Alexis Corner, the "father of British blues", in the early '60s had formed one of the most influential groups - as it would later prove - for the British youth, Blues Incorporated. Many passed through their ranks and even more were "taught" by him, on that initially inhospitable side of the Atlantic for the black sound.
In essence it was a one-man line-up, and alongside Corner were people like Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, ⅔ of the future Cream, while there were others who, occasionally and not so consistently, got on stage and played together of - from Jimmy Page and John Mayall to Rod Stewart and the main heroes of these lines you're reading:Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones.
Blues Incorporated performed every Thursday at a legendary London venue, the Marquee Club on Oxford Street, which in the following decades would open its arms to, among others, punk and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
But there was also a Thursday of 1962 where Corner's band would not be able to perform as BBC Radio and the Jazz Club show had invited them to play live. It was a great opportunity, they couldn't say "no" - obviously - but that didn't mean that the owner of the club shared their artistic enthusiasm.
"If you don't play this Thursday, I can't guarantee you'll ever play at my store again," he told them with managerial coldness, and the band turned to their friends for help. Someone had to replace them and quickly.
Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, pianist Ian Stewart and bassist Dick Taylor accepted to play in their place at the Marquee and so on July 12, 1962, the first appearance of the Rolling Stones took place.
Shortly before the live, Mick Jagger's first statement to the press will be carried by the local newspaper Jazz News and he will say "I hope they don't think we are a Rock 'n Roll band". It sounds a bit ironic today, but back then they just wanted to make it clear that they were playing rhythm 'n' blues and not what people still understood as American '50s rock 'n' roll.
In the same paper, Brian Jones will also introduce the name of the band to the public - "Mick Jagger and the Rollin' Stones" to be more precise.
But it remains unclear who sat behind the drums that night. Some friends of the band say it was Tony Chapman, who often played with them in the early years, but Keith Richards in his autobiography will write that he was a friend of Mick Avory, the later drummer of the Kinks.
According to the Guardian, the band played in front of 110 people (80 men and 30 women) for 50 minutes and the feedback was rather positive, despite the minimal amount of time its members had spent promoting.
They continued their night at the Tottenham pub, where they continued to drink brandy and whiskey, which is exactly what they had previously downed on stage to ease their stress. In their company was also Charlie Watts, who six months later would take a permanent position behind their drums.
In his autobiography, Richards will recall that night running his fingers over the notes of "Dust My Broom," "Confessin' the Blues," "Got My Mojo Working" and a few other blues tunes, the music that it brought him back to Jagger, an old classmate who had been crushing on him for some years.
"You sit down with some guys and you play and you're like, 'Oh yeah!' This feeling is worth more than anything else", he will write. "There's a certain moment when you realize that you've actually left the planet for a while and that no one can touch you... It's a flight without permission."
In 2012, when the band was still celebrating 50 years since their first live, Rolling Stone found them and gave them a walk through the Marquee for a photo shoot. In the conversation that preceded it, Jagger admitted that he feels a little uncomfortable with the "celebration" of July 12.
"A part of me says:'We're joking a little,'" he will say in an apologetic tone. “You know, because it's not the same band. It is, of course, still the same name. Only Keith and I are the same people from that band, I think. I tried to find out when Charlie's first live was and none of us can remember. None of us really know. But it's an amazing achievement and I think it's fantastic. I'm very proud of that."
Richards doesn't take the matter too seriously, although he seems to agree with Jagger in essence.
"Dude, I don't count!", he will say with a laugh to the magazine's reporter. "The Stones consider the 50 years to start and count from 1963, because Charlie didn't join until January. Therefore, we consider 2012 as the year of conception, but the birth is of the year."
For the rest of the summer, the band will continue to tour London's clubs, playing one blues cover after another, from Bo Diddley and Elmore James to Jimmy Reed and - of course - Muddy Waters. In August, Jagger, Richards and Jones will all move into a small flat on the second floor of 102 Edith Grove in Chelsea, which will go down in history, not least because it formed the core of the band to bond even more, but also for his - sorry for that - dirtiness. It was two rooms all in all without a bathroom, and with the dirty dishes and empty beers making the walkable floor area even smaller.
"The Rolling Stones spent the first year of their life hanging out in different places, stealing food and rehearsing," Richards will remember, among other things.
It is the same apartment that, a few months later, after a night at the Crawdaddy Club, Mick will invite the Beatles to hang out, and they will remember for years how dirty it was.
A little later they would be crammed in even more to fit Charlie Watts into the apartment. And things would definitely go their way.