“(Brian) was still fantastic making records, because he was so versatile. I mean, he'd have marimbas - which is why you have marimbas on Under My Thumb - or dulcimer, sitar. He kind of lost interest in guitar, in a way. But at the same time he added all of that other colour, those other instruments and other ideas. He was an incredibly inventive musician.”
Keith Richards, 1994

“[he was] a little dude that was trying to pull the group ahead. I saw him as the leader. He didn't take no mess. He was a fantastic cat; he handled the group beautifully.”
Bo Diddley

“I always used to see Brian in the clubs and hang out with him. In the mid-Sixties he used to come out to my house - particularly when he’d got ‘the fear’, when he’d mixed too many weird things together. I’d hear his voice shouting to me from out in the garden: 'George, George…’ I’d let him in - he was a good mate. He would always come round to my house in the sitar period. We talked about 'Paint It Black’ and he picked up my sitar and tried to play it - and the next thing was he did that track.
We had a lot in common, when I think about it. […] I think he related to me a lot, and I liked him. Some people didn’t have time for him, but I thought he was one of the most interesting ones.”
George Harrison

“I do say, and do honestly believe, that if there wasn't a Brian Jones there wouldn't have been a Rolling Stones. He named the band, and he enlisted the members one by one.”
Bill Wyman

“Brian Jones was my real rock hero. I tried to emulate his haircut and dress.”
Ron Asheton, The Stooges

“I engineered the Stones recording of the Beggars Banquet album, with Jimmy Miller producing. I always felt that Brian was the most innovative musician and the real heart and soul of the band.”
Eddie Kramer

“Brian knew what he was doing. It was quite beautiful. Some of it was made up at the time; some of it was stuff I was augmenting with him. I was definitely playing with the violin bow. Brian had this guitar that had a volume pedal-he could get gunshots with it. There was a Mellotron there. He was moving forward with ideas.”
Jimmy Page (talking about the making of the A Degree of Murder soundtrack)

“I liked every one of them (the Stones albums and singles) during the Brian era. The Stones lost the edge off their blues when Brian drifted away from them.”
Jacky Jack White

“Mick and Keith absolutely idolised Brian at the beginning.”
Pat Andrews

“He picked up this Elmore James guitar thing which really knocked me out when I first heard him play it, because I'd never heard anyone play it live before – I'd only heard it on records. And it was really good.”
Mick Jagger

“Brian was the first person I ever heard playing slide electric guitar. Mick and I both thought he was incredible.”
Keith Richards

“I loved him deeply. He was so much more than people ever knew or saw. (…) All he ever wanted was the simple love and comfort of a home and family, but like an old dog, he had been kicked so long and so hard all of that was buried underneath years of hurt and resentment.”
Suki Potier

“Memory lane isn't particularly my avenue.”
Keith Richards

“He was such an ambitious young man, so determined, long before the Stones ever were.”
Paul Jones

“I don't think we'd have got where we are if he hadn't been at the helm at the beginning.”
Charlie Watts

“When I met him I liked him quite a lot. He was a good fellow, you know. I got to know him very well, I think, and I felt very close to him; you know how it is with some people, you feel for them, feel near them.”
George Harrison

“I think there must be some intangible element that he was bringing to the Stones , you know, that kept it from being too Chuck Berry.”
Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac

“Brian would be able to walk into a studio and no matter what instrument was lying around, even though he’d never played it before, he would. . . he’d be able to knock something out of it, very, very quickly, y’know? Hence, we used to use vibraphones and stuff — mainly just because they were lying around the studio — and everybody thought ‘What a wonderful bit of orchestration,’ but it was sheer accident and Brian’s ability to be able to get something out of an instrument.”
Keith Richards

“Keith and I took drugs, but Brian took too many drugs.”
Mick Jagger