The Rolling Stones: The Band That Never Stopped
The Rolling Stones are an English band whose blend of R&B, Chicago blues and Rock ‘n’ Roll became one of the defining sounds of the British Invasion in the early 1960s.
Their story naturally runs alongside The Beatles, but musically they were coming from a somewhat different place. While The Beatles absorbed plenty of Motown and American pop, the Stones were openly obsessed with the blues.
Howlin’ Wolf. Muddy Waters. Chuck Berry. Early Marvin Gaye, Little Walter. Robert Johnson.
They took those influences, turned up the volume and created something that sounded unmistakably British.
And while many of their contemporaries have long since stopped, The Rolling Stones have continued to record and tour for decades. That’s quite an achievement.
But perhaps the more interesting question for a guitarist is: Why have the Stones’ songs lasted so well? The answer is hiding in the riffs.
The Early Stones: Blues Before Stardom
Before the hits, The Rolling Stones were essentially a blues band. That matters.
When you listen to the early records, you’re not hearing a group trying to invent a new musical language from scratch. You’re hearing musicians who had discovered American blues and R&B and were absolutely fascinated by it. Their early albums were packed with covers.
In 1964, a year after The Beatles had begun their album career, The Rolling Stones released England’s Newest Hit Makers. The title was wonderfully confident.
The album included Not Fade Away, I Just Wanna Make Love to You, Route 66 and Marvin Gaye’s Can I Get a Witness.
Later that year came 12 × 5, featuring Under the Boardwalk and Susie Q, while the UK edition also included Chuck Berry’s You Can’t Catch Me.
Then came The Rolling Stones, Now! with Everybody Needs Somebody to Love and Little Red Rooster.
Little Red Rooster is particularly revealing. It had already been recorded by blues artists including Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon, and The Stones were clearly fascinated by this Chicago blues tradition.
This is one of the things that makes The Stones so useful for guitarists. If you want to understand rock guitar, learn the blues. And if you want to understand The Rolling Stones, go back even further.
From Chicago Blues to British Rock
The early Stones were not simply copying American blues records. They were learning how the music worked.
The guitar parts were often economical. The rhythm section was loose but powerful. The riffs were memorable. And the vocal delivery had attitude.
This is a fantastic education for a guitarist because you quickly discover that you don’t need complicated playing to make a song work.
You need the right notes. The right rhythm. And the right attitude. That combination would become the foundation of the Jagger-Richards songwriting partnership.
Satisfaction: The Riff That Changed Everything
Then came (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction in 1965. This is one of those songs where the guitar riff is so famous that you almost can’t imagine the song without it.
But here’s the interesting part: The riff wasn’t originally supposed to be played by guitar.
Keith Richards came up with the now-famous figure, but the original idea was for it to be played by a horn section. Keith wasn’t happy with the way the early recording sounded, so he grabbed a guitar and played the riff through a heavily distorted signal.
The distortion was intended partly as a demonstration of what he wanted the horns to sound like. When the band came back the following day, however, they realised they had found something much better. The guitar stayed.
And suddenly a heavily distorted guitar riff had become the centrepiece of a major pop single. That was revolutionary in 1965.
Why Satisfaction Is Such a Great Guitar Lesson
There isn’t a huge amount of guitar playing in Satisfaction. That’s exactly why it’s worth studying. The riff has enormous impact because of its rhythm, tone and repetition.
You don’t need to fill every space. You don’t need a hundred different licks. You need one great idea and the confidence to let it do its job.
That’s something you’ll find throughout The Rolling Stones’ catalogue. The riff is often the arrangement. And for a working guitarist, that’s an incredibly useful lesson.
The Bad-Boy Alternative to The Beatles
By the middle of the 1960s, The Rolling Stones had developed another important asset: an image.
The Beatles were the lovable mop tops. The Stones were the bad boys. The contrast was irresistible. The Stones embraced it, and the press certainly helped.
When Satisfaction encountered controversy over its lyrics in the UK, the attention only added to their rebellious reputation.
The band didn’t exactly rush to correct the misunderstanding. Why would they? The Stones had discovered that being the dangerous alternative to The Beatles was very good for business. And it gave them an identity that would stay with them for decades.
Aftermath: Jagger and Richards Find Their Voice
The Stones’ songwriting was developing rapidly. December’s Children (And Everybody’s) included As Tears Go By and Get Off My Cloud, while Aftermath gave us Under My Thumb and Paint It Black.
Suddenly, the band wasn’t simply the British group playing American blues covers. Jagger and Richards were becoming a serious songwriting partnership. And the catalogue was expanding quickly.
In 1967, Between the Buttons brought Ruby Tuesday and Let’s Spend the Night Together. Then came Their Satanic Majesties Request before the Stones returned to a much more focused blues-and-rock sound with Beggars Banquet.
That album included one of their most famous songs of all: Sympathy for the Devil.
Honky Tonk Women: A Stones Essential
Honky Tonk Women was released as a single in 1969 and quickly became one of the band’s defining songs. It’s also a great example of what makes The Stones so good.
The riff is simple. The groove is infectious. The guitar doesn’t try to dominate every second. Everything sits in the pocket.
The song was reportedly inspired by the atmosphere of Brazilian nightlife that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards encountered while travelling, and it became a huge international hit.
It was also associated with a significant moment in the band’s history. Brian Jones had contributed during the early stages of the recording, but he was replaced by Mick Taylor before the final recording was completed.
The song was released just after Jones’s death in July 1969, making it an especially significant moment in the band’s history.
For guitarists, though, Honky Tonk Women remains something more practical: Learn it. It’s one of those songs that can instantly transform a set.
Let It Bleed
1969 also brought Let It Bleed. The album contains You Can’t Always Get What You Want, another classic that has become firmly embedded in the Stones’ catalogue.
But the song that perhaps mattered most to the band’s live repertoire was Honky Tonk Women, released as a single around the same period. By this point, The Stones had assembled an extraordinary catalogue.
- Satisfaction
- Jumpin’ Jack Flash
- Ruby Tuesday
- As Tears Go By
- Sympathy for the Devil
- Honky Tonk Women
The Beatles were still producing incredible music, but The Stones had developed a very different kind of longevity. They had become a rock band in the fullest sense of the word.
Sticky Fingers: A New Era
In 1971, The Rolling Stones released Sticky Fingers. This was another major turning point. The album opened with Brown Sugar, followed by tunes such as Wild Horses, a big contrast!
By the time Brown Sugar arrived, The Rolling Stones were already firmly established.
They weren’t the new bad boys anymore. They were the established rock stars. Yet the song still sounded dangerous.
As the opening track and lead single from Sticky Fingers, Brown Sugar became a major international hit.
And by this stage the Stones had a formidable catalogue behind them. They had gone from being young blues obsessives to one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. And they weren’t finished.
Exile on Main St.
If Sticky Fingers marked a new era, Exile on Main St. took the Stones’ sound somewhere even broader. Released in 1972 as a double album, it mixed Rock, Blues, Country, Soul and even Gospel influences.
One of the highlights was their version of Robert Johnson’s Stop Breaking Down. Another was the self-penned Tumbling Dice.
This is where the Stones’ ability to sound loose without sounding careless becomes particularly impressive.
The records often feel like you’re listening in on a band rather than hearing a perfectly polished studio construction. That looseness is part of the sound. And it’s one of the hardest things to reproduce.
Angie: The Stones’ Unexpected Ballad
Then, in 1973, came Goats Head Soup and Angie. This is one of those songs that demonstrates why a good repertoire needs more than rockers.
Angie is a ballad. It’s acoustic. It’s melodic. And it’s immediately recognisable.
That makes it a brilliant option for a solo guitarist or acoustic duo, even though it isn’t necessarily the first song you’d associate with a Stones set.
Interestingly, Hotel California would not arrive until 1976, three years after Angie.
The two songs are sometimes compared because of their acoustic textures and harmonic movement, but the Stones got there first.
So, Who Is Angie? As with so many famous songs, there are plenty of stories about who Angie was written about.
One persistent theory connected the song to Angela Bowie, although Mick Jagger has denied that interpretation. Keith Richards has described the song as being connected to his daughter.
Whatever the real inspiration, the name became strongly associated with the song itself. And that’s often what happens with great songs. Eventually, the song becomes bigger than the story behind it.
It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll
In 1974, the Stones released It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll. The title track says quite a lot about the band’s philosophy. It’s only rock ‘n’ roll. But they clearly knew how much people cared about it.
The album also included their version of The Temptations‘ Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, continuing the band’s long-running relationship with Soul and R&B.
This is another reason I like The Stones as a guitar-study band. You can learn one Stones song and then follow the trail backwards.
The Stones lead you to The Temptations. The Temptations lead you to Motown. The Stones lead you to Chuck Berry. Chuck Berry leads you to the blues. And suddenly you’re studying half a century of popular music.
Black and Blue + Some Girls
Black and Blue arrived in 1976. For the first time in a long while, the band didn’t produce the kind of huge chart-topping song that had become expected of them.
But The Rolling Stones weren’t going anywhere. They were already too established to disappear. And two years later they returned with Some Girls.
1978’s Some Girls produced two major tracks: Miss You and Beast of Burden. Miss You in particular demonstrated that The Stones could absorb contemporary sounds without losing their identity.
They were still a rock band. But they were paying attention. That ability to adapt would become one of the keys to their longevity.
Tattoo You: Another Classic
Emotional Rescue followed in 1980, but the next major breakthrough came with Tattoo You in 1981. The album gave us Start Me Up and Waiting on a Friend. Start Me Up in particular became one of the band’s defining anthems.
Listen to that opening riff. Again, it isn’t complicated. Again, it doesn’t need to be. It simply works.
That’s perhaps the biggest guitar lesson hidden inside The Rolling Stones. Great rhythm guitar is about making the right thing feel inevitable.
The Stones After Their Golden Era
After Tattoo You, the Stones found it increasingly difficult to produce new songs that matched the impact of their earlier classics.
There were still strong moments. Saint of Me from Bridges to Babylon in 1997 is one example. But the enormous cultural impact of the band’s classic period was difficult to reproduce. That shouldn’t be surprising.
Most bands would struggle to follow a catalogue containing Satisfaction, Paint It Black, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Brown Sugar, Wild Horses, Angie, Miss You and Start Me Up.
The remarkable thing isn’t that the later records weren’t always as successful. It’s that The Stones kept going.
Charlie Watts
In 2021, The Rolling Stones lost their legendary drummer Charlie Watts. Watts had been a fundamental part of the band’s sound for decades.
His playing was rarely flashy. That was the point.
He understood groove. He understood restraint. He understood when not to play. And that’s another important lesson for guitarists.
A rhythm section doesn’t need to demonstrate how much it can play. It needs to make the song feel good.
Hackney Diamonds: The Band Still Isn’t Finished
Then, in 2023, The Rolling Stones released Hackney Diamonds. After nearly six decades, they were still making new music. That’s extraordinary.
Whatever you think of individual albums or songs from the later years, the band’s longevity is impossible to ignore.
The Stones didn’t simply survive. They continued to tour, record and build their repertoire.
The Rolling Stones and the Working Guitarist
If you’re learning guitar with the intention of playing in bands, The Rolling Stones are essential listening. Not because you need to learn every song. Because their music teaches you how a guitar fits inside a band.
Start with Satisfaction. Learn the riff. Then learn Honky Tonk Women. Listen to how the guitars interact with the bass and drums. Learn Brown Sugar and listen to the groove. Learn Angie and discover the other side of the band.
Then try Start Me Up, Miss You, Wild Horses, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Paint It Black and Sympathy for the Devil.
You’ll quickly notice something. Keith Richards rarely sounds as though he’s trying to prove how good a guitarist he is. He’s trying to make the song work. That’s the difference between practicing guitar and learning to play guitar in a band.
Learn the Riff. Learn the Groove.
The Rolling Stones catalogue is an incredible education in economy.
The guitar doesn’t have to be complicated. The riff doesn’t have to be fast. The chord progression doesn’t have to be unusual.
What matters is the combination of rhythm, tone, space and attitude. That’s why a song like Satisfaction can still sound enormous after all these years.
That’s why Honky Tonk Women still works. That’s why Brown Sugar still sounds like a band rather than a collection of individual musicians. And that’s why Angie can suddenly become the perfect song in an acoustic set.
The Stones understood something fundamental: The song comes first. And for a guitarist, that’s a very useful philosophy to adopt.
The Band That Never Stopped
The Rolling Stones started out playing the blues. They became British Invasion stars. They turned into the bad-boy alternative to The Beatles. They became one of the biggest rock bands in the world. And then they just kept going.
Along the way they gave us some of the most recognisable guitar riffs in popular music, while constantly returning to the same ingredients they loved from the beginning: Blues. R&B. Rock ‘n’ roll. Groove.
That’s why The Rolling Stones belong in every guitarist’s repertoire. Not just because the songs are famous. Because learning them teaches you how to play less, but make it mean more.
Learn the riffs. Learn the groove. Learn the space. Then put the Stones into your repertoire and let the tunes do the talking.
The Rolling Stones Tunes | Related Pages
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction | Chords + TAB
Angie | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Angie by The Rolling Stones using chords, lyrics, a chord chart, chord analysis, and Spytunes video guitar lessons.
| Am Amadd4 | E7 |
Angie, Angie…
Start learning with the full lesson series: Angie – Guitar Lessons with TAB.
Brown Sugar | Chords + TAB
You can learn Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| C | C |
Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields…
Can I Get A Witness | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Can I Get A Witness by Marvin Gaye using chords, lyrics, TAB, a backing track, a chord chart, and Spytunes video guitar lessons.
| Eb Ab | Db Ab | Eb Ab | Db Ab |
Ah listen, everybody, especially you girls…
Start learning with the full lesson series: Can I Get A Witness – Guitar Lessons with TAB.
Dancing In The Street | Chords + TAB
You can learn Dancing In The Street by Martha and the Vandellas using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| E7 | E7 (D/E) | E7 | E7 (D/E) |
Callin’ out around the world, are you ready for a brand new beat…
Honky Tonk Women | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Honky Tonk Women by The Rolling Stones using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| G | G | C F/A | C |
I met a gin-soaked, bar-room queen in Memphis…
Under The Boardwalk | Chords + TAB
You can learn Under The Boardwalk by The Drifters using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| G | G | D | D |
Oh, when the sun beats down and burns the tar up on the roof…
The Rolling Stones on the web
