New Delhi, July 13 -- NEW YORK - Bill Wyman stopped counting at around 1,800. He had been keeping a journal.

a ledger of the years when the Stones were arguably the most famous band on earth and backstage access meant something different than it does now. According to Bob Spitz, whose biography "The Rolling Stones: The Biography" arrives this week from Penguin Press, three members of the band once sat down and compared their sexual histories. The numbers bore no resemblance to the legend.

Wyman's tally put him at the extreme end of a scale that fell sharply on the other side. Mick Jagger, whose name has appeared in more romantic narratives than perhaps any other rock musician of his generation, estimated his total "in the hundreds." Kei...