![+++ Flashback: Beatles meet Rolling Stones +++]( "+++ Flashback: Beatles meet Rolling Stones +++")
+++ Flashback: Beatles meet Rolling Stones +++
It was 44 years ago today (April 14th, 1963) that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones first met. The Beatles, who were new on the scene in London, had heard about the group through word of mouth, and were in the audience at the Stones' show in Richmond at the Crawdaddy Club at the Station Hotel. Shortly thereafter, George Harrison recommended that Decca Records -- the same label that had passed on the Beatles -- sign a deal with the still-unknown Stones.
In 1988 when Mick Jagger inducted the Beatles into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he recalled first laying eyes on the group while on stage, remembering that, "we were playing a little club in Richmond and I saw right in front of me, there they were -- THE FAB FOUR. The four-headed monster. They never went anywhere alone. And they had on the most beautiful long, black leather trenchcoats." Jagger joked that, "I thought to myself , 'If I have to learn to write songs to get one of those, I will.'"
The two bands, who were pegged as being rivals in the rock press, were actually very close. John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the Stones' second single, "I Wanna Be Your Man," and over the years coordinated their record release schedules with the Stones so that they wouldn't have overlapping hits.
Over the decades, the two groups have enjoyed both a personal, and at times professional, relationship:
George Harrison was at Keith Richards' house just prior to Jagger and Richards' infamous 1967 drug bust. Jagger and Richards attended several Beatles recording sessions, including the legendary orchestral overdub of the group's "A Day In The Life" track.
In 1967, the Stones' late co-founder Brian Jones played saxophone on the Beatles' "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number), which was eventually released in 1970 as the B-side to "Let It Be."
Lennon and McCartney contributed backing vocals to the Stones' 1967 single "We Love You," and Jagger returned the favor by attending the "All You Need Is Love" global satellite broadcast.
That summer, Jagger and his girlfriend Marianne Faithfull traveled with the Beatles to Bangor, Wales for a weekend lecture with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It was there that the Beatles learned of the death of their manager, Brian Epstein. Around that time, the Beatles and the Stones tossed around the idea of starting their own joint record label.
John Lennon made his first-ever solo appearance at the Stones' December 1968 taping of their Rock And Roll Circus, performing "Yer Blues" with the makeshift band called the Plastic Mac, which included Keith Richards on bass, Eric Clapton on lead guitar, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Mitch Mitchell on drums. For a brief time in 1969, the two bands shared a manager, the American-born accountant Allen Klein.
In July 1969, Paul and Linda McCartney, who was once romantically linked to Jagger, attended the Stones' comeback gig at London's Hyde Park. It was at that show that the Stones premiered their new single "Honky Tonk Women," which was rumored to be inspired in part by Linda, who according to legend was "the divorcee in New York City."
In 1971, McCartney and Ringo Starr attended Mick and Bianca Jagger's wedding in St. Tropez. In 1975 Harrison was photographed backstage at the Stones' Los Angeles Forum concert, and the McCartneys have also been on hand at the Stones' 1976 Knebworth gig and their 1978 Palladium show in New York City.
John Lennon and Mick Jagger have collaborated several times in the studio. In 1973 Jagger added guitar to Yoko Ono's Approximately Infinite Universe album, and in 1974, Lennon produced a still-unreleased version of Jagger singing "Too Many Cooks."
In 1979 Ringo Starr and former Stones bassist Bill Wyman performed together on Jerry Lewis' Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.
In 1981, Stones guitarist Ron Wood co-wrote produced several tracks for Starr's Stop And Smell The Roses album. Keith Richards also took part in the sessions.
In 1986 McCartney performed onstage with Jagger and David Bowie, playing acoustic guitar during the Prince's Trust Concert, when the pair performed their hit remake of "Dancing In The Street."
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