The Rolling Stones Debut at the Marquee Club on 12 July 1962

On 12 July 1962 the group played their first formal gig at the Marquee Club, billed as "The Rollin' Stones". The line-up was Jagger, Richards, Jones, Stewart on piano, Taylor on bass and Tony Chapman on drums. Jones intended for the band to play primarily Chicago blues, but Jagger and Richards brought the rock & roll of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley to the band. Bassist Bill Wyman joined in December and drummer Charlie Watts the following January to form the Stones' long-standing rhythm section.

The Rolling Stones' first manager, Giorgio Gomelsky, booked the band to play at his Crawdaddy Club for what became an eight-month residency. A young ex-publicist of The Beatles, Andrew Loog Oldham, signed the band to a management deal with his partner and veteran booker Eric Easton in early May 1963. (Gomelsky, who had no written agreement with the band, was not consulted.) George Harrison, meanwhile, recommended to Decca Records' Dick Rowe - who had famously turned down the Beatles - that he should give The Rolling Stones a recording contract.

The band embarked on their first UK tour in July 1963 and played their first gig outside of Greater London on Saturday 13 July at the Outlook Club in Middlesbrough for which they were paid £40; they shared the billing that night with The Hollies.

The Rolling Stones in the 1960s. From left: Jagger, Jones, Richards, Wyman and Watts.

After signing The Rolling Stones to a tape-lease deal with Decca, Oldham and Easton booked the band on their first big UK tour in the autumn of 1963. They were billed as a supporting act for American stars including Bo Diddley, Little Richard and The Everly Brothers; the opportunity to study these artists at work was an important "training ground" for the young band's stagecraft.

Prior to this tour, in July 1963, the band's first single, Chuck Berry's "Come On" reached number 21 in the UK. In November 1963, the Rolling Stones had a bigger hit with a rendition of the Lennon/McCartney composition "I Wanna Be Your Man", which went to number 12 on the UK charts.

Oldham crafted the band's image of long-haired tearaways "into the opposite of what The Beatles [were] doing". The band was touring the UK constantly, and made numerous television appearances; their next single, a frantic cover of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" was a top three hit.

Their first album The Rolling Stones, (issued in the US as England's Newest Hit Makers) was composed primarily of covers drawn from the band's live repertoire. The LP also included a Jagger/Richards original - "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)" - and two numbers credited to Nanker Phelge, the name used for songs composed by the entire group.

The Rolling Stones' first US tour in June 1964 was, in Bill Wyman's words, "a disaster. When we arrived, we didn't have a hit record [there] or anything going for us." When the band appeared on Dean Martin's TV variety show The Hollywood Palace, Martin mocked both their hair and their performance. During the tour, however, they did a two-day recording session at Chess Studios in Chicago, where many of their musical heroes recorded. These sessions included what would become The Rolling Stones' first UK chart-topper: their cover of Bobby and Shirley Womack's "It's All Over Now".

^{source: wikipedia}