Brian Jones 1942-1969

French philosopher Rene Descartes once remarked that the greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as the greatest virtues. This is Brian Jones, who died forty years ago on the 3rd July, in a nutshell. His death can be counted as one of the more mysterious rock deaths, but Jones has the distinction of being rock’s first major casualty – and the first member of the idiom’s notorious '27 Club'.

Born Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones on 28th February 1942 into a neat middle-class family in leafy Cheltenham, Jones found himself in and out of trouble almost from birth. Having fathered three children by his early twenties his rebellious, uncontrollable nature was matched only by a dazzling intellect, often excelling academically, as well as a prodigious musical talent which saw him gain an understanding of any instrument put in front of him.

After quitting school (not before getting his then fourteen year-old girlfriend pregnant) and nomadically travelling Europe, he returned to England, relocating to London in the late 1950s. It was here he met Michael Jagger and Keith Richards for the first time; the two of them hearing Jones in a London club, mesmerised by the boy with the perfectly conditioned blonde hair and crystal blue eyes, playing sensual, soaring slide guitar. Their mutual love of the blues drew the three of them together and, accompanied by Charlie Watts on drums, Bill Wyman on bass guitar and Ian Stewart on piano, they became The Rolling Stones.

And it was his band. He came up with the name, attracted all the women to the gigs when Mick and Keith were still just spotty, awkward kids and acted as the group’s manager in their embryonic state (Jones would often receive more money than the others for gigs, something he kept secret from them for years). Jones couldn't write a tune to save his life and it was only when Mick and Keith were forced by the Stones' eventual manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, to write their own songs that Jones lost control on the one thing in his life which seemed to bring him solace.

Alcohol, drugs, paranoia, busts and bust-ups; these were the thing which punctuated the latter years of Jones’ life.

Having been ousted from any position of real authority within the band, Jones found he had little to contribute as Jagger and Richards went about forming their rock-solid songwriting partnership, with each song building on the now runaway success of the last hit. He would often turn up to the studio blind drunk, stoned out of his mind or in a different state altogether thanks to the vast array of pills he used to wash down with bottles of brandy. Just about able to sit slouched on the studio floor he would drift in and out of consciousness, leaving the other band members to slyly unplug his electric guitar, a musical euthanasia which put him out of his, and their, misery.

He seemed to find a degree of happiness with Swedish beauty Anita Pallenberg, yet his capricious mood led him to frequently hit her. She wasn’t the first of his girlfriends he had beaten. When Pallenberg left Jones for Richards during a holiday the three of them took to Morocco in 1967, it appeared that this was the final nail in Jones’ fastly-approaching coffin.

Since he was found face down in his swimming pool, his death has been the subject of many lurid tabloid tales and is firmly located within the stained corridors of rock folklore, yet one thing is certain: Jones was an exceptionally insecure, narcissistic man who could treat people with both vulgarity and sincerity in equal measure. He was one of the first casualties of rock yet one feels he would have burned himself out eventually, rock star or not.