We've all seen the stories about the tax man taking 90% of their earnings and moving to France etc. in the 60's and 70's to get away from it.

My question is how much was each member actually making per year in the 60's, 70's, and 80's? How broke were they or rather what is broke to them? I've heard that musicians inflated their worth at times. I wondered if they did the same and what the truth is. In my opinion, every single one of them deserves to be and should be millionaires many times over including Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2018-08-05 09:02 by sanQ.

well keef nevva kept a dollar after sunset
and Mick never got home before sunset sunrise …………. is the some kinda connection there ??????????????????



ROCKMAN



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-08-05 22:56 by Rockman.

i heard they had to keep working in the 70,s just to fund the lifestyle and stay on the road. dont know exactly what level the lifestyle needing funded was, or could they have quit in the 70,s and lived off earnings, yet lived the life they wanted to, god only knows. I dont think they made mega money till the 90,s which is what the band hinted at years ago.

I think they are worth every penny they have earned, they deserve it, as they have worked hard, been shafted heavily in the early days by record companies, managers etc despite a gruelling schedule both in the studio and in concert.

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buttons67
i heard they had to keep working in the 70,s just to fund the lifestyle and stay on the road. dont know exactly what level the lifestyle needing funded was, or could they have quit in the 70,s and lived off earnings, yet lived the life they wanted to, god only knows. I dont think they made mega money till the 90,s which is what the band hinted at years ago.

I think they are worth every penny they have earned, they deserve it, as they have worked hard, been shafted heavily in the early days by record companies, managers etc despite a gruelling schedule both in the studio and in concert.

While they are now extremely wealthy men, I agree with you that most of thst didn’t arrive until the 90s.

They were "skint" (cash poor and unable to pay their tax bills though undoubdedly asset rich) at the end of the 60s hence the move to France in 1971 and were certainly comfortably off by the end of the 70s.

Thete was footage on YouTube for a while of them arriving and leaving the studio for the recording sessions of Dirty Work in Paris in 1985 and they were all driving old bangers! Ronnie and Jo arrived in a Peugeot 205 and Keith and Mick in very old Rollers/Mercs. The mid 80s was probably the low point of their career though with no touring and generally being seen as passé.

However, let’s not forget that none of them spent 40+ years of hard toil in a 40hour a week job like the rest of us. Only Charlie ever had a conventional full time day job before their fame.

They certainly work hard when recording and on tour but they’ve had massive amounts of downtime throughout their adult lives which few other people get, apart from the crazy workaholic 1st 5 years between 1962-67 when they toured and recorded non stop.

In a sense, the millions they are raking in now are deferred payment for their huge efforts back then, which they never fully benefited from at the time thanks to being ripped off by their management.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-08-06 18:28 by grzegorz67.

They never truly made the big money until 1989.

Look at their record sales from 1982-1986 (SL, U, R and DW) and they're decent for them, considering no touring, they made some money, but the incredible individual wealth, royalties aside, didn't start until STEEL WHEELS.

What Mick and Keith make in royalties per year would make anyone here well off. For M and K, it's chump change.

Let's see. Never had to hold down a real job in 55 years. Never filed bankruptcy. They had to drive an old Rolls Royce or Mercedes in their mid-forties? Oh how they suffered for their art.

As for individual earnings, read STONE ALONE. Every few pages, Bill will tell you his bank balance.

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Rocky Dijon
Let's see. Never had to hold down a real job in 55 years. Never filed bankruptcy. They had to drive an old Rolls Royce or Mercedes in their mid-forties? Oh how they suffered for their art.

As for individual earnings, read STONE ALONE. Every few pages, Bill will tell you his bank balance.

Yes, Bill does mention his bank balance quite a bit!!
BUT don't forget Klein was paying them the 'minimum he could get away with under the terms of their 1965 contracts, on the basis that it would lower their tax liabilities.
Obviously, like so much with Klein, that approach was flawed.
Bill didn't benefit from composer royalties and I have read that Mick and Keith got huge publishing royalties early 1971 following some settlement or other.
Lets not forget, even in 1971 the original members all owned some very nice properties..eg Bill's Gedding Hall which could be worth £5 million in todays money, at least.
They cry the poor tale too much, methinks.

On 25x5, you can see that they were not hard done by. Mick and Jerry Hall walking the kids on a beautiful property. I saw an ad for Mick's old early 80's Ferrari... $42,000 is its worth even now.
The main thing must have been the taxes. They had to have always been rich. Keith in the early 80's owned Redlands and at least something in New York as well.

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sanQ
On 25x5, you can see that they were not hard done by. Mick and Jerry Hall walking the kids on a beautiful property. I saw an ad for Mick's old early 80's Ferrari... $42,000 is its worth even now.
The main thing must have been the taxes. They had to have always been rich. Keith in the early 80's owned Redlands and at least something in New York as well.

He had also owned:
-the infamous property in Cheyne Walk Chelsea
-(possibly) an apartment in Paris
-a holiday home in Jamaica

None of these were what you would call modest!

It was the very high earners who felt the need to go into tax exile...so that gives you an idea of their earnings, even in the 1960's.
It goes without saying that many others eg McCartney, Townsend, Daltrey, Harrison and Elton John continued to remain in the UK for tax purposes.

As with their Business Manager, avoiding tax payments was very much a priority...at least for Mick and Keith.
Certainly Charlie (the least wealthy) decided to return to the UK when their financial position was more secure. Around 1977. Bill followed in 1982.
I don't think Mick and Keith have been UK residents for tax purposes since 1971.

It's still hard to take the 'being broke' and skint descriptions from late 60's too serious, because while they probably didn't have actual money, they had credit . They were driving beautiful cars, seemingly unlimited studio time, access to houses. I think real problems would not have surfaced for the non writers of the band unless they left the Rolling Stones umbrella. We saw that with Mick Taylor who seriously miscalculated.
They left England because they were completely tapped. So they relocate to the Cote d'Azur where they each pick and choose from mansions. They have top grade Heroin delivered, employ French Chefs; there are photos of Keith and friends on yachts, Jagger on a Honda 750. It musta been tough down there in the dumps; close to the Salvation Army Mission...

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GasLightStreet
They never truly made the big money until 1989.

Look at their record sales from 1982-1986 (SL, U, R and DW) and they're decent for them, considering no touring, they made some money, but the incredible individual wealth, royalties aside, didn't start until STEEL WHEELS.

What Mick and Keith make in royalties per year would make anyone here well off. For M and K, it's chump change.

What about the 1981/82 tours in stadiums, with a sponsor and all?

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Palace Revolution 2000
It's still hard to take the 'being broke' and skint descriptions from late 60's too serious, because while they probably didn't have actual money, they had credit . They were driving beautiful cars, seemingly unlimited studio time, access to houses. I think real problems would not have surfaced for the non writers of the band unless they left the Rolling Stones umbrella. We saw that with Mick Taylor who seriously miscalculated.
They left England because they were completely tapped. So they relocate to the Cote d'Azur where they each pick and choose from mansions. They have top grade Heroin delivered, employ French Chefs; there are photos of Keith and friends on yachts, Jagger on a Honda 750. It musta been tough down there in the dumps; close to the Salvation Army Mission...

Asset Rich, cash poor. Definitely not the same as being 'broke'. They could have sold an asset without starving or downsized to free up cash until they got their record contract mess with ABKO sorted out. A convenient excuse to leave a then high tax state and 2 of them still haven't come back.

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GasLightStreet
They never truly made the big money until 1989.

Look at their record sales from 1982-1986 (SL, U, R and DW) and they're decent for them, considering no touring, they made some money, but the incredible individual wealth, royalties aside, didn't start until STEEL WHEELS.

What Mick and Keith make in royalties per year would make anyone here well off. For M and K, it's chump change.

Michael Cohl made them very rich men.

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Sighunt

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GasLightStreet
They never truly made the big money until 1989.

Look at their record sales from 1982-1986 (SL, U, R and DW) and they're decent for them, considering no touring, they made some money, but the incredible individual wealth, royalties aside, didn't start until STEEL WHEELS.

What Mick and Keith make in royalties per year would make anyone here well off. For M and K, it's chump change.

Michael Cohl made them very rich men.

Not kidding. I'm pretty sure the huge offer he made them played a majot part in the thawing of the previously poor relations between Mick and Keith.

Ultimately funded by us

But nonetheless, I'm glad he did so otherwise I might never have seen them.

I think that's why Bill jumped off the bus when he did. The financial security he'd always craved had arrived. He no longer had to stay with the group. In Stone Alone he portrays him and Charlie in 1969 with almost no income while the Songwriters Mick and Keith earned hundreds of thousands of pounds. I'm assuming Brian would have been in the same boat as B and C. (I'd love to see how his group finances got untangled, and if the Brian Jones Estate continues to see income).

I hope Taylor earned a good salary with them a couple tours back. He disappeared from view, so maybe he did.

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24FPS
I think that's why Bill jumped off the bus when he did. The financial security he'd always craved had arrived. He no longer had to stay with the group. In Stone Alone he portrays him and Charlie in 1969 with almost no income while the Songwriters Mick and Keith earned hundreds of thousands of pounds. I'm assuming Brian would have been in the same boat as B and C. (I'd love to see how his group finances got untangled, and if the Brian Jones Estate continues to see income).

I hope Taylor earned a good salary with them a couple tours back. He disappeared from view, so maybe he did.

Brian certainly did die heavily in debt. Over £1Million in today's values. The tax man will have been the main creditor.
The ABKCO 1972 settlement and ongoing royalty payments led to the debts being cleared sometime in the 1980's.
Dependent on what has been agreed legally, the Estate should still be receiving income from records made during the 'ABKCO years'.