“I didn’t have to work too hard,” remembers snapper Terry O’Neill. “They were just immediately cool.” He’s right. While most breaking beat bands were all dandruff, cheap suits and jug ears, the nascent Stones looked untouchable.
O’Neill’s shots from 1963-64 open this photobook, and the mischief leaps off the pages, from the boys pogoing down the street to a brilliant shot of them draped with office girls (Keef: “Terry would say, ‘Let’s throw a few dolly birds into the photo…’”).
Mankowitz picks up the thread from 1965, and it’s dynamite, with shots of US police breaking up gigs and a great still of an electrocuted Keef flat on his back. There can’t be much left to say about the Stones, but we’ll never tire of ogling them.
