Rolling with the Stones 
asked by harrypotter on November 1, 2006 11:39 AM
Of his own choosing, Bill Wyman's career as a founding member of the Rolling Stones has achieved a perspective that his legendary bandmates don't yet enjoy: a beginning, middle, and end. Indeed, the musicians once hailed as the greatest rock & roll band in the world have become more like the band that wouldn't die. But history can't be denied, and the man born William Perks of Lower Sydenham, London, has lovingly assembled this over-500-page book, equal parts memoir and lavishly illustrated coffee-table tome, with a winning mix of clear-eyed reportage (based on his own voluminous diaries) and an eye for colorful detail and ephemera worthy of a proud family scrapbook. Which, in many ways, Rolling with the Stones most resembles: family--and musical--trees are acknowledged, career moves dissected, deaths mourned, and triumphs and foibles alike are dispensed with equal candor. Wyman deflates the myth of the Stones as rock's preternatural bad boys (a conservative, sensationalist press made it all too easy to live down to expectations) yet allows the tragic legend of band founder Brian Jones to assume its proper perspective. A half-decade older than his bandmates, the retired Stone has few illusions about the band's true cultural impact and creative arc, devoting nearly three-quarters of the book to the Stones' first, turbulent decade. What is more gratifying is that he avoids the myopic constraints of the similarly sized Beatles Anthology, generously weaving the recollections of band members, associates, family, reporters, and even fan letters into a narrative whose outline is epic, but whose viewpoint has a decidedly human scale. --Jerry McCulley
Reviews
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Bill Wyman's book about the Rolling Stones is a superior effort. The book is similar in layout to the Beatles Anthology or the 'According to the Stones' book which followed Wyman's and was written by the remaining members of the group. Here are the reasons I believe this is the best Stones picture history on the market.
1. Wyman has attempted to be fair to all members, past and present. His treatment of Brian Jones is sympathetic without pulling punches. He acknowledges Jones as the founder and driving force behind the band, and he laments his loss.
2. Wyman has a prodigious collection of Stones ephemera, which he began saving almost from day one, so that he could show his kids that he had been in a rock and roll band for the two or three years he expected the ride to last. There are literally hundreds of color photos of Stones stuff in this book. It's like going back in time or going to the world's best Rolling Stones museum. And it is put together with love and fits Wyman's narrative perfectly. Wyman also has a lot of items dealing with other bands from the period that traveled with them, influenced them, or just existed at the same time and are of interest to the history of rock and roll.
3. The writing is superb. There is very little "I" in this book. Wyman has carefully made it a history of the band, rarely mentioning his own personal experiences except where they are historically significant. This modesty is refreshing and makes the book more credible than 'According to the Rolling Stones'.
4. The book is well-thought-out and well put together. It is a delight to read from cover to cover and will be a book you will return to and re-read to find out more about the background and historical context of the songs. It is also very reasonably priced. I got mine from Amazon used for around five dollars and it was the best five bucks I've spent in a long time on a book.
Buy it, treasure it. And thank you, Bill, for giving readers such a fun and informative look inside the life of one of the world's greatest rock and roll bands.
1. Wyman has attempted to be fair to all members, past and present. His treatment of Brian Jones is sympathetic without pulling punches. He acknowledges Jones as the founder and driving force behind the band, and he laments his loss.
2. Wyman has a prodigious collection of Stones ephemera, which he began saving almost from day one, so that he could show his kids that he had been in a rock and roll band for the two or three years he expected the ride to last. There are literally hundreds of color photos of Stones stuff in this book. It's like going back in time or going to the world's best Rolling Stones museum. And it is put together with love and fits Wyman's narrative perfectly. Wyman also has a lot of items dealing with other bands from the period that traveled with them, influenced them, or just existed at the same time and are of interest to the history of rock and roll.
3. The writing is superb. There is very little "I" in this book. Wyman has carefully made it a history of the band, rarely mentioning his own personal experiences except where they are historically significant. This modesty is refreshing and makes the book more credible than 'According to the Rolling Stones'.
4. The book is well-thought-out and well put together. It is a delight to read from cover to cover and will be a book you will return to and re-read to find out more about the background and historical context of the songs. It is also very reasonably priced. I got mine from Amazon used for around five dollars and it was the best five bucks I've spent in a long time on a book.
Buy it, treasure it. And thank you, Bill, for giving readers such a fun and informative look inside the life of one of the world's greatest rock and roll bands.
reviewed by jazzman on November 18, 2006 2:55 PM
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I have read multiple books on the Rolling Stones and music in general and this is by far one of the best. The pictures are unique, many not seen anywhere else, and the writing is definitely frank, honest, and amusing. You won't be able to put this book down!
reviewed by nat on November 29, 2006 6:51 AM
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Just finished reading "According To The Rolling Stones" the Anthology sketch of the band in their own words...a good book but Bill was rarely mentioned at all...now in this excellent snapshot of the band's history written by Bill you get the full scoop,total and penetrating with great photos and memorabiilia worthy of any one's coffee table or library.
Reading this gives a finer more detailed picture of the band from the elder Stone,...Not very deep nor insightful as regards to the making of the music or the real psyche of the Stones but a basic understanding is there even though it is a bit superficial..The total excitement and colour of this piece of history is essential and is captured well in this collectible book which what it set out to do.
Reading this gives a finer more detailed picture of the band from the elder Stone,...Not very deep nor insightful as regards to the making of the music or the real psyche of the Stones but a basic understanding is there even though it is a bit superficial..The total excitement and colour of this piece of history is essential and is captured well in this collectible book which what it set out to do.
reviewed by shagdag on November 29, 2006 7:49 AM
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I recently got this book as a gift, and it was very hard to find since it is apparently out of print. I'm still reading it, but if you want to know the absolute truth about "the greatest rock 'n' roll band on the planet" you need to buy it as soon as possible. Especially those of us who have tickets to see the Stones tour during 2005/2006 - read this before the first concert begins in Fenway Park, Boston. Wyman was the band's biographer, since he wrote in his personal daily diaries everything and anything that happened to the band. However, Wyman never wrote things down for publication. Wyman wrote his diaries so he would be able to show his son, when his son grew up, that "dad" used to play guitar in a rock band. When the Stones first got together in 1962, Wyman was the only one married with a baby to also support, but Brian Jones had kids with quite a few women.
Since I am still reading this beautiful coffee table book, I can't give away any secrets. However, even if I finished the book already, I would still insist on you buying this book and hearing all accounts from the inside - a band member, rather than the rock jounalists who either loved them and wanted to be a part of them for merely idol worship; or those writers who hated the Stones.
Bill Wyman wrote an unforgettable book, a must own, must read. Wyman officially retired from the Stones in 1994, but he is right now and for the rest of this summer, touring Europe with his own band.
Since I am still reading this beautiful coffee table book, I can't give away any secrets. However, even if I finished the book already, I would still insist on you buying this book and hearing all accounts from the inside - a band member, rather than the rock jounalists who either loved them and wanted to be a part of them for merely idol worship; or those writers who hated the Stones.
Bill Wyman wrote an unforgettable book, a must own, must read. Wyman officially retired from the Stones in 1994, but he is right now and for the rest of this summer, touring Europe with his own band.
reviewed by bookworks on November 29, 2006 3:31 PM
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So much has been written about the Rolling Stones over the years, but as shown in his autobiography Stone Alone, Bill Wyman's accounts carry much weight because he was there. This massive book is a huge collage of trivia, photos and memorabilia of the band's long reign. Still, the written content is just as valuable, and Wyman packs every page with inside information and personal observations which makes this priceless.
All the famous and not so famous moments of the Rolling Stones' career are highlighted, and the reader is spared the pretensions of the boring rock critics who usually suck the life out of their subjects. Particularly enjoyable (as in Stone Alone) are the anecdotes about the early Stones and their unlikely rise to fame.
Lots of tidbits all over; for example, Wyman still seems pissed 30 years later about Keith Richards overdubbing the bass on "Happy". There's trivia, like the story behind the cover shoot of Get Your Ya-Yas out and Andy Warhol's disapproval of the Love You Live cover, as well as detail like the typical set lists from all the tours. Ticket stubs and concert posters are everywhere, now if only I could find my 1979 Oshawa concert ticket that's pictured in the book!
Wyman still manages to convey the excitement of the whole experience, and its obvious that he loves being an integral part of the Rolling Stones' legacy.
reviewed by guitarplayer on November 29, 2006 7:17 PM