Bill German

Bill German started documenting the Rolling Stones through a handmade newsletter in Brooklyn. He began Beggars Banquet at sixteen and continued publishing it for years as it became officially associated with the band. Under Their Thumb turns that experience into a memoir of fandom, access, editorial independence, and the business surrounding a major rock group. Villard issued the first edition in 2009, while Bloomsbury's Backbeat edition restored the full subtitle about a Brooklyn teenager becoming entangled with the Stones. German's long relationship with the band included contact with Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood. His perspective differs from that of a conventional band biographer because he was simultaneously observer, publisher, and participant. The memoir records how a handmade newsletter opened doors, then examines the compromises and pressures that followed once its young editor entered the professional orbit of his musical subjects.