resumed their working
relationship during a 10-day
songwriting retreat in
Barbados, resulting in the
creative resurgence of the
Steel Wheels album and tour.
released at mid-decade as
Stripped. Their three tours
during this busy decade were
the best-attended and most
lucrative live outings in rock
history to that point in time.
Bassist Bill Wyman,
increasingly suffering from
fear of flying, announced his
retirement from the band
after the Steel Wheels tour, in
1992. “I did everything but
hold him at gunpoint,” said
Richards of his efforts to
keep him in the band.” After
auditioning many musicians,
the Stones picked Darryl
Jones – who’d played with
various jazz, funk and soul
musicians – to take over on
bass. The Stones released two
albums of new music in the
Nineties, Voodoo Lounge (for
which they won a Grammy
for Best Rock Album) and
Bridges to Babylon. Between
those albums, they rerecorded a batch of classic
older songs in the thenpopular “unplugged” format,
In 2002, the Rolling Stones
issued Forty Licks, a doubledisc retrospective that
appended four new tracks.
Their 40th anniversary tour
followed that same year. In
2005 came A Bigger Bang,
their only studio album of
new material in the decade.
The Stones’ primary activity
came on the touring front, as
their two-year A Bigger Bang
World Tour set a new record
(more than $550 million) for
concert grosses. Not even a
serious head injury sustained
by Richards during a fall
from a coconut palm in Fiji
could stop the juggernaut for
long.
The Stones celebrated their
50th anniversary in 2012.
They released yet another