Lesley-Ann Jones's "The Stone Age: 60 Years of the Rolling Stones" is a strange, occasionally beguiling read. On the one hand, Jones — a veteran music journalist and rock biographer of artists such as David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Marc Bolan — offers a no-holds-barred study of the Rolling Stones' private, drug- and sex-fueled lives. Yet on the other hand, the author makes vital gestures towards the band's blues roots, as well as the tragedies that marked the progress of their career, including the untimely death of Brian Jones and the murder and mayhem of Altamont.
The result is an at times awkward accounting of the Stones' life and times. When it comes to concocting a celebrity dish-fest, Jones is the veritable master. "The Stone Age" is a thoroughgoing play-by-play of the group's legendary overindulgences.
