CLINTON, Miss. (WJTV) – The lead singer of the Rolling Stones currently lives in Clinton, Mississippi. It’s not the Rolling Stones that you’re thinking of, but rather our Rolling Stones.
The band was organizers at Mississippi State in the mid-50s. They had hit records and toured all over the place. Andy Anderson, the lead singer, said he still has plans for the band.
Anderson is originally from Clarksdale. He was born the same year as Elvis Presley and started making record about the same time as the King of Rock-and-Roll. The music included Rock-and-Roll, but more precisely, Rock-a-Billy.
“We cut our first record at Sun Records with Sam Phillips in 1956. That version of ‘Tough, Tough, Tough’ is still played in Europe today. We played rock-and-roll with an attitude,” he said.
Anderson and the Rolling Stones, and later the Dawn Breakers, were pioneer rock musicians. Every time they and the other bands like them recorded a song, they were making history. Now, the Rolling Stones name came from a bunch of guys they went to school with who drank too much and decided to rob a bank and got caught when their car ran out of gas at the city limits. Lamenting from their jail they admitting, “We ain’t nothing but a rolling stone.” Band member, Joe Tubb, brought the story to the group and the band liked the name.
The Rolling Stones toured all over, the mid-South in particular, and it wasn’t and easy job. They were their own roadies.
“Life’s crazy out there, especially in the early 60s, and they hadn’t even built the interstate system yet,” said Anderson.
But that was a long time ago. It’s time for remembering and preserving their story, now. Anderson wants to take a few acres where he lives in Clinton and make a memorial for all those who played with the original Rolling Stones and the Dawn Breakers.
“It’s only natural for a man to think about a whole lot more than he can do.”
