Additional personnel: Gene Pitney (piano); Ian Stewart (keyboards); Phil Spector (maracas).

The Rolling Stones: Brian Jones (guitar); Bill Wyman (bass guitar); Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts .

Personnel: Mick Jagger (vocals, harmonica); Bill Wyman (vocals); Keith Richards (guitar); Ian Stewart (piano, organ); Gene Pitney (piano); Charlie Watts (drums); Phil Spector (maracas).

Additional personnel: Gene Pitney, Ian Stewart, Phil Spector.

Audio Remasterers: Teri Landi; Steve Rosenthal.

Liner Note Author: Andrew Loog Oldham.

Recording information: Regent Sound, London, England.

Photographer: David P. Bailey.

Arranger: The Rolling Stones.

The first full-length Rolling Stones album is a raw document of their early sound, which at this point was still Early British Tinny, even on this pristine re-issue. However, the band's growing confidence throughout the course of THE ROLLING STONES is almost palpable.

Their take on Willie Dixon's "I Just Want to Make Love to You" is steeped in Chicago blues filtered through a West London sensibility, while the insistent harp on their hit cover of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" is an early example of the band's technique of using blues riffs as pop hooks. "Tell Me" is a fairly embryonic attempt at Tin Pan Alley songwriting (they're far more at home with the raw R&B of "Little By Little") and it's obvious that at this early stage the band was most comfortable performing R&B covers, such as Rufus Thomas's classic "Walking the Dog," and particularly Chuck Berry's "Carol," which remained a staple of the band's live shows for some years.

The group's debut album was the most uncompromisingly blues/R&B-oriented full-length recording they would ever release. Mostly occupied with covers, this was as hardcore as British R&B ever got; it's raw and ready. But the Stones succeeded in establishing themselves as creative interpreters, putting '50s and early-'60s blues, rock, and soul classics (some quite obscure to white audiences) through a younger, more guitar-oriented filter. The record's highlighted by blistering versions of "Route 66," "Carol," the hypertempoed "I Just Want to Make Love to You," "I'm a King Bee," and "Walking the Dog." Their Bo Diddley-ized version of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" gave them their first British Top Ten hit (and their first small American one). The acoustic ballad "Tell Me" was Jagger-Richards' first good original tune, but the other group-penned originals were little more than rehashed jams of blues clichés, keeping this album from reaching truly classic status. ~ Richie Unterberger