Articles by Steve Lemkau

He’s With the Band
A young Jagger found his singing style after biting his tongue deeply during a basketball-court collision.

Keith Richards, Mick Jagger attend the press conference <br>announcing their Voodoo Lounge tour in 1994 in New York City.<br>PHOTO: Sonia Moskowitz / Getty Images

You will be forgiven for wondering if the world needs another Rolling Stones book. Of course it doesn’t. But this is not “only rock ’n’ roll.” This is a cultural juggernaut, a superstar band with a singular body of work that both influenced and reflected multiple generations. The Stones have sustained an artistic collaboration over the course of six decades, sold hundreds of millions of records, and continue to pack in thousands of fans night after night at eye-watering ticket prices that compromise family college funds. There is no group like the Rolling Stones.

How Jagger Kept the Rolling Stones in Business for 6 Decades

Mick Jagger was supposed to be singing “Start Me Up” in stadiums across the U.S. this year. The buzz in the music business was that a tour was booked. Instead, the Rolling Stones in April made an inside joke via social media: a 1972 photograph of a debauched Keith Richards next to a sign that reads: “Patience Please… A Drug Free America Comes First!”

The message? Stones fans can’t always get what they want.

Mick Jagger Rocks On

As the Rolling Stones put out their first all-original album in 18 years, the band’s iconic frontman talks about staying together, using Instagram and what he has in common with Taylor Swift.

Click HERE to play the audio on WSJ Podcasts

When the Rolling Stones Gathered in France

‘Exile on Main Street,’ released 50 years ago after they’d left Britain for financial reasons, marked a more eclectic, edgier turn in the famous band’s music

The Rolling Stones in the spring of 1971 were a band on the run. Victims of bad business advice and Britain’s steep, punitive tax rates, the Stones had brought in a new business manager, Prince Rupert Loewenstein, who urged them in early ’71 to become tax exiles in Southern France.

By June, the band was recording in the dank, partitioned basement of Keith Richards’s rented French villa near Nice, their 16-track “Mighty Mobile” studio truck parked outside. The Stones were under pressure to complete an album for their new Stones-owned label in advance of a planned American tour the following June and July.