Who is best known as the founder and original leader of the Rolling Stones

Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones (28 February 1942 – 3 July 1969) was an English musician, best known as the founder and original leader of the Rolling Stones. Initially a slide guitarist, Jones would go on to play a wide variety of instruments on Rolling Stones recordings and in concerts, such as rhythm and lead guitar, sitar, dulcimer, various keyboard instruments such as piano and mellotron, marimba, wind instruments such as harmonica, recorder, saxophone, drums, and vocals.

Jones and fellow guitarist Keith Richards developed a unique style of guitar play that Richards refers to as the "ancient art of weaving" where both players would play rhythm and lead parts together; Richards would carry the style on with later Stones guitarists and the sound would become a Rolling Stones trademark.

After he founded the Rolling Stones as a British blues outfit in 1962, and gave the band its name, Jones' fellow band members Richards and Mick Jagger began to take over the band's musical direction. Jones developed alcohol and drug problems, and his performance in the studio became increasingly unreliable, leading to a diminished role within the band he had founded. In June 1969, the Rolling Stones asked Jones to leave; guitarist Mick Taylor took his place in the group. Jones died less than a month later, drowning in the swimming pool at his home at the age of 27.