and a founder member of the Rolling Stones. As a Stone and as a solo artist, he reached No. 1 on the UK and US singles charts with 13 singles. His career has spanned more than six decades. How did a boy from Kent become the template for the rock front man? What did the partnership with Richards cost both men? And why did a band so successful come close to breaking apart over its own singer? The answers run through courtrooms, funerals, film sets and a feud over who controlled the Stones.

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• 2. Dartford to Ealing

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  Michael Philip Jagger was born into a middle-class family in Dartford, Kent, on the 26th of July 1943. His father, Basil Fanshawe "Joe" Jagger, was a gymnast and physical education teacher who helped popularise basketball in Britain. His grandfather, David Ernest Jagger, was a teacher too. His mother, Eva Ensley Mary, born Scutts, was born in Sydney and worked as a hairdresser. She was politically active in the Conservative Party. A younger brother, Chris, born on the 19th of December 1947, also became a musician, and the two have performed together.

  Jagger was encouraged to follow his father's path, but he has said, "I always sang as a child." He sang in a church choir. He also loved listening to singers on the BBC and Radio Luxembourg, and watching them on television and in the movies.

  In September 1950, Jagger and Keith Richards were classmates at Wentworth Primary School in Dartford. The Jagger family moved to Wilmington, Kent, in 1954. That same year Jagger passed the eleven-plus examination and attended Dartford Grammar School, which today houses the Mick Jagger Centre performing arts venue. Different schools meant that he and Richards lost contact.

  In the mid-1950s, Jagger formed a garage band with his friend Dick Taylor. They played songs by Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Howlin' Wolf and Bo Diddley. After the chance reunion with Richards, Richards and Taylor often met Jagger at his house. In late 1961 the meetings moved to Taylor's house, where Alan Etherington and Bob Beckwith joined them. The quintet called themselves the Blues Boys.

  Jagger left school in 1961 after passing seven O-levels and two A-levels. He and Richards moved into a flat at Edith Grove in Chelsea, London, shared with the guitarist Brian Jones. Richards and Jones planned to start their own rhythm and blues group. Jagger kept studying finance and accounting on a government grant at the London School of Economics. He had seriously considered becoming a journalist or a politician, and he compared the second job to being a pop star.

  Brian Jones, using the name Elmo Lewis, began working at the Ealing Club. There a loose ensemble called Blues Incorporated played under the leadership of Alexis Korner. Jones, Richards and Jagger joined in, and Jagger eventually became the lead singer. The three also began practising on their own, which laid the foundation for the Rolling Stones.

  On the 12th of July 1962, the band made its first appearance at the Marquee Club, a London jazz club. They called themselves the Rollin' Stones, after one of their favourite Muddy Waters songs, and later changed to Rolling Stones because it seemed more formal. Before that, they mostly played for no money in a basement club opposite Ealing Broadway tube station, later named Ferry's Club. They had little equipment of their own and borrowed Korner's gear.

  In June 1963 the band began a five-month residency at the Eel Pie Island Hotel, which the BBC later credited with shaping the band's career. That autumn, Jagger left the London School of Economics to pursue music. The early lineup included Ian Stewart on piano, Dick Taylor on bass and Tony Chapman on drums. Richards, in his memoir Life, insisted that history had the drummer wrong and that Mick Avory played on that early night.

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• 3. Satisfaction and Scandal

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  The Rolling Stones' first two UK No. 1 hits were covers. One was Bobby Womack's "It's All Over Now" and the other was Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". Their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, encouraged Jagger and Richards to write their own songs. The partnership took time to develop. One early composition, "As Tears Go By", was written for Marianne Faithfull, a young singer whom Loog Oldham was promoting.

  For the Stones themselves, the pair wrote "The Last Time", the group's third UK No. 1. It was based on "This May Be the Last Time", a traditional spiritual that the Staple Singers recorded in 1955. Then came "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", their first international hit. It set the Stones up as defiant troublemakers, in contrast to the Beatles, who were seen as "lovable moptops".

  Jagger saw it differently. In a 1992 Vanity Fair profile by Stephen Schiff, he said, "I wasn't trying to be rebellious in those days; I was just being me." He added, "But all those songs we sang were pretty tame, really."

  The early albums Out of Our Heads, Aftermath and Between the Buttons were commercial successes. In 1967, the News of the World ran a three-part feature titled "Pop Stars and Drugs: Facts That Will Shock You". The first article targeted Donovan, who was raided and charged soon afterwards. The second instalment, published on the 5th of February, targeted the Rolling Stones.

  A reporter had spent an evening at Blaise's, a London club, watching a member of the band allegedly take Benzedrine tablets and show off a piece of hashish. The article named Jagger. It was a case of mistaken identity, because the reporter had actually been eavesdropping on Brian Jones. Two days after publication, Jagger filed a libel writ against the paper.

  He and Richards were soon arrested on drug charges and received unusually harsh sentences. Jagger got three months in prison for possessing four over-the-counter pep pills he had bought in Italy. Richards got a year for allowing cannabis to be smoked on his property. William Rees-Mogg, the traditionally conservative editor of The Times, wrote an article criticising the sentences.

  On appeal, Richards's sentence was overturned and Jagger's became a conditional discharge. Jagger still spent one night in London's Brixton Prison. The legal battles would follow the band for the next decade.

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• 4. Summer of 1969

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  By the time of the album Beggars Banquet, Brian Jones was contributing to the Rolling Stones only sporadically. Jagger said Jones was "not psychologically suited to this way of life". Jones's drug use had become a hindrance, and he could not obtain a US visa. In June 1969, according to Richards, Jones told Jagger, Charlie Watts and Richards at his house that he could not "go on the road again". Jones left the band. On the 3rd of July 1969, he drowned in the swimming pool at his home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex.

  In 1995, Rolling Stone asked Jagger whether he felt guilty. He said no, though he felt he had behaved in a childish way. "In some ways we picked on him," he said, and he blamed his own ignorance of addiction. "No one seemed to know much about drug addiction," he added.

  Two days after the drowning, on the 5th of July 1969, the Stones played a previously scheduled free concert in Hyde Park before 250,000 people. They dedicated it to Jones. It was the first concert with the guitarist Mick Taylor, who replaced him. Jagger began by reading an excerpt from Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Adonaïs", an elegy written on the death of John Keats. Thousands of butterflies were then released in Jones's memory.

  The set opened with "I'm Yours and I'm Hers", a song by Johnny Winter. The band previewed three new songs. "Midnight Rambler" and "Love in Vain" would appear on Let It Bleed, released that December. "Loving Cup" would wait until Exile on Main St. in May 1972. They also played "Honky Tonk Women", which had been released as a single the day before.

  On the 6th of December 1969, the Stones performed at the Altamont Free Concert. There Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by a member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. Hunter had drawn a revolver and approached the stage, which was seen as a threat to the band. Accounts of why he drew the weapon varied. Ben Beaumont-Thomas, music editor of The Guardian, wrote that the death and the mood of the crowd "has become symbolic for the corruption of 1960s hippy idealism".

  Jagger later told the writer Robert Greenfield that he had feared an attack on stage. The Hells Angels, he said, felt they had been unfairly blamed for the disaster that left a Stones fan dead.

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• 5. Exile and Control

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  In early 1971 the Rolling Stones moved to southern France as tax exiles. They wanted to avoid a 93 per cent supertax that Harold Wilson's Labour government had placed on the country's top earners. Jagger moved into a chateau near Biot in April 1971, only days before the new tax year began. A year earlier, he had called for the release of imprisoned French Maoists during a concert in Paris.

  Another 1971 event changed who ran the band. The Stones split acrimoniously with their second manager, Allen Klein, and Richards was struggling with heroin addiction. Jagger took control of the group's business affairs. That led to feuds between him and Richards. He has managed the group ever since, with Prince Rupert Loewenstein serving as business adviser and financial manager from 1968 to 2007.

  In France, Jagger also learned to play guitar. He contributed guitar parts to Sticky Fingers in 1971 and to every later Stones album except Dirty Work. On the highly publicised 1972 US tour, he wore glam-rock clothing and glitter makeup onstage. The 1972 album Exile on Main St. showed the band's interest in the blues. The music critic Russell Hall called Jagger's singing on the gospel-influenced "Let It Loose" his best vocal achievement.

  In November 1972, the band began recording sessions in Kingston, Jamaica, for Goats Head Soup. The album, released in 1973, reached No. 1 in both the UK and the US. It produced "Angie", a global hit and the first of a string of successful singles from tepidly received albums. Sessions also produced a ballad, "Waiting on a Friend", that went unreleased until the Tattoo You album nine years later.

  A drug case dating to the stay in France interrupted the Goats Head Soup sessions. Authorities issued a warrant for Richards's arrest, and the band returned briefly to France for questioning. Together with Jagger's convictions from 1967 and 1970, this complicated a Pacific tour in early 1973. The band was denied permission to play in Japan and nearly banned from Australia. A European tour in September and October 1973 bypassed France after Richards was arrested in England.

  The 1974 album It's Only Rock 'n Roll was recorded at Musicland Studios in Munich. It reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 1 in the US. Jagger and Richards produced it under the credit "the Glimmer Twins".

  Mick Taylor left the band in December 1974, so the Stones needed a new guitarist. The Munich sessions for Black and Blue gave hopeful guitarists a chance to try out, and some did not know they were auditioning. Ronnie Wood, then with the Faces, was chosen and joined in 1975. Wood has sometimes acted as a mediator, especially between Jagger and Richards. His first full album with the band was Some Girls in 1978, where they ventured into disco and punk, a move led mainly by Jagger.

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• 6. Feud and Endurance

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  In mid-1980, the album Emotional Rescue began to open a rift between Jagger and Richards. Richards wanted to tour that summer or autumn to promote it, and Jagger declined. The album still reached the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

  On the 19th of February 1985, Jagger released his first solo album, She's the Boss, produced by Nile Rodgers and Bill Laswell. A Rolling Stone article that month described the project as his boldest attempt yet to build an artistic identity apart from the band. Herbie Hancock, Jeff Beck, Jan Hammer and Pete Townshend appeared on it. The single "Just Another Night" was a Top Ten hit. He also shared lead vocals with Michael Jackson on "State of Shock", a song by the Jacksons.

  Later in 1985, Jagger performed at Live Aid without the Stones, at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium. With Tina Turner he sang "It's Only Rock and Roll", and he tore away her skirt. His duet of "Dancing in the Street" with David Bowie, who was at Wembley Stadium in London, was shown simultaneously on the screens of both venues. It reached No. 1 in the UK that year.

  In March 1986 the Stones released Dirty Work, and relations between Jagger and Richards had reached an all-time low. Richards had ended his heroin use and become more involved in decisions. Jagger did not like his own authority shrinking. He refused to tour for the album and launched a solo tour that included Stones songs. Richards called the period "World War III", and the band almost broke up. Jagger said he loved the Stones but they could not be "the only thing in my life".

  Jagger's second solo album, Primitive Cool, arrived in 1987 to good reviews but weaker sales. Richards followed with Talk Is Cheap in 1988, and many felt the Stones were finished. Instead the two reunited in Barbados in 1988 and wrote dozens of songs. Richards recalled that within two days they had five or six songs working. Ronnie Wood believes the modest sales of Primitive Cool made Jagger realize the strength of the band. Steel Wheels came out on the 29th of August 1989.

  The Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour of 1989-1990 was the band's first world tour in seven years and its biggest stage production so far. It was Bill Wyman's last tour, though his exit was not made official until January 1993. Darryl Jones replaced him on bass for Voodoo Lounge in 1994. The tour for that album grossed $320 million, the highest of any tour up to that time. In 2007 the A Bigger Bang Tour grossed $437 million and earned a Guinness World Records entry. Asked about retiring, Jagger said, "I'm sure the Rolling Stones will do more things and more records and more tours."

  In March 2019, a Stones tour of the US and Canada was postponed because Jagger needed a transcatheter aortic valve replacement. He had the procedure at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in April. After a six-week delay, the No Filter Tour resumed with two shows at Chicago's Soldier Field. In April 2020 the band released "Living in a Ghost Town", which reached No. 1 in Germany. It was their first chart-topper there in 52 years, and made them the oldest artists ever to do so.

  Charlie Watts died at a London hospital on the 24th of August 2021, aged 80. Steve Jordan filled in as drummer. The band decided to carry on because it was what "Charlie wanted us to do". At the first show after his death, Jagger told the crowd, "We all miss Charlie so much." In a May 2022 interview, he said, "I don't really expect him to be there any more if I turn round during a show."

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• 7. Cameras and Credits

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  Performance, directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, was made in 1968 but not released until 1970. In it Jagger plays Turner, a reclusive rock star, and Anita Pallenberg, Richards's girlfriend, also appears. In 1970 he also played the Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in the film of that name. Both films had mixed receptions. In 1969, he improvised a soundtrack on a Moog synthesiser for Kenneth Anger's film Invocation of My Demon Brother.

  Several roles slipped away. In 1975, Jagger auditioned for Dr. Frank N. Furter in the film version of The Rocky Horror Show, a part that went to Tim Curry, who had played it on stage in London's West End. That year the director Alejandro Jodorowsky approached him to play Feyd-Rautha in a proposed adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune, which never reached the screen.

  In the late 1970s he was cast as Wilbur in Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. Illness struck the original lead, Jason Robards, who was later replaced by Klaus Kinski, and production dragged on. A clash with a Stones tour forced Jagger out. Some of his footage survives in the documentaries Burden of Dreams and My Best Fiend.

  In Running Out of Luck in 1985, Jagger starred and shared a writing credit with Julien Temple. Later he developed a reputation for playing villains, in Freejack in 1992, Bent in 1997 and The Man From Elysian Fields in 2002. He wrote and performed the soundtrack for the 2004 romantic comedy Alfie with David A. Stewart. The single "Old Habits Die Hard" won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

  In 1991, Jagger founded Jagged Films with Victoria Pearman. In 1995 he founded a second company, Lip Service, with Steve Tisch. Jagged Films' first release was the 2001 World War II drama Enigma, starring Kate Winslet as one of Bletchley Park's codebreakers. That year it also produced Being Mick, a documentary about Jagger that aired on ABC on the 22nd of November.

  Jagger later co-produced the James Brown biopic Get On Up in 2014. With Martin Scorsese, Rich Cohen and Terence Winter, he co-created Vinyl in 2016, a period drama starring Bobby Cannavale. HBO aired it for one season before cancelling it. The band itself has been the subject of documentaries, including Jean-Luc Godard's Sympathy for the Devil, Gimme Shelter and Scorsese's Shine a Light, filmed over two nights at New York's Beacon Theatre.

  In 2022 Jagger co-wrote and performed "Strange Game" for the television series Slow Horses after composer Daniel Pemberton emailed him out of the blue. It was nominated for an Emmy. His next project as co-producer is Miles & Juliette, about Miles Davis and Juliette Gréco meeting in Paris in 1949.

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• 8. Family and Legacy

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  Cleo Sylvestre was Jagger's first serious girlfriend, and they began dating around 1961. Chrissie Shrimpton followed, from 1963 to 1966. From 1966 to 1970 he was with Marianne Faithfull, with whom he wrote "Sister Morphine" for Sticky Fingers. They split in May 1970 after she suffered a miscarriage, losing a girl they had named Corrina, and also lost custody of her son. Faithfull said that she coped with drugs and Jagger by burying himself in work.

  Marsha Hunt, an American singer, began a relationship with Jagger in 1969, though she was married. It ended in June 1970 while she was pregnant with Karis, his first child, born on the 4th of November 1970. Hunt is said to have inspired the song "Brown Sugar".

  On the 12th of May 1971, Jagger married Bianca Pérez-Mora Macias, who was born in Nicaragua, in a Catholic ceremony in Saint-Tropez. Their daughter, Jade, was born on the 21st of October 1971. In May 1978 Bianca filed for divorce on grounds of his adultery.

  In late 1977 he began dating the American model Jerry Hall. They held an unofficial private ceremony in Bali on the 21st of November 1990, and the High Court in London declared it invalid in 1999. They had four children: Elizabeth, born on the 2nd of March 1984; James, in 1985; Georgia May, born on the 12th of January 1992; and Gabriel, in 1997. Between 1991 and 1994 Jagger had an affair with Carla Bruni, who later became First Lady of France. The relationship with Hall ended after she discovered an affair with the Brazilian model Luciana Gimenez, who gave birth to Lucas in May 1999.

  From 2001 until her death in March 2014, Jagger was with the fashion designer L'Wren Scott. She left her estate, estimated at US$9 million, to him, and he set up a scholarship in her name at Central Saint Martins. Since then he has been with the ballet dancer Melanie Hamrick. Their son, Deveraux, was born in 2016, when Jagger was 73. As of 2024 he has eight children by five women, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

  Jagger's father, Joe, died of pneumonia on the 11th of November 2006, aged 93. During the A Bigger Bang tour, Jagger flew to Britain to see him, then returned the same day to Las Vegas after hearing he was improving. He learned of the death that afternoon, and the show went ahead. Friends said it was what Joe would have wanted. Jagger called him the "greatest influence" in his life.

  On the 12th of December 2003, the Prince of Wales gave Jagger the knighthood announced in the Queen's 2002 Birthday Honours. Jagger said it held no great meaning for him, but he was "touched" that his father "was very proud". He also sponsors music in Dartford schools through the Red Rooster Programme, named after one of the Stones' earliest singles. In 2014 a 19-million-year-old long-legged pig relative found in Egypt was named Jaggermeryx naida, or Jagger's water nymph. For his 75th birthday, scientists named fossil stoneflies after band members and called them the "Rolling Stoneflies".

  Steven Van Zandt wrote that the acceptance of Jagger's voice on pop radio was a turning point. "He broke open the door for everyone else," he said, adding that Eric Burdon and Van Morrison suddenly seemed less strange. David Bowie recalled of his first attempts at music, "I used to dream of being their Mick Jagger." In 2015, Billboard wondered, "would we even have rock stars without Mick?" Watts said in 2008 that Jagger "is the least egotistical person".

  Jagger has repeatedly said he will not write an autobiography. Yet in the early 1980s, Lord Weidenfeld persuaded him to prepare one for a £1 million advance. The 75,000-word manuscript is now held by John Blake, who briefly planned to publish it until Jagger withdrew his support.

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