Beggars Banquet (1968) Beggars Banquet is the seventh British and ninth American studio album by English rock band The Rolling Stones. It was released in December 1968 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and London Records in the United States. The album was a return to roots rock for the band following the psychedelic pop of their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request. It was the last Rolling Stones album to be released during Brian Jones' lifetime. Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones (28 February 1942 – 3 July 1969) was an English musician, best known as founder and the original leader of the Rolling Stones. Initially a slide guitarist, Jones would go on to play a wide variety of instruments on Rolling Stones recordings and in concerts, such as rhythm and lead guitar, various keyboard instruments such as piano and organ, marimba, harmonica, sitar, wind instruments such as recorder, saxophone, oboe, and numerous others. Jones and fellow guitarist Keith Richards developed a unique style of guitar play that Richards refers to as the "ancient art of weaving" where both players would play both rhythm and lead parts together; Richards would carry the style on with later Stones guitarists and the sound would become a Rolling Stones trademark. A few years after he founded the Rolling Stones as a British blues outfit in 1962, and gave the band its name, Jones' fellow band members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards began to take over the band's musical direction, especially after they became a successful songwriting team. Jones also did not get along with the band's manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, who pushed the band into a musical direction at odds with Jones's blues background. At the same time, Jones developed a drug problem, and his performance in the studio became increasingly unreliable, leading to a diminished role within the band he founded. The Rolling Stones asked Jones to leave in June 1969 and guitarist Mick Taylor took his place in the group. Jones died less than a month later by drowning in the swimming pool at his home Lyrics; Let's drink to the hard working people Let's drink to the lowly of birth Raise your glass to the good and the evil Let's drink to the salt of the earth Say a prayer for the common foot soldier Spare a thought for his back breaking work Say a prayer for his wife and his children Who burn the fires and who still till the earth And when I search a faceless crowd A swirling mass of gray and Black and white They don't look real to me In fact, they look so strange Raise your glass to the hard working people Let's drink to the uncounted heads Let's think of the wavering millions Who need leading but get gamblers instead Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter Empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows And a parade of the gray suited grafters A choice of cancer or polio And when I look in the faceless crowd A swirling mass of grays and Black and white They don't look real to me Or don't they look so strange Let's drink to the hard working people Let's think of the lowly of birth Spare a thought for the rag taggy people Let's drink to the salt of the earth Let's drink to the hard working people Let's drink to the salt of the earth Let's drink to the two thousand million Let's think of the humble of birth ...