The Rolling Stones at 50: Mick, Keith, Charlie & Ronnie Revisit Their Favorite Songs

The Rolling Stones are cel­e­brat­ing their 50th anniver­sary this year, and like every­thing with the Stones, they’re doing it big. The band has sched­uled a series of five spe­cial con­certs on both sides of the Atlantic, begin­ning next Sun­day in Lon­don and con­tin­u­ing in Newark, New Jer­sey, and Brook­lyn, New York, in Decem­ber.

And like every­thing with the Stones, it’s expen­sive. Tick­ets for the Lon­don shows, for exam­ple, range in price from about $150 to $1,500, which has prompt­ed more than a few com­plaints. The band has defend­ed the prices, say­ing that they’re doing a large-scale show with only five audi­ences to cov­er the pro­duc­tion costs. “We’ve already spent a mil­lion on rehears­ing in Paris,” gui­tarist Ron­nie Wood told The Tele­graph recent­ly. “And the stage is going to be anoth­er few mil­lion. And the lights. We feel no bad thing about tick­et prices. We’ve got to make some­thing.”

The rock ’n’ roll busi­ness­men also expect to make some­thing from a pay-per-view broad­cast of the sold-out Decem­ber 15 show in Newark, along with sales of a new illus­trat­ed auto­bi­og­ra­phy called The Rolling Stones: 50 and a ret­ro­spec­tive album called GRRR!, which comes in sev­er­al edi­tions rang­ing from the three-disc basic CD ver­sion to a five-disc vinyl boxed set. While pro­mot­ing the album, all four mem­bers of the Stones agreed to be inter­viewed by Melis­sa Block of the NPR pro­gram All Things Con­sid­ered. Block asked each of the Stones to pick one song from their exten­sive cat­a­log to dis­cuss. It’s an inter­est­ing series of con­ver­sa­tions, and you can hear each one by fol­low­ing these links:

• Kei­th Richards: ‘These Riffs Were Built to Last a Life­time’
• Char­lie Watts on What Makes ‘Sat­is­fac­tion’ So Sat­is­fy­ing
• Ron­nie Wood’s Funky Con­tri­bu­tion to the Stones’ Canon
• Mick Jag­ger on the Apoc­a­lyp­tic ‘Gimme Shel­ter’

Along with the expect­ed clas­sics, GRRR! includes two new songs, includ­ing the first sin­gle released by the Stones in six years, “Doom and Gloom.” (See the video below.) It’s a blus­tery tune, lack­ing the rhyth­mic sophis­ti­ca­tion and inven­tive­ness of the band’s ear­li­er work, but it amply demon­strates that even after 50 years, the Stones still know how to rock.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Rolling Stones Jam With Their Idol, Mud­dy Waters, 1981

The Rolling Stones Sing Jin­gle for Rice Krispies Com­mer­cial, 1964

The Rolling Stones Sing the Bea­t­les’ ‘Eight Days a Week’ in a Hotel Room, 1965