Surviving Beatles and The Rolling Stones to come together at last?

It’s only a whisper of an unconfirmed rumour at present, but the very idea is enough to set millions of minds racing.

Paul McCartney, left, and Mick Jagger: together at last in 2023? Picture: Getty

A Beatle – or perhaps two – playing rock ‘n’ roll alongside the Rolling Stones?

It’s only a whisper of an unconfirmed rumour at present, but the very idea is enough to set millions of minds racing at the possibility of members from two of the greatest British bands of all time joining forces for the very first time.

According to US entertainment industry website Variety, multiple sources suggest that 80-year-old Paul McCartney has recorded bass parts for a forthcoming Rolling Stones project, on which drummer Ringo Starr (82) is also slated to play, although it’s unclear whether the two surviving Beatles are to appear together.

Paul McCartney (left) at a Rolling Stones recording session with producer Glyn Johns (centre) and Stones frontman Mick Jagger (second from right) during the 1960s.

What might these iconic players sound like when mixed with the generation-defining talents of Mick Jagger (79), Keith Richards (79), Ronnie Wood (75) and tracks recorded by the late drummer Charlie Watt, who died in August 2021, aged 80?

The Stones have not released an album of new material since 2005’s A Bigger Bang; a trickle of singles have emerged during that time, including 2020’s Covid lockdown-appropriate Living In A Ghost Town. The band’s last album was 2016’s Blue & Lonesome, a collection of blues covers that featured guitarist Eric Clapton on two songs.

McCartney, meanwhile, issued an album titled McCartney III in 2020, on which he wrote and performed every instrument, and Starr will resume touring with his All-Starr Band across the US in April and May.

Recording sessions for the unnamed, unconfirmed Rolling Stones project are said to have taken place in Los Angeles in recent weeks, overseen by 2021 Grammy producer of the year Andrew Watt, with production nearing the mixing phase, according to Variety.

The Australian has contacted McCartney’s publicist for comment.

Both The Beatles and the Rolling Stones emerged from 1960s Britain to streak up the pop and blues charts, respectively, before becoming long-running cultural institutions in their own right – yet musical collaborations have been few and far between.

The Stones’ second single, released in 1963, was a Beatles cover: the Lennon-McCartney composition I Wanna Be Your Man.

In 1967, the songwriting pair sang backing vocals on another Stones single, We Love You, in a show of generational support.

In a 2021 interview, McCartney spoke somewhat dismissively of the Stones, telling The New Yorker, “they’re a blues cover band, that’s sort of what the Stones are. I think our net was cast a bit wider than theirs.”

Jagger responded at a Los Angeles concert a few weeks later, telling the crowd that the Beatles singer-bassist was in the audience and would “join us in a blues cover”.

The Rolling Stones last toured Australia in 2014; Paul McCartney’s last run was a six-date stadium tour in 2017, when he was a sprightly 75, and Starr hasn’t played here since 2013.

None of them has announced plans for return visits, although perhaps these whispers of a collaboration indicate they’re considering hitting the road again.