2009 Rolling Stones

By the time the Rolling Stones began calling themselves the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the late '60s, they had already staked out an impressive claim on the title. As the gritty alternative to the bouncy Merseybeat of the Beatles in the British Invasion, the Stones had pioneered the hard-driving blues-based rock & roll that has come to define hard rock.

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The Rolling Stones are the longest running act in the history of rock music, having remained wildly popular and crazy productive over their 30-year career. The group was formed by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who met as schoolmates, as the legend goes, on the platform at Dartford railway station, where Richard noticed a blues album under Jagger's arm. The pair go on to form a band with a variety of personnel, who eventually include a boogie-woogie pianist (Ian Stewart) and a gifted blonde blues guitarist from Cheltenham (Brian Jones). And in July 1962, they make their live debut at London's Marquee Club (minus Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts), taking their name from a Muddy Waters song called "Rollin' Stone Blues."

Jagger-Richards blossomed from 1965 to 1967 as songwriters -- Out of Our Heads brought forth "The Last Time" and "Satisfaction;" December's Children (And Everybody's) showcased "Look What You've Done," "Get Off My Cloud," and "As Tears Go By;" the all-original Aftermath reworked blues roots into exciting new hybrids, like Jones's gypsy hook on "Paint It Black;" and Between the Buttons with "Let's Spend The Night Together" and "Ruby Tuesday."

Next, came the studio clowning of Flowers and Their Satanic Majesties Request, a blatant ape of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Then, the Stones went to work in ernest. Beggar's Banquet (1968) was a return to their blues roots, matching Delta rhythms ("Prodigal Son") with an outlaw epic ("Sympathy For The Devil") and a rough-hewn sound ("Street Fighting Man"). Let It Bleed saw Mick Taylor's entrance and Jones' exit -- who subsequently drowned. A remarkable document of the '60s, the album included haunting "Gimme Shelter," harmonica-driven "Midnight Rambler," epic "You Can't Always Get What You Want," and the blues-roots of "Love In Vain."

Sticky Fingers, featuring Andy Warhol's zipper cover, was initially dumped on by critics, who later referred to it as rock's greatest double-album, 1972's stunning epic Exile On Main Street took soulful dirt-roads and deep-mud trips through gospel, blues, Stax/Volt R&B and country influences.

The band stumbled musically until their rallying cry against disco, 1978's Some Girls and its focused, tough and eclectic hard-rock adventures. A stadium rock album, "Tattoo You" came out three years later -- this was Ron Wood's first full LP as a Stone, showcasing his rhythmic verve.

In 1994, the group released the Don Was-produced Voodoo Lounge, receiving the band's strongest reviews in years, and its accompanying tour was even more successful than the Steel Wheels tour -- it also won the Stones their first Grammy for Best Rock Album. They are now touring in support of their box set, Forty Licks -- a compilation that chronicles all their recordings from the '60s through the '90s.