As supremely talented as he was good-looking, Brian Jones rose from humble beginnings in the small English town of Cheltenham to conquer the fledgling blues scene of London in the early sixties. The brilliant, self-taught slide guitar player attracted the attention of blues greats like Alexis Korner with his passion and feeling for the music and his unrelenting pursuit of success. The fame Brian sought came quickly. In 1962 he formed the band that would become, with the possible exception of the Beatles, the most renowned rock 'n' roll band of all time, the Rolling Stones.Tragically, the very success he sought would ultimately destroy him. Although a man possessed of immense talent and inexhaustible energy, Brian was tormented by personal demons which would eventually lead him to abandon the group and retreat into despair. Like Janice Joplin and Jim Morrison, Brian Jones did not live to see his thirtieth birthday: On a warm summer evening in July 1969, he was found floating head-down in the pool of his beautiful fifteenth-century country estate.In this definitive biography, Laura Jackson rejects the simple stereotype of a rock star addicted to excessive drinking, unscrupulous womanizing, and reckless drug-taking. Instead, she went in search of the people who knew the real Brian: his family and friends in Cheltenham; two of his most serious girlfriends and the sons he had with them; his confidantes; and finally the musicians who best understood the man obsessed with the blues. Many of them have spoken for the first time and all of them have provided fresh, often startling information exclusively for a book that traces his rise to stardom and explores the mysterious circumstances surrounding his untimely and tragic death. Read Less