dorling kindersley books

Another Bank Holiday evaporates

The next cataract interrupting the smooth progress of the book emerges with Bill's tour in May; his band, the Rhythm Kings, are on the road for the entire month. The lack of Bill's input as we reach the critical last chapters, plus his effective inoculation from signing material off for four weeks, presents a logistical nightmare.

The nature of the Stones' history comes to the rescue.

After the early 1970s they effectively became a phenomenon rather than a band. An entity which got together occasionally every two or three years to record an album, tour, then split up to pursue their individual interests. The history of the band as such gets pretty thin. OK, they still regularly hit the headlines, especially on the gossip pages, but in terms of musical history it's a series of sporadic occasions rather than a continuum. We agree to cut the book by a chapter, but almost immediately increase the extent by 16 pages (taking it over the 500 page mark), in order to exploit some of the extraordinary imagery, photography and merchandise that the last two decades of the phenomenon produced.