I was born in the Park Nursing Home in Cheltenham during World War II. My parents, Louis and Louisa Jones, were of Welsh descent, and middle-class residents of the town.
My mother Louisa was a piano teacher and started teaching me the instrument at a very young age. Eventually I required formal lessons as I progressed too quickly for her to continue teaching me. In addition, I took up the clarinet. When I was 13 I traded in my clarinet for a saxophone and around this time I also started teaching myself how to play the guitar.
Attending local schools including Dean Close School and Cheltenham Grammar School for Boys, I was known as an exceptional student, getting very high marks in all of my classes. However I found my schooling to be too regimented and formal, and refused to conform when I reached adolescence. I was known to eschew wearing the school uniforms and anger teachers with my behaviour. As a result, I remained very popular and well-liked with the students.
All this came to an end, however, when in 1958 (aged 16) I impregnated my 16-year-old girlfriend, named Valerie. The child was given to an infertile couple upon its birth and I left home to travel throughout northern Europe and Scandinavia for the summer. During this time I lived something of a bohemian lifestyle, playing guitar on the streets for money and eating and sleeping wherever anyone would let me.
Upon my return, I became much more interested in various types of music - I was taught classical music at a young age, and I always preferred blues (particularly Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson), however I soon took an interest in country, jazz and rock 'n roll. I began playing at local blues and jazz clubs in addition working various odd jobs, and used the money I earned to buy more instruments. I was also known to steal small amounts of money to pay for cigarettes, which got me fired from jobs on several occasions.
Despite the unwanted attention I received from impregnating his girlfriend at a young age, I showed no signs of changing my lifestyle. A second child, who I named Julian Mark Andrews (his mother being my then girlfriend Pat Andrews) was born in 1961.
I eventually left home completely and moved to London, where I met and befriended fellow musicians Alexis Korner, future Manfred Mann singer Paul Jones, future Cream bassist Jack Bruce and others who made up the small London Rhythm n' Blues scene that my band the Rolling Stones soon dominated and spearheaded. I became a proficient blues musician, and Bill Wyman claimed I was one of the first guitarists in the UK to play slide guitar.
I recruited Ian "Stu" Stewart and singer Mick Jagger into my band - who with Jagger's childhood friend Keith Richards met me when he and Paul Jones were featured playing Elmore James' "Dust My Broom" with Korner's band. On his initiative, Jagger brought guitarist Richards with him to the rehearsals and who then joined the band. My and Stewarts' acceptance of Richards and the Chuck Berry songs he wanted to play coincided with the departure of blues purists Geoff Bradford and Brian McKinght who had no tolerance for Chuck Berry.
Throughout much of 1963 myself, Jagger and Richards shared an apartment in Chelsea, London at 102 Edith Grove with James Pheldge, a future photographer whose last name would later be used in some of the band's writing credits. While we lived there myself and Richards spent day after day playing guitar while listening to blues records, and I showed Jagger how to play the harmonica properly. Shortly thereafter, I would name my band "The Rollin' Stones". The four Rollin' Stones then went searching for a bassist and drummer, and after several auditions and try-outs we settled on Bill Wyman on bass (mainly because he had two large VOX AC30 guitar amps and cigarettes). After having played with Mick Avory later of the Kinks, Charlie Watts from the Alexis Korner group was chosen to play drums.
We played at local blues and jazz clubs around London, eventually forming a solid fan base despite strong resistance from TradJazz musicians who felt threatened by the our popularity. While Mick was the lead singer, I was the leader, promoting the band, getting us shows around London and negotiating with venue owners. I would often act more as an entertainer, playing several instruments including vocals, rhythm guitar, slide guitar and harmonica.
As the our popularity grew, we came to the attention of Andrew Loog Oldham, who met us in April 1963 at the suggestion of Record Mirror music writer Peter Jones (no relation) and soon became, with myself, their co-manager. Oldham, who had worked briefly as the Beatles publicist, was an admirer of Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange, cultivated an image for the band as unruly and slightly menacing, a kind of blues-inflected, rough-edged answer to the more amiable Beatles, using the novel's protagonist and his gang as his inspiration. Keyboardist Ian Stewart was pushed into the background by Oldham, because his appearance didn't accord with this new image for the band, though he remained the Stones' road manager and principal keyboard player until his death in 1985.
Oldham's arrival also marked the beginning of my own slow estrangement from the band, one which saw my prominent role progressively diminished as Oldham sought to shift the Stones' centre of gravity away from me and towards Jagger and Richards. Oldham, and everybody in the group, recognised the financial lucrativity of writing your own songs with the Lennon/McCartney team, as well as the simple fact that playing covers won't keep in the limelight for years to come. Further, Oldham wanted to make Jagger's onstage charisma and flamboyance a central focus of the band's live performances. I saw his influence over the Stone's direction slide as our repertoire comprised fewer of the blues covers I would have preferred and more Jagger-and-Richards-penned originals, and as Oldham began asserting increasing managerial control, displacing me from another key role.
In 1964 I fathered yet another child out of wedlock, this time to my girlfriend Linda Lawrence. I named this child Julian Brian Lawrence, and Julian would adopt the surname Leitch after Lawrence later married the folk singer Donovan. I named both sons Julian in tribute to the jazz saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley.
Throughout my career I showed a musical aptitude, having the ability to play a myriad of instruments, due to my training on the piano and clarinet in his youth. As the 1960's went on, I soon started experimenting with different wind and stringed instruments. Throughout my years with the band I played guitar, slide guitar, piano, sitar, tamboura, organ, dulcimer, mellotron, xylophone, marimba, recorder, clarinet and several other instruments.
Keith Richards and I created the guitar weaving technique that has become a signature part of the sound of the Rolling Stones. It involved us both switching between rhythm and lead parts. The 1966 album Aftermath, the 1967 albums Between the Buttons and Their Satanic Majesties Request and the 1968 album Beggars Banquet showcase my multi-instrumental talents throughout.
Around this time I purchased Cotchford Farm in East Sussex, the former home of Winnie the Pooh author A. A. Milne.
The hard days on the road, the money and fame and the feeling of being alienated from the group resulted in my greater and greater indulgence in drugs and alcohol. I frequently used LSD and cocaine, and I was known to be a heavy drinker, though I was also known to avoid heroin. I was arrested for drug use for the first time in May 1967, shortly after the Redlands incident at Richards' Sussex home. Authorities found marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine in my possession. I confessed to marijuana use but not use hard drugs. Along with my bandmates, protesters appeared outside the court demanding that I be freed, and I was not kept in jail for long. I was fined, given probation and made to see a counselor.
In June 1967, I attended the Monterey Pop Festival. I attended the festival with singer Nico, with whom I had a brief romantic relationship. Here I met Frank Zappa and Dennis Hopper, and went on stage to introduce the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Mick and Keith grew increasingly hostile towards me, and I became alienated from the rest of the group. By many accounts I was often a warm, friendly and outgoing person. Tensions grew, partly due to my inebriated states. Other observers, again including Bill Wyman, find some fault with Jagger and Richards, claiming they were deliberately trying to push me out of the group. However, I maintained close relationships with many others outside of the Stones camp, including Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison and Steve Marriott.
Life continued to become much more difficult for me. In the summer of 1967, my girlfriend Anita Pallenberg ran off with Richards while I was in hospital. By this point, I was alienated from the band, while I was being harassed by the police and suffering paranoia. My last real sessions with the Stones were in the spring and summer of 1968, when the Stones produced the classic "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and the Beggars Banquet album.
My last formal appearance with the Stones was in the December 1968 The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, a part-concert, part-circus act film organized by the band. It went unreleased for 25 years due to Mick being unhappy with the band's performance when compared to other bands in the film, such as Jethro Tull, The Who and Taj Mahal. In the film, I appeared somewhat bored but enjoyed the interaction with the audience. At most times during the film my instruments are inaudible, but you can hear my signature lead slide guitar riff on "No Expectations".
I was arrested a second time in 1968, this time for marijuana possession. The marijuana was left behind by previous owners of his home, but I was facing a long jail sentence if found guilty, due to my probation. Bill Wyman commented "The fact that the police had secured a warrant with no evidence showed the arrest was part of a carefully orchestrated plan. Myself and the Stones were being targeted in an effort to deter the public from taking drugs". The jury found me guilty, yet the judge had sympathy for me, instead giving me a fine and warning me, "for goodness sake, don't get into trouble again or it really will be serious." The prosecution's case was very weak, relying on testimony of police who were later found to be corrupt. (The same corrupt officers who harassed me would go on to harass Jagger in 1969.)
In early June 1969, I was visited by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts and was told the group would continue without me. I was replaced by guitarist Mick Taylor, who started sessions with the Stones right away.
On 3 July 1969, I was discovered dead in my swimming pool at my home in Hartfield, Sussex, England. The coroner's report stated "Death by misadventure," and noted that my liver and heart were heavily enlarged by drug and alcohol abuse.
However, my then-girlfriend Anna Wohlin claimed in 2000 that I had been murdered by a builder who had been staying with them renovating the house we shared. The builder, Frank Thorogood, confessed to the murder on his death bed but died before a confession could be recorded by the authorities. However, this apparent confession was later recanted by Tom Keylock.
I was buried in a lavish silver and bronze casket sent for my funeral in Cheltenham, England by my friend Bob Dylan. Only Watts and Wyman among the group attended the funeral. Mick, Keith and Anita Pallenberg didn't attend.