A new TV drama series charting The Rolling Stones’ rise to rock superstardom is in the works, it has been revealed. The small-screen biopic is expected to appear first on US channel FX, with network CEO John Landgraf confirming that the Disney subsidiary was in “advanced talks” on hosting the show during the ‘House of Mouse’s annual Investor Day this week.
The new series is set to be written by best-selling writer Nick Hornby, the author of modern British classics High Fidelity, Fever Pitch and About A Boy; and produced by London company Left Bank, the team behind Netflix’s royal romp The Crown. The show is expected to run over two seasons; covering the Rolling Stones formation in the early 1960s through to 1972, and the release of their seminal tenth studio LP Exile on Main St. It has yet to be revealed which actors will take on the enticing challenge of portraying the band’s original line-up of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman and Ian Taylor, or Mick Taylor who replaced Jones just before the latter’s tragic death in 1969.
2020 has been a surprisingly fruitful year for Stones fans. In April the band dropped a new single in Living In A Ghost Town, a reggae-blues fusion which scored them an unexpected number one hit in Germany – their first in the country since 1968’s iconic Jumping Jack Flash.
April also saw the re-release of their 1973 album Goats Head Soup, with a deluxe version of the record incorporating two previously unreleased tracks – Scarlet (featuring Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page) and Criss Cross. The latter track was hailed by Metal Play Music for its “full untamed rock ‘n’ roll spirit” and a Mick Jagger vocal “…that is both lithe and sensual and utterly wild at the end as he really lets loose the pure animal passion.”
There was further 2020 activity from Keith Richards, with the iconic hell-raiser and occasional Pirate of the Caribbean releasing a new video for his 1992 solo track Hate It When You Leave ahead of Record Store Day in October. Richards also released a new audi0-visual box set of a 1988 Keith Richards & The X-Pensive Winos live show at Hollywood’s Palladium theatre.
The Stones also branched out into the world of retail with the opening of their first official store in Carnaby Street in Soho, known throughout the world for its connection to Britain’s swinging sixties scene. RS No.9 Carnaby Street opened in September, with an online version of the store following in its footsteps at a virtual launch last month.
Summer 2020 had been set to mark the end of the Stones’ gargantuan three-year No Filter world tour, which begun in Hamburg back in 2017. With the final 14 dates of the tour in North America having been cancelled, it’s possible that the legendary quartet’s return to live music may come in 2022, which would mark the 60th anniversary of their formation in London.
Keith Richards recently alluded to the milestone in a BBC News interview, joking that he might “get a new wheelchair” for the occasion. He added ” Yeah, it’s been pretty exceptional this particular life. I’m really at a loss sometimes to sort of figure out how the hell I got here. But the music is the thing that keeps you going, so that’s what I try and concentrate on.“
