Mick Jagger Biography

Brian Jones, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts joined what was to become The Rolling Stones.

With a name chosen from a line in a Muddy Waters song, the band began to develop their fan base by playing in London.

In 1964, they released their first album "The Rolling Stones". A year later they had their first number 1 hit in the UK with "The Last Time" which was followed by "Satisfaction". Over the next few years they toured the world with many great hits including "Let's Spend the night together" (1967) and "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968).

After the release of the single 'Satisfaction', Jagger and The Stones became popular in the US. Drug charges, a three-month prison sentance, and a trial helped create the decadent image that led to The Stones' recognition and fame.

In 1968, Brian Jones committed suicide and Mick and Keith Richards were blamed for his death. But this fusion blew over and they soon recruited another guitarist to replace Brian in Mick Taylor.

Jagger’s solo album, 'She's the Boss', was released in 1985, but did not see the same success as The Rolling Stones. His second solo effort, 'Primitive Cool', received good reviews but was a commercial failure.

After a duet with David Bowie in a cover of 'Dancing in the Street' for Live Aid, Jagger returned to his fellow Stones to release the 1986 album 'Dirty Work'. Their 1989 album, 'Steel Wheels', and its subsequent tour were phenomenally successful.

They followed this up with the 'Voodoo Lounge' tour, in support of the 1997 album 'Bridges to Babylon'. Between two successful albums and tours, Jagger also worked on his most successful solo album, 'Wandering Spirit'.

Jagger also has an acting career, most notably in Nicolas Roeg's Performance (1968) and as Australian bushranger Ned Kelly (1970). In the early 1980s, Jagger was cast as a main character in Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, however numerous delays in the film's notoriously difficult production resulted in him being unable to continue due to schedule conflicts with a band tour. More recently he has appeared in Freejack (1992), Bent (1997) and The Man From Elysian Fields (2002).

Jagger’s private life is almost as famous as his career. After an eight year marriage to Bianca Perez Morena de Macias, Jagger had a 32-year relationship with model Jerry Hall. Their marriage ended in 1999. However, he was involved with other women throughout the relationship and has children by several of them. He is also now a Grandfather.

At the ripe old age of 60, despite having spent most of his life an icon of rock rebelliousness, Mick Jagger was knighted on 12th December 2003, for his "services to popular music".

In 2008, a BBC documentary revealed that Jagger actually escaped an assassination attempt at the hands of Hells Angels in 1969. The news is revealed in a radio programme about the history of the FBI, with a former agent explaining how Jagger became a target. Tom Mangold claimed The Stones' disastrous San Francisco concert, in which one man was killed by a Hells Angel, prompted the death threat. Jagger was said to be furious about the uprising in the crowd, blaming the biker group, who had been employed to quell any trouble at the gig.

Mangold revealed that the Angels were so angered by Jagger's treatment of them that they decided to kill him. He described how a boatload of gang members set-off to attack the rock icon at his holiday home in the Hamptons, New York City, but were thwarted by bad weather.