Brian Jones

Brian Jones, the legend and icon, is familiar to generations of rock fans, but the reality of his life has always remaned mysterious. Granted godlike status alongside giants like Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin, Jones was more than the Stones' ill-fated pretty boy.Set against the dramatic backdrop of the swingin' sixties, Alan Clayson's biography reveals an extremely talented musician and a surprisingly driven man whose creative energies propelled him to fame even as they prepared him for an early drink and drug-feuelled demise. Clayson interviewed many of Jones's family and contemporaries for this in-depth portrait. Clayson examines the many spheres of Brian Jones' life, from assessing his contributions in the crucial early years of The Rolling Stones to the rumors that Jones was murdered by a bodyguard. Although he wasn't someone you'd trust with either your heart or your wallet, Brian Jones was the most rock 'n' roll of The Rolling Stones, the group that - alongside The Beatles - soundtracked the 1960s. He was the epitome of the doomed rock hero, characterised by a loveless upbringing, bohemian wanderings, illegitimate offspring, drug busts, neurotic self-absorption and a tragic death.

As founder member of The Rolling Stones, it was Jones who determined the early musical direction of the band, sourced the bookings and took care of the business. Yet, as their fame gathered momentum, Jones' creative input was sidelined by the overpowering Jagger-Richards songwriting partnership and the inevitable effects of an increasing dependence on drink and drugs, culminating in his 'sacking' in June 1969, one month before his death.

Brian Jones launches a six-volume study of The Rolling Stones with an enlightening account of the tortured life of the man who plummeted from the heights of adulation to the depths of despair, leaving the band he started to enjoy a further thirty-plus years of music making.