On this day, in 1963, The Rolling Stones played their first residency in The Crawdaddy Club. The Crawdaddy Club was a meeting of blues aficionados, it wasn’t just a pub in the Station Hotel, it was the discovery ground for new bands in London in the sixties.
The Stones were house band here on Sunday afternoons; this is where the Beatles first heard them. The Stones manager at the time Giorgio Gomelsky secured them their place in the club. Gomelsky later said that this, “triggered an international renaissance for the blues”.
The Crawdaddy Club had to move to the grounds of Richmond Athletic Association in the summer of 1963, due to the growing number of Rolling Stones fans, the original club was over capacity every time they played. The Yardbirds took the Sunday residency spot when the Stones moved onto bigger things.
As the band expanded, they outgrew every venue they played. Fifty years later the band still sells out most of the venues they play. In 1994, the stones broke the record for the highest grossing tour of all time. Earning them over €300 million. They played their 50th anniversary tour in 2012.
Giving a biography on the band, Mick Jagger stated “When we began playing gigs around London in 1962, the notion that a rock & roll band would last five years, let alone fifty, was an absurdity. After all, what could possibly be more ephemeral than rock & roll, the latest teenage fad?”
Since their residency spot in the tiny London venue, the English rock group have amounted 30 studio albums, 23 live albums, 25 compilation albums, three extended play singles, and 120 singles. For the past nearly 55 years, the Rolling Stones have been a huge influence on rock n’ roll music and popular culture.
Picture Credit: aka Francois aka Mister Pink
