Not many rock ’n’ roll bands last 50 years, particularly ones as good as the Rolling Stones. They are, quite literally, writing the book.

According to the back cover of “The Rolling Stones 50” — in a quotation signed by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood — “This is our story of 50 fantastic years. We started out as a blues band playing the clubs and more recently we’ve filled the largest stadiums in the world with the kind of show that none of us could have imagined all those years ago. Curated by us, it features the very best photographs and ephemera from our archives and beyond.”

That’s only part of the story. This ­coffee-table book is filled with photos and memorabilia stretching from the group’s first shows at London’s Marquee Club in 1962, when they were barely even a band, to the rock ’n’ roll institution that entertained more than four million fans during their “Bigger Bang” tour in 2005-7.

Leafing through the first hundred pages or so, I was struck by how hard they worked. They’re living, breathing proof of the argument in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” (which discusses the Beatles at some length, but doesn’t mention the Rolling Stones). As Gladwell summarizes a study out of Berlin’s elite Academy of Music: “The thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.” That’s the Rolling Stones.

Ultimately if you’re going to celebrate the Rolling Stones it’s going to be with the music. That’s where it starts and that’s where it’s going to end. It’s the music. It’s the feeling you got when you heard “Aftermath” for the first time or when you saw them play “Satisfaction” on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” It’s the feeling you still get when you hear “Gimme Shelter” pop out of the speakers at the local mall or “Start Me Up” screaming out of the classic rock radio station. It’s the sound. It’s classic rock. Imagine that. Classic. The Rolling Stones.