Breaking Stones: 1963-1965 A Band on the Brink of Superstardom

Hardcover | 24.43 x 2.74 x 30.78 cm | 240 pp

ACC Art Books | 2016 | 9781851498161

In July 1962, a group of young men played a gig at The Marquee Club on Oxford Street, London. They called themselves 'The Rollin' Stones' and little did they know they would soon be making music history.

Breaking Stones captures the youth, the times and the spirit of The Stones' formative early years. Documenting 1963-1965 were two young photographers just starting out in their careers. Terry O'Neill, aged just 25, had a few years' experience photographing musicians and knew that this group had the same magic as another British phenomenon that just recently started to chart, The Beatles.

As the band was starting to record and tour, Gered Mankowitz came along. His first shoot, the now famous Mason's Yard session, was so fruitful, Gered was asked to tag along on tour to America. Gered was a mere 19 when he picked-up his camera and joined the band on stage in 1965. Between these two legendary photographers, they document the band's beginnings and these indelible images are forever placed in music's consciousness.

The photography throughout this book is embellished with various memoirs and interviews, celebrating the early days and giving an insight into what it must have felt like to go from a small club in Soho with no record deal to touring the world a few years later with a number one record. Terry O'Neill and Gered Mankowitz, two of the most respected, collected and exhibited photographers in the world were sitting in the front-row.

The book Includes quotes from Andrew Loog Oldman, Norman Jopling, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Bill Wyman as well as full interviews with Terry O'Neill & Gered Mankowitz. Images include many rare and unseen photos and contact sheets. Also there are original articles from the Record Mirror (1963), Evening Standard (1964) and Detroit Free Press (1965).