Fifty glorious years ago, the world witnessed the birth of one of the most important phenomena in the entire history of the planet Earth, an event that registered on the planet's timeline from the age of dinosaurs to that of smartphones. Even making allowances for my admittedly huge personal bias, that is no exaggeration. What happened via this handful of extremely talented people in 1962 changed the world forever. In 1962, though, very few people were perspicacious (or hip!) enough to realise how huge an impact this tiny group of people would have on the planet. In 1962, the world was a very different place, and little assemblages did not make big differences. Indeed, looking back on it, now, what stones they had, these upstarts, to declare themselves capable of making it on their own for 50 firetrucking years! This was not our modern world, where bandwidth gives the artist in Port-of-Spain the same potential as his counterpart in New York. Colour television would not even come to the United Kingdom itself for another five years! In '62, almost every powerful First World person would have dismissed as irrelevant and of only fleeting importance the exact-same people I genuinely consider the most important group the world has ever produced. I saw them, then, and see them, now, as the best in the world, but, to the rest of the world, they were a mongrelised band capable only of partying until they dropped dead.
And, yet, over fully half a century of real achievement, they repeatedly proved that, whatever the world thought, they were supremely talented and hugely gifted as individuals. Every single one of them. How many other groups can say that? Truly, they were blessed, even if their own sympathy apparently lay with the devil. Outsiders who did not understand their culture questioned their leadership as vain and insecure, always more interested in personal aggrandisement than the advancement of the whole group. If only they had a real leader, what might they have achieved? Others pointed at the deliberate sacrifice of the most gifted amongst them, and the happiness it seemed to bring the survivors: if they understood what mattered, some said, they would weep for the loss of their shining stars, not be secretly glad they did not have to work so hard to stand out themselves. But it is easier to criciticise than to create. And this little band has withstood the battering of time, and of far superior forces united against it, through the sheer, undeniable force of its creativity. The "haters" jeered them for appearing to put material wealth and the jet set lifestyle ahead of their own root values (laid on the strongest foundation beauty can ever be created out of in the New World, viz, the anguish and suffering of slavery-and, today, we can put pretence aside and dismiss the supposed suffering of indentureship as having no input whatever into their creative excellence). But, even when they seemed at their lowest-1970, 1990, when their output was dismal-they rose again, phoenix-like, wheeled and came back ever stronger. You might say I'm partisan, but I would reply that it's not bias when the evidence is in your favour; and it is so, overwhelmingly. First, consider their size. This was a tiny group that had the nerve to push themselves up before the world at the very height of the Cold War, when only "big" phenomena and the very hugest of nations mattered at all. If the wider world noticed, say, Cuba, it was only through the Missile Crisis, and only because Fidel Castro was a mere pawn on the chessboard lying between the laps of the USA and the USSR. This was no time for the small and the new.
But, still, this handful of individuals played themselves to the hilt. And made the whole world their stage. In every important city on Earth, from London to Toronto, this little group made the hugest of impacts, their cultural influence dictating the world's open-air and street festivities. (And I stress that, apart from the odd bit of sitar and tabla drums, any imagined East Indian influence had nothing to do with their success.) Even in the greatest of Brazilian music and culture cities, this little group of people made an impact felt by millions! Yes, millions! This little ragtag band firetrucking rocked in Rio de Janeiro! They gave every neighbourhood in every city, not just Notting Hill and Brooklyn and Altamont, the most exciting music the world has ever heard to dance to, the greatest of songs to sing at the greatest moments of happiness! They flew in the face of everything that should have been, stood everything on its head, questioned every preconceived notion and idea-and made their own path for themselves. If that's not Independence, "independence" has no meaning. So listen again, today, to the famous sliding, crashing guitar start of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction or the great double-barrel barre chord riff opening Start Me Up and try not to dance! Watch Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese's film of their live concert, and you won't be able to deny they are the greatest of all time. And the drummer never has his area of the stage flooded because the singer has built his palatial home or taken the mic stand too high on the stage. And the whole band can feed itself, doesn't have to rely on, say, The Who or Led Zeppelin for ground provision. And the guitar player has not raped the rainforest in Valencia to get buckets of gravel to build bigger houses even higher on mountains that guarantee increasingly faster flash flooding in low-lying areas. All hail the Rolling Stones. They've done far better, over 50 years, than Trinidad and firetrucking Tobago.
• BC Pires is doubtful that time is on his side. Cast your first Stones at him at bc@caribsurf.com
