Pick a Day

The Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women" hits #1 in America for the first of four weeks.

The Rolling Stones release Through The Past, Darkly.

The Rolling Stones record Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! at New York City's Madison Square Garden. In the audience is Jimi Hendrix, celebrating his 27th (and last) birthday.

The Rolling Stones headline the Altamont concert at a speedway in California. It's a free event with Jefferson Airplane and Santana also on the bill, but it turns violent when the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, who are hired as security, kill a crowd member. The concert is documented in The Stones movie Gimme Shelter.More

The Rolling Stones release the foreboding album Let It Bleed, with the classic tracks "Gimme Shelter" and "Midnight Rambler." The next day, a fan is killed during their performance at the Altamont Speedway.

On the way to their fateful Altamont concert of December 6, The Rolling Stones stop at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama, where they spend three days recording the songs "Wild Horses," "You Gotta Move" and "Brown Sugar."

The Rolling Stones' contract with Decca expires, and the group takes the opportunity to split with notorious manager Allen Klein. Delivering one more song to the label to fulfill its obligation, the famously unreleasable "C--ksucer Blues" (aka Schoolboy Blues), they also begin the process of forming their own label, Rolling Stones Records (which features their new "tongue and lips" logo).

The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger makes his acting debut in Ned Kelly, a film about the legendary Australian outlaw, which makes his debut in Kelly's own hometown of Glenrowan.

The Rolling Stones' tour documentary Gimme Shelter, featuring footage of the infamous Altamont concert, opens in New York City.

The Rolling Stones' lips and tongue logo appears for the first time when it is used on VIP passes for their show at the Marquee Club in London.More

One the eve of their new UK tour, The Rolling Stones become rock's first tax exiles by announcing that they're moving from England to France.

The Rolling Stones release Sticky Fingers, which includes "Brown Sugar," "Wild Horses" and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" It's the first album released on their own label, Rolling Stones Records.

The Rolling Stones issue "Brown Sugar," the first release on their own label, Rolling Stones Records.

The Rolling Stones announce their own record label, Rolling Stones Records, which they vow to make a "small operation we can handle" so as not to suffer the pitfalls of The Beatles' Apple Records.

The Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar" hits the top of the Hot 100 for the first of two weeks.

The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers album, with a working zipper on the cover, hits #1 in the US.More

The Rolling Stones release their compilation Hot Rocks 1964–1971.

The Rolling Stones release Exile On Main Street, a landmark double album recorded primarily at a villa in France, where the group is living to avoid British taxes (they are "tax exiles," thus the album name).

The Rolling Stones album Exile On Main Street hits #1 in America.

With Martha Reeves and Stevie Wonder opening, The Rolling Stones kick off their Exile On Main Street tour in Vancouver, BC. The 32-date tour grosses $4 million, making it the richest rock tour in history at the time.

At The Forum in Inglewood, California, The Rolling Stones perform a benefit concert for the victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua, where Mick Jagger's wife Bianca is from. The show raises $400,000.

The Rolling Stones release Goat's Head Soup.

The syndicated music show Don Kirshner's Rock Concert debuts with a performance by The Rolling Stones, making their first appearance on US television in six years. Fittingly, they play "It's Only Rock 'N' Roll."

The BBC, predictably, bans The Rolling Stones' single "Star Star," better known as "Starf----r."

The Rolling Stones ballad "Angie" hits #1 in America.

On Easter Sunday, the concert documentary Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones, premieres at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York. It's the first of its kind with quadraphonic sound, requiring a special system. It's a grand event, but Mick Jagger declares the film "boring."

London graffiti artists hired by the Rolling Stones' management spray paint various local sites as promotion for the group's latest single, "It's Only Rock N' Roll."

The Rolling Stones release It's Only Rock N' Roll.

Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor leaves the band. Ron Wood eventually replaces him after several candidates are auditioned.

Former Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood is announced as the replacement for Rolling Stones' Mick Taylor on their upcoming tour. By the end of the year, Wood is their permanent guitarist.