Hot Rocks 1964–1971 is the first compilation album of Rolling Stones music released by former manager Allen Klein's ABKCO Records (who gained control of the band's Decca/London material in 1970) after the band's departure from Decca and Klein. Released in late 1971, it proved to be The Rolling Stones' biggest-selling release of their career and an enduring and popular retrospective.

After reportedly having been duped by Klein to unknowingly sign over the recording copyrights to all of their material from 1963 to 1970, The Rolling Stones left Decca and formed their own label, Rolling Stones Records, with a new distributor. They recorded Sticky Fingers throughout 1970, releasing it the following spring. Although Klein—and now ABKCO—no longer had The Rolling Stones as clients, their fruitful catalogue was ripe for the picking and, thus, Hot Rocks 1964–1971 was quickly compiled as a double album greatest hits package.

While the album carries most of the band's biggest hits during their first decade, it does drop a few of them in order to include standout tracks such as "Play With Fire", "Under My Thumb" and "Gimme Shelter" giving listeners a more well-rounded impression of The Rolling Stones' music in this era. Although "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses" are a part of Sticky Fingers, those two songs are co-owned by the band and Allen Klein because The Rolling Stones recorded the songs while they were still under contract to Decca.

Arthur Ira "Art" Garfunkel (born November 5, 1941) is a Grammy-award winning American singer-songwriter, a poet, and a Golden Globe winning actor. He was also half of the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel, which split in 1970, at the height of their popularity.

Highlights of his solo music career include a top 10 hit, three top 20 hits, six top 40 hits, 14 Adult Contemporary top 30 singles, five Adult Contemporary number ones, two UK number ones and a People's Choice Award. Through his solo and collaborative work, Garfunkel has earned six Grammys, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1990, he and former musical partner Paul Simon were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Art Garfunkel was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, the son of housewife Rose and traveling salesman Jacob "Jack" Garfunkel on November 5, 1941. Art has two siblings; the older one named Jules and the younger one named Jerome, who was an actor in his earlier years in Dayton, Ohio, before becoming a travelling menswear salesman. He is Jewish. His paternal grandparents emigrated from Iași in Romania. His cousin on his mother's side is founder of 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, Lou Pearlman. Garfunkel attended the Forest Hills High School. According to the Across America DVD, Garfunkel's love for singing "came in the first grade. When we were lined up in size order, and after everyone else had left, I'd stay behind and enjoy the echo sound of the stairwell tiles and sing 'Unchained Melody' and 'You'll Never Walk Alone', learning to love this goose-bumps song from the tender age of five." Later, Garfunkel's father bought him a wire recorder and from then on, Garfunkel spent his afternoons singing, recording and playing it back, so he could listen for flaws and learn how to improve.

Ronnie Spector (born Veronica Yvette Bennett, August 10, 1943) is an American rock and roll and popular music vocalist, and was the lead singer of the 1960s hit-making girl group, The Ronettes, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. She is known as the "original bad girl of rock and roll."

She was born Veronica Yvette Bennett in New York City on August 10, 1943. From an early age, Ronnie took to singing, encouraged by her large, close family. The other members of the Ronettes, her sister, Estelle Bennett (1941–2009), and cousin, Nedra Talley, were also encouraged to sing by their family. The Ronettes were a multiracial group. The Bennetts' mother was African-American and Cherokee, and their father was Irish; their cousin, Nedra Talley, is African-American and Puerto Rican.

Bennett was married to Phil Spector from 1968 to 1974, and took his name professionally; they adopted three children, including a set of twins, whom Phil adopted as a single parent after Ronnie and the youngest child left.

Willie Nile (born Robert Anthony Noonan on June 7, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter. In 1980 Nile released his self-titled debut album which according to one critic remains “one of the most thrilling post-Byrds folk-rock albums of all time”. His career was interrupted several times by various problems, but he has always returned to recording and performing in the US and Europe, re-establishing himself as a singer-songwriter.

Born and raised in Buffalo, NY, Nile came from a musical family—his grandfather was a vaudeville pianist who played with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Eddie Cantor; his uncles played boogie-woogie. His listened to the music of Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and Fats Domino, brought home by his older brothers. Nile himself began playing piano at age eight and took classical music lessons until he was a teenager, when he taught himself his first rock & roll song. He soon began to compose short songs and continued the habit into his college years, when during the summers he made trips into New York City to frequent hootenanny clubs like Folk City and the Gaslight.

Rickie Lee Jones (born November 8, 1954) is an American vocalist, musician, songwriter, and producer. Over the course of a five-decade career, Jones has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, blues, pop, soul, and jazz standards. Her songwriting has been characterized as "a blend of bravado and vulnerability [that] wavers on indefinable borders." She is also known for her unique singing style, especially in live performances. One concert reviewer, describing her rendering of "We Belong Together," states she "reached her apex, skating from swells into near screams into breathy whispers, from pontillist stacatto scats into brassy, trumpetlike bursts."

In 1999, Jones was listed at #30 in the VH1 list of 100 greatest women of rock.

Rickie Lee Jones was born on the north side of Chicago to Bettye and Richard Jones. Her paternal grandfather, Frank 'Peg Leg' Jones, and her grandmother, Myrtle Lee, a dancer, were Vaudevillians based in Chicago, Illinois. A singer/dancer/comedian, Peg Leg Jones' routine consisted of playing the ukelele, singing ballads, and telling stories. One of four children, her father was a WW2 veteran. A singer, song writer, painter, and trumpet player, Mr. Jones worked as a waiter. Her mother, Bettye, was raised in orphanages in Ohio with her three brothers until she was old enough to leave. Bettye and Richard met in a drug store coffee shop. Rickie Lee was born the third child of four, in Chicago, 1954.