WASHINGTON – Well, their hearts were in the right place. Actually, their plaque was, too – their history was just off a bit.
A plaque was placed in February at Dartford station, in southeast England, to mark the spot where future Rolling Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards met as teenagers in 1961 and went on to make musical history. But original Stones bassist Bill Wyman, who was with the band during their ascension and left (gulp) 22 years ago, tells the BBC he’s “disgusted” with the plaque.
Why? It gets the history wrong.
The plaque reads, “Mick Jagger and Keith Richards met on platform 2 on 17 October 1961 and went on to form The Rolling Stones – one of the most successful rock bands of all time.”
As Wyman points out, and any good Stones fan knows, guitarist Brian Jones formed The Rolling Stones.
“Mick Jagger and Keith Richards didn’t create The Rolling Stones – they were part of The Rolling Stones like all of us.” Jones, Wyman says, “gave the name The Rolling Stones, he chose the music and he was the leader,” Wyman tells the BBC.
Jones died in 1969.
Jagger and Richards didn’t technically meet on the platform either. They re-met; the pair had gone to the same elementary school. The 1961 encounter was, however, when they discovered they shared musical tastes – Richards was carrying a guitar on his way to art school; Jagger, a cache of blues records on his way to the London School of Economics.
Officials say they’ll change the plaque.