Jagger, Mick 1943–

(Michael Philip Jagger)

PERSONAL: Born July 26, 1943, in Dartford, Kent, England; married Bianca Perez Morena de Macias, May 12, 1971 (divorced November, 1979); married Jerry Hall (a model and actress), 1990 (divorced 1999); children: (first marriage) Jade; (second marriage) Elizabeth Scarlett, James Leroy Augustine, Georgia May Ayeesha, Gabriel Luke Beauregard; (with Marsha Hunt) Karis Hunt. Education: Attended London School of Economics, 1962–64.

ADDRESSES: Office—Rolling Stones, P.O. Box 6152, New York, NY 10128.

CAREER: Cofounder and lead singer of rock band Rolling Stones, 1962–; actor, 1970–; founder, Jagged Films, 1995–. Performer on numerous record albums and CDs, including (with Rolling Stones): The Rolling Stones, ABKO, 1964; 12 × 5, ABKO, 1964; The Rolling Stones Now!, ABKO, 1965; December's Children (and Everybody's), ABKO, 1965; Aftermath, ABKO, 1966; High Tide & Green Grass, ABKO, 1966; Got Love If You Want It, ABKO, 1966; Between the Buttons, ABKO, 1967; Flowers, ABKO, 1967; Their Satanic Majesty's Request, ABKO, 1967; Beggar's Banquet, ABKO, 1968; Let It Bleed, ABKO, 1969; Through the Past, Darkly, ABKO, 1969; Get Yer Ya Yas Out, ABKO, 1970; Stone Age, Decca, 1971; Gimme Shelter, 1971; Milestones, Decca, 1971; Sticky Fingers, Virgin, 1971; Hot Rocks: 1964–1971, ABKO, 1971; More Hot Rocks (Big Hits and Fazed Cookies), ABKO, 1972; Exile on Main Street, Virgin, 1972; No Stone Unturned, Decca, 1973; Goat's Head Soup, Virgin, 1973; It's Only Rock and Roll, Virgin, 1974; Metamorphosis, ABKO, 1975; Rolled Gold: The Very Best of the Rolling Stones, Decca, 1975; Made in the Shade, Rolling Stones, 1975; Black and Blue, Virgin, 1976; Love You Live, Rolling Stones, 1977; Some Girls, Virgin, 1978; Emotional Rescue, Virgin, 1980; Sucking in the Seventies, Rolling Stones, 1981; Tattoo You, Virgin, 1981; Still Life, Rolling Stones, 1982; Under Cover, Virgin, 1983; Dirty Work, Virgin, 1986; Steel Wheels, Virgin, 1989; The Singles Collection, ABKO, 1989; Flashpoint, Rolling Stones, 1991; Voodoo Lounge, Capitol, 1994; Jump Back: The Best of The Rolling Stones, Virgin, 1994; Stripped, Virgin, 1995; Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Circus, ABKO, 1996; and Bridges to Babylon, Virgin, 1997. Solo albums include: She's the Boss, Columbia, 1985; Primitive Cool, Rolling Stones, 1987; Wandering Spirit, Atlantic, 1993; and Goddess in the Doorway, EMD/Virgin, 2001. Executive producer of films Running out of Luck, 1987, and Rolling Stones: Tip of the Tongue, 2003; producer of Enigma, 2001. Appears as himself in numerous concert and documentary films, including Sympathy for the Devil, New Line Cinema, 1968; Gimme Shelter, 1970; Let's Spend the Night Together, 1982; At the Max, Imax Corp., 1991; Rolling Stones: Voodoo Lounge, 1994; and Mayor of the Sunset Strip, 2003; also appears as himself in various television productions, including History of Rock 'n' Roll, Volumes 3, 5, 6, 1995; It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, 2000; and Rolling Stones: Forty Licks World Tour Live at Madison Square Garden, 2003; appeared in guest roles in television series, including Saturday Night Live, Faerie Tale Theatre, The Simpsons, and Entertainment Tonight. Actor in films, including Ned Kelly, United Artists, 1970; Performance, Warner Bros., 1970; Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol, 1982; Burden of Dreams, Flower Films, 1982; Blame It on the Night, TriStar, 1984; Freejack, Warner Bros., 1992; Bent, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists, 1997; Enigma, 2001; and The Man from Elysian Fields, 2001.

AWARDS, HONORS: With the Rolling Stones: Rolling Stone magazine Music Awards Critics' Picks for best album, 1978, for Some Girls, and 1981, for Tattoo You; for best artist, 1978, 1981, and 1989, for best single, 1981, for "Start Me Up;" and for best tour, 1989; Lifetime Achievement Award, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, 1986; inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1989. Solo awards: Rolling Stone magazine Music Awards Critics' Picks for best singer—male, 1985, for "Just Another Night of You"; knighted by the queen of England, 2002.

WRITINGS:

(Author of story) Blame It on the Night (film), 1984.

Running out of Luck (video screenplay), 1987.

Author of numerous song lyrics.

SIDELIGHTS: From the first time he took the stage as lead singer for the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger has been one of the most distinctive figures in popular music. Arguably, while others have had better voices or sharper dance moves, few could ever match Jagger's manic flamboyance and sinister charisma, qualities that many fans and critics have considered the quintessence of rock and roll since the 1960s.

Jagger was born into a suburban, middle-class family in Dartford, Kent, England, in 1943. At the age of nineteen he enrolled in the London School of Economics to prepare for a career in business. There he reunited with childhood friend Keith Richards, and after discovering their mutual love for African-American rhythm-and-blues music, the two moved into an apartment with friend Brian Jones and began rehearsing as a rock-and-roll band. By 1963, as the Rolling Stones, their versions of songs by artists such as Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters had begun to attract paying audiences, and the following year found them at the top of two different newspaper polls as England's most popular group. Soon, Jagger was contributing lyrics to original music by Richards, and the two had their first American hit with "Satisfaction." Jagger's lyrics, as much as the driving music to which they were set, soon became a hallmark of the Rolling Stones' primal sound. "Just when parents were on the brink of accepting the Beatles as cute and tolerable," wrote Bruce Pollock in his book In Their Own Words, "along came the Rolling Stones to confirm that rock 'n' roll was still despicable, was still as full of lust as ever." Critic Ellen Sander put it more succinctly in the Saturday Review when she wrote in 1969 that "Jagger, a prancing, lascivious satyr, is the prototypical sex symbol of rock."

Critical enthusiasm went hand in hand with popular adulation, and despite several major set-backs—the death of Jones, drug arrests in England, a disastrous free concert in California during which a fan was murdered by a Hell's Angel gang member hired to be a security guard—it was generally accepted by the mid-1970s that the Rolling Stones deserved their self-bestowed title of "World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band." Success weighed heavily on Jagger, however. He began to set aside his overtly rebellious lyrics and, instead, adopted a more detached, ironic, yet still impassioned and often humorous viewpoint. As Crawdaddy critic Jon Pareles wrote, "Jagger's attitude, vaguely cynical yet vaguely involved … gives each song some authority."

Throughout the rest of the 1970s, and, indeed, through the rest of the century, the Rolling Stones remained critically and popularly viable. Fallow periods were always followed by creative ones, and various temporary break-ups were followed by triumphant returns, including the 1997 album and tour of Bridges to Babylon. During those periods when the Rolling Stones were inactive, Jagger found time to pursue an on-again/off-again film career, beginning with a starring role in 1970's Ned Kelly, the story of a legendary Australian outlaw. His involvement in movie-making accelerated after he founded Jagged Films in 1995. Having already worked as the executive producer of the film Running out of Luck in 1987, as well as writing the story concept for 1984's Blame It on the Night and the screenplay for Running out of Luck in 1987, the first film he produced for Jagged Films was 2001's Enigma, in which he also had an acting role. The film, starring Kate Winslet, received five London Film Critics nominations. Despite such success, however, Jagger continued to vigorously pursue his music career, releasing another solo album, Goddess in the Doorway, in 2001. Another solo achievement came for the rocker the next year when Jagger was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of England.

Jagger's solo albums have all proven to be less successful than the band's accomplishments, and despite his occasional fallings out with Richards, it is as the voice of the Rolling Stones that Jagger finds the most artistic and commercial fulfillment. With the 2002 tour marking the band's fortieth anniversary, the Rolling Stones' persona was still largely the work of Jagger. Nik Cohn, writing in the New York Magazine, concluded, "They were delinquents in excelsis; God's own punks. They were arrogant, boorish, in every sense unsavory. And if you loved rock, they were simply magnificent."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 17, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1985.

Contemporary Musicians, Volume 7, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1992.

Dalton, David, and Lenny Kay, Rock 100, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 1977.

Jahn, Mike, Rock: From Elvis Presley to the Rolling Stones, Quadrangle/New York Times Book Company (New York, NY), 1973.

Marcus, Greil, editor, Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1974.

Miller, Jim, editor, The Rolling Stones Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, Rolling Stone Press/Random House (New York, NY), 1976.

Pollock, Bruce, In Their Own Words, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1975.

PERIODICALS

Circus, August 26, 1980, David Fricke, "Longplayers: 'Emotional Rescue,'" p. 54.

Crawdaddy, November, 1974, Paul Williams, "It Wasn't Only Rock 'n' Roll (and I Liked It)," pp. 47-53; August, 1978, Jon Pareles, "Got What They Need," p. 74.

Creem, January, 1973, Robert Christgau, "Can't Get No Satisfaction," pp. 30, 32-35, and Lester Bangs, "I Only Get My Rocks off when I'm Dreaming," pp. 86-87.

High Fidelity, March, 1969, John Gabree, "The Beatles' Ninety-Minute Bore, and the Rolling Stones' 'Beggars Banquet,'" pp. 84-85.

Jazz and Pop, April, 1968, Frank Kofsky, "The Rolling Stones, 'Their Satanic Majesties Request': An Exegesis," pp. 12-15.

Melody Maker, June 10, 1978, Chris Brazier, "More Beef from the Stones," p. 18; June 28, 1980, Michael Watts, "An Institution Strikes Back," p. 13.

New York, June 2, 1975, Nik Cohn, "The Obsolescence of God's Own Punks," pp. 72-74.

Rolling Stone, January 4, 1969, Jon Landau, "Beggar's Banquet," pp. 10-13; July 6, 1972, Lenny Kaye, "Records: 'Exile on Main Street,'" pp. 54-55; February 17, 1973, Lester Bangs, "'Hot Rocks,'" p. 50; November 8, 1973, Bud Scoppa, "Records: 'Goat's Head Soup,'" pp. 66-67; December 19, 1974, Landau, "But I Love It, Love It, Love It!," pp. 79-80; September 11, 1975, Jonathan Cott, "Back to a Shadow in the Night," pp. 34-35.

Saturday Review, January 25, 1969, Ellen Sander, "The Rolling Stones: Beggars' Triumph," p. 48.

Stereo Review, January, 1975, Noel Coppage, "The Rolling Stones," pp. 84-85.

ONLINE

Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/ (April 2, 2004), "Mick Jagger."

Mick Jagger Home Page, http://www.mickjagger.com (June 4, 2004).

Rolling Stones Web site, http://www.rollingstones.com/ (June 4, 2004).

Salon.com, http://www.salon.com/ (March 4, 2002), Douglas Cruickshank, "'Sympathy for the Devil': Mick Jagger's Mad, Erudite Incantation Strutted '60s Rock toward the Dark Side of History."