The Rolling Stones recently announced they’ll play two shows in June at Soldier Field, but anyone wanting a quicker fix of Mick Jagger and the rest of the band might want to check out the murals at 412 N. Peoria St. on the Near West Side.
Debbie Peterson co-owns the building. On the front, she painted a mural that has a dragon with the red lips and long, stuck-out tongue associated with the band and Jagger.
On one side, she did a mural of an eagle, talons at the ready, jet engines under its wings, that’s also been used to promote the venerable — hey, Jagger is 80 — rock ’n’ rollers.
Peterson says she’s been a fan since she was in high school on the South Side, when she drew a similar eagle for a student art contest.
“It won first,” she says. “It was $75. Back then, that was a lot.”
She says the eagle mural, which she painted during the pandemic shutdown, is “for people who are true-blood Stone fans.”
She did the dragon mural before that but regularly changes the caption bubble it includes. It now reads, “Happy Birthday Mick.”
The Stones’ dragon image “originated in 1973 as part of a poster advertising” a performance in Wales, according Bill German, an authority on the band who wrote the book “Under Their Thumb.”
“The concert was canceled, so copies of the poster were pulped, and the surviving ones have become quite valuable,” German says. “The band has since revived the image a bunch of times in their marketing campaigns, most notably during their 1981 tour.
“As for the flying eagle, that was the official logo of their 1975 U.S. tour.”
Matt Lee, a Stones collector and author of a book about the band called “Hot Stuff,” says, “The jet eagle was a Charlie/Mick concept,” referring to the late drummer Charlie Watts and Jagger who first “sketched” it out.
Peterson says people stop at her building to get photos and, with a security camera trained on the sidewalk, “there’s been some interesting” videos that have been captured. Like the woman who “came by with a bikini on to take a picture of herself in front” of one of the murals.
“I was, like, ‘Whoa, you guys are cracking me up.’”
Peterson says of the building, “In the future, maybe it’ll be a little gallery with Rolling Stones art.”
The band has ties to Chicago dating to the 1960s, largely due to the city’s blues tradition. The Rolling Stones recorded at Chicago’s Chess Records.
They took to Michigan Avenue in the 1960s for a publicity stunt that almost got them arrested.
They jammed with late blues legend Muddy Waters in 1981 on the South Side.
They took the L to Wilmette to eat at the former Marie’s Restaurant.
Asked why she likes the Stones so much, Peterson says, “How can you label what you like? You just like them. They’re like family.
“I can’t wait for them to come into town. I’m going to both concerts.”
