Rolling Stones exhibition in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Over the years, curators at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum have occasionally had trouble coaxing reluctant stars to help put together major exhibitions. Not so with members of the Rolling Stones, who made time in their packed anniversary schedule to help.

"Rolling Stones: 50 Years of Satisfaction", which opened on Friday and runs until March 2014, covers two floors at the museum, in Cleveland, Ohio, and contains scores of personal items.

"The timing was right," associate curator Craig Inciardi says. "Ordinarily, you would think that working on an exhibit while the artists are getting ready for a major tour would be a bad thing. In this case, it worked to our advantage in that they were all getting together, spending time making decisions in the same room. We ended up getting their full co-operation."

The interactive exhibition honouring Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the band's other members is a tribute to their work, worldwide musical impact and continued relevance. It's more than a celebration. In fact, it's a gas.

With nearly 300 artifacts on display, the exhibition chronicles the Stones from their beginnings in England as a blues cover band to their current "50 and Counting" tour. Rare guitars, stage outfits, concert posters, documents and personal items fill two floors.

After stepping through a doorway framed like the Stones' iconic tongue-and-lips logo, visitors are taken back to the band's earliest days, even before founder Brian Jones, Jagger, Richards, Ian Stewart and Charlie Watts played their first gig.

There are gems of Stones' history interspersed throughout the display. Impeccably mounted behind glass, the treasure trove of items includes many highlights. Among them are fan questionnaires filled out in the early 1960s by the band. On his, Jagger listed his likes as "girls, eating, clothes" and dislikes as "intolerant people, having my hair cut".