10 Rock Stars That Went Country (And Nailed It)

In the years when rock and roll was first starting to take over the world, The Rolling Stones were steering the course right alongside the Beatles. As the world started to get more and more psychedelic in the '60s, this was the kind of music that was almost considered too dangerous for mass consumption, especially with people like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as your role models. Though most of the Stones' catalog ends up going back to the blues, Keef had something a little different in his record collection.

After making it through the psychedelic period, some of the Stones' more celebrated material has always been indebted to country music, from the funny side to the ballads that can tug at your heartstrings. During their classic period, every album seemed to have one foot dipping into the country pool, like the weariness of Coming Down Again off of Goats Head Soup or the messed up love story going on in Dead Flowers.

Whereas most other bands were using country music as a punchline, the Stones were deadly serious, taking the kind of barfly stories and sprinkling in bits and pieces of the rock and roll lifestyle in between the cracks. Thanks to the alternate tunings he came up with, Keef brought country to the masses on rockers, ballads, and sometimes both at the exact same time on songs like Wild Horses. To them, this wasn't about mixing different genres together. It all comes down to whether or not the song is good, regardless of what genre you find yourself in.