The group's earliest settled line-up consisted of Brian Jones (guitar, harmonica), Ian Stewart (piano), Mick Jagger (lead vocals, harmonica), Keith Richards (guitar, vocals), Bill Wyman (bassist) and Charlie Watts (drummer).
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Since 1993, the band has consisted of Jagger, Richards, Watts and guitarist Ronnie Wood.
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First popular in Europe, The Rolling Stones quickly became successful in North America during the British Invasion of the mid-1960s.
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They have released twenty-two studio albums in the United Kingdom (24 in the United States), eleven live albums (twelve in the US), and numerous compilations
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Their album Sticky Fingers (1971) began a string of eight consecutive studio albums reaching number one in the United States.
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Their most recent album of new material, A Bigger Bang, was released in 2005. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked the Rolling Stones at number ten on "The Billboard Top All-Time Artists", and as the second most successful group in the Billboard Hot 100 chart
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The emergence of the Rolling Stones has been credited for the greater international popularity of the primitive urban blues typified by Chess Records' artists such as Muddy Waters, who wrote "Rollin' Stone", the song from which the band drew its name
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The Rolling Stones' endurance and relevance, critic and musicologist Robert Palmer said, is due to their being "rooted in traditional verities, in rhythm-and-blues and soul music" while "more ephemeral pop fashions have come and gone".
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In the early 1950s, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were childhood friends and classmates at Wentworth Primary School in Dartford, Kent until their families moved apart
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The band celebrated their 50th anniversary in the summer of 2012, and have released a large hardback book, entitled '50', in commemoration of the event.[145] A new take on the band's lip and tongue logo was also released and used during the celebrations.
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Members have been widely reported as preparing for another world tour in either 2012 or 2013. Speaking in July, Keith Richards confirmed that rehearsals had taken place and Mick Jagger went as far as to speculate that the band may be performing on stage again as soon as autumn 2012.
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An HBO documentary directed by Brett Morgen capturing fifty years of the Rolling Stones was set to be released in September 2012.[148] The project was announced in the March 2012 issue of Rolling Stone magazine.
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On 30 August 2012, rumours became rife that the band is to perform two gigs at London's O2 Arena and two at Brooklyn's Barclays Center in November 2012
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On 4 September 2012, the Rolling Stones announced that a new greatest hits album, GRRR!, will be released on 12 November 2012.
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The album will be available in four different formats and will include two new tracks, entitled "Gloom and Doom" and "One Last Shot", which were recorded at Studio Guillaume Tell in Paris, France sometime within the last few weeks of August 2012
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