'Rolling Stones: 50x20' is like a 'greatest hits' book of Rolling Stones photos

"Rolling Stones: 50 x 20," edited by Chris Murray

This review is part of a series of reviews of Rolling Stones books that have a 50th anniversary theme.
Here are the best and worst things about the photo book "Rolling Stones: 50 x 20," edited by Chris Murray. The best thing: It has some of the most famous photos ever of the Rolling Stones. The worst thing: It has some of the most famous photos ever of the Rolling Stones, because the photos are so famous that they're already in many other books, magazines, newspapers, etc.
"Rolling Stones: 50 x 20" is a book celebrating the Rolling Stones' 50th anniversary with a compilation of photos from 20 prominent photographers who have taken iconic photos of the band.
The 20 photographers are Gered Mankowitz, Michael Cooper, Bob Gruen, Ross Halfin, Michael Joseph, Baron Wolman, Gus Coral, Bob Bonis, Mark Seliger, William Coupon, Eric Swayne, Jan Olofsson, Eddie Kramer, Barry Feinstein, Michael Putland, Chris Makos, Mark Weiss, David Fenton, Fernando Aceves and Claude Gassain.
Each photographer gets his own chapter of photographs, and each chapter has the photographer's personal recollections of working with the Rolling Stones. (In cases where the photographer is deceased, someone close to the photographer did the essay instead.) Some of the stories are bland, while others are more interesting and candid.
Putland has one of the best stories, because his first assignment to take photos of the Rolling Stones (in 1972) literally came the morning that he was clearing out his studio because he couldn't find work as a photographer and he was going to quit. Putland says of working with the band: "Obviously Mick [Jagger] and Keith [Richards] were fantastic to shoot. In all my contacts with Mick, in those days I found him a bit intimidating, although he's a very fair, terrific guy. Keith in those days was a little distant but he's always been great. And Bill [Wyman] -- he'll kill me for saying this -- maybe he wasn't the most photogenic, but he had a booty sort of look. He was the one who got all the girls anyway."
As for the photos in the book, the majority are from the 1960s and 1970s, when photographers had more access to the Rolling Stones. And as you look through this book, you can see how the band became less accessible through the decades. The photos from the 1980s and 1990s are mostly posed portrait sessions or concert photos instead of candid behind-the-scenes pictures. As for the 21st century years, this book has 144 pages, and literally less than 10 of those pages have Rolling Stones photos from the 21st century, and they are forgettable concert photos from 2002 and 2005. (No offense to the photographer, because he probably had a lot of limitations put on him over what kinds of photos he could take, when he could take them, and which ones could be released to the public.)
Let's put it this way: Would the Mick Jagger of today allow a professional photographer to take a picture of him napping in a hotel room, like Jagger did in one of the 1964 photos in this book? Hell no. It's no wonder that the best photos in this book are from the 1960s and 1970s.
If you're an avid Rolling Stones fan who is flipping through this book, you can almost hear yourself saying, "Oh, look, there's that that blurry outtake picture from the 'Between the Buttons' photo session. And hey, there's that 1968 photo of a crouching Keith Richards putting something up his nose at Joshua Tree. And wow, I don't know how many times I've seen that 1978 photo of Bob Marley, Mick Jagger and Peter Tosh sitting together with big smiles on their faces. And oh yeah, there are those portraits of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards that Rolling Stone magazine had in the 1990s."
You get the picture.
Essentially, this book is like a "greatest hits" of Rolling Stones photos. If you're a huge fan who collects Rolling Stones books, then you probably already have most these photos in other books. But, just like a greatest hits collection, there might be something previously unreleased that will entice you to buy it. The stories from the photographers could be that enticement. Just know in advance that when it comes to the photos in this book, what you're going to get is mostly great but mostly familiar.