In pictures: 50 years of the Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones have been on the road for 50 years, and while this won’t surprise anyone who has seen the nick of them, that’s no reason not to celebrate.

New e-book ‘50 Years: The Rolling Stones, Views From The Inside, Views From The Outside’ by music journalist Hanspeter Künzler does just that, with a collection of reported material spanning the band’s career, including previously unreleased interviews with the Stones and their assorted wives and girlfriends.

In this 1972 interview with Robert Greenfield of Rock’s Back Pages, ahead of a 30-city US tour, Mick Jagger, who was resident in Los Angeles at the time, reveals the reason for the Stones’ intensive schedule: “Five cities a week for six weeks. We wanted to have a rest in the middle, two weeks off to recover, but that meant we’d have been in the country more than six months and eligible for national service...you know, the draft.”

In the same interview Jagger shred his thoughts on the England of the early 70s: “It’s so crowded one has to buy a thousand acres to have any privacy, where they line up outside your house to find out who you f**ked the night before. I hate that place...you think if only they’d let you, you could take it over and really get it together because it’s so small really. You think something like the miners’ strike is going to really bring about a change....But Heath... really, it’s such a pathetic little village sometimes.”

Covering everything from their early days playing blues clubs to stadium-packing superstardom, the title also includes more than 150 photos of a band that have produced some of music’s most iconic images. Click through to the picture gallery for a preview.

50 Years: The Rolling Stones is available through The eBook People, Amazon and iTunes.