Parachute Women: Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and the Women Behind the Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones have long been considered one of the greatest rock-and-roll bands of all time. At the forefront of the British Invasion and leading the counterculture movement of the 1960s, the Stones' innovative music and iconic performances defined a generation, and fifty years later, they're still performing to sold-out stadiums across the globe. Yet, as the saying goes, behind every great man is a greater woman, and behind these larger-than-life rock stars were four incredible women whose stories have yet to be fully unpacked... until now.

In Parachute Women, Elizabeth Winder introduces us to the four women who inspired, styled, wrote for, remixed, and ultimately helped create the legend of the Rolling Stones. Anita Pallenberg, Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, and Bianca Jagger added the glimmer to the 'Glimmer Twins' and taught a group of straight-laced boys to be bad. They opened doors to subterranean art and alternative lifestyles, introduced them to Russian literature, occult practices, and LSD. They connected them to cutting-edge directors and writers, securing them roles in art house films that revitalised their appeal. They often acted as unpaid stylists, providing provocative looks from their personal wardrobes. They remixed tracks for chart-topping albums, and sometimes even penned the actual songs. More attuned to the times than the rockers themselves, they consciously (and unconsciously) kept the band current and confident, contributing to the mythic lasting power they still possess today.

Lush in detail and insight, and long overdue, Parachute Women is a group portrait of the four audacious women who transformed the Stones into international stars, but who were themselves marginalised by the male-dominated rock world of the late '60s and early '70s. Written in the tradition of Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us, it's a story of lust and rivalries, friendships and betrayals, hope and degradation, and the birth of rock and roll.