On July 12, 1962, the Rolling Stones played their first gig at the Marquee Club in London’s Oxford Street. In the 50 years since, they have performed in front of more people than any other band – ever. Chris Price looks back at how a group of ex-Dartford school boys became rock and roll legends.

If the trains had been running early on a summer’s day in July 1960, there might never have been the Rolling Stones.

It was on that day, at Dartford railway station, that Sidcup Art College student Keith Richards bumped into Mick Jagger, who was on his way to classes at the London School of Economics.

The two had been mates at Wentworth Primary School in Dartford but had lost touch after Mick passed his 11-plus and won a place at Dartford Grammar School. Keith attended Dartford Technical High School for Boys, where he was expelled for truancy.

When Keith noticed the Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records under Mick’s arm, it rekindled their friendship. Just two years later, their band, The Rollin’ Stones, played their first show at the Marquee Club, an up-and-coming skiffle and jazz venue.

It was Brian who christened the band during a phone call to a music paper. After being asked for the band’s name, he spotted a Muddy Waters LP on the floor, on which one of the tracks was Rollin’ Stone. The band had a very different look in that first show on July 12, 1962. Two of the six members that night are not even recognised on the band’s official website, such was their fleeting involvement.

On stage alongside Keith and Mick that night were bassist Dick Taylor, slide guitarist Brian Jones, Ian Stewart on piano and drummer Mick Avory. They played a set of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley songs, inspired by Mick and Keith’s love of the two electric guitar pioneers.

The Rolling Stones have always been all about Mick and Keith and they are the only two original members who played on that opening night.

After having a demo rejected by the record label EMI, Dick Taylor left the band, eventually going on to form the Pretty Things. He was replaced by bassist Bill Wyman in December 1962, who remained with the band through their greatest years until leaving to pursue other projects in 1992.

Mick Avory left soon after that opening show – never having had any inclination to become a full time member but later became the drummer with the Kinks. The Stones experimented with drummer Tony Chapman before finally persuading Charlie Watts, then of Blues Incorporated, to join in January 1963. It seems hard to imagine the Stones ever having played with anybody else behind a drum kit.

The rest is history, and the band became the bad-boy alternative to the clean-cut Beatles in the 1960s. The Rolling Stones have had No.1 singles and albums in every country that has a popular music chart, making 29 studio albums, releasing 107 singles and performing in stadiums across the world to millions.

Other members from that first show are gone but not forgotten. Jones left the band in 1969, troubled by drug use, and was found dead in his swimming pool less than a month later. Mick Taylor joined as guitarist in 1969 until 1974, while The Faces’ Ronnie Wood joined in 1976, completing the four members of the band now recognised as The Rolling Stones.

Ian Stewart, who played piano at that first gig, was forced out of the band in May 1963 by manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who dropped the apostrophe in the band’s name, making them The Rolling Stones.

Andrew thought six members was too many and that Ian’s broad physique didn’t fit with the band’s other pretty, thin, long-haired boys.

Ian remained as the band’s road manager and session pianist, playing on every Stones album between 1964 and 1983.

Known by his bandmates as “Stu,” he was respected by the group until his sudden death, aged 47, in 1985.

When the Stones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, they requested Ian was inducted with them posthumously, proving he was very much a member of the band despite ex-manager Andrew’s cruel exclusion of him in the 1960s. Today, songs like (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, Honky Tonk Women and Ruby Tuesday are part of the rock and roll music canon. How funny to think it all started with a night of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley covers 50 years ago.

Band shares tales of 50-year history

The story of half a century of rock and roll greatness is captured in the new book The Rolling Stones 50. Curated, introduced and narrated by the band themselves, it is the only officially authorised book celebrating the band’s five decade milestone since that first show.

Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie said: “This is our story of 50 fantastic years. We started out as a blues band playing the clubs and more recently we’ve filled the largest stadiums in the world with the kind of show that none of us could have imagined all those years ago. Curated by us, it features the very best photographs and ephemera from and beyond our archives.”

The book is published by Thames & Hudson on Thursday, July 12. Cost £29.95.

Keeping it in the family

Jagger will be performing an intimate show at the Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford this week.

However, it will not be Mick taking to the stage but his brother Chris with his Cajun-flavoured band Chris Jagger’s Atcha!

The R&B group are supported by Bexley-based blues-folk singer-songwriter Johnny boy Jamescorrect.

See the show on Friday, July 13. Tickets £17.50, concessions £15.50. Box

office 01322 291100.