Stones mark 50 years

Associated Press

LONDON

Mick Jagger may rethink the words he sang more than 45 years ago — “What a drag it is getting old.”

Thursday marked 50 years since Jagger played his first gig with a band called the Rolling Stones, and the group is marking its half-century with no letup in its productivity or rock ’n’ roll style. Jagger himself is still the cool, rich frontman of the world’s most successful rock band.

Now in their late 60s and early 70s, the band members celebrated the anniversary by attending a retrospective photo exhibition at London’s Somerset House — and looking to the future by rehearsing for new gigs.

Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts got together 50 years to the day after the young R&B band played London’s Marquee Club. Taking a name from a song by bluesman Muddy Waters, they were billed as “The Rollin’ Stones” —the “g” came later.

The band had its first hit, a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Come On,” in 1963, and soon became one of the world’s biggest and most influential rock acts.