It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll: Mick Taylor Turns 75
Looking back on the career of the most underrated Stones guitarist
Schooled by John Mayall as a member of his Bluesbreakers and following in the footsteps of Peter Green and Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor rose to fame when he replaced Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones.
It was an auspicious career choice, due not only to the fact that he was taking the place of the band’s one time leader, but also because he was able to contribute to some of the Stones’ most significant albums of the late ’60s/early ’70s — Let It Bleed, the live Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St., Goats Head Soup, and It’s Only Rock ’n Roll.
Taylor, who turns 75 on January 17, went on to other glories after leaving the Stones, but nevertheless, he’ll likely always be associated with the band, even though it’s been nearly 50 years since his departure. It wasn’t his last time performing with the band; he took part in the Stones’ “50 & Counting” anniversary tour between November 25, 2012 and July 13, 2013, participating in some 30 shows throughout Europe and North America, all of which culminated with a performance at the Glastonberry Festival and two concerts in London’s Hyde Park, the latter memorialized on the album Hyde Park Live and the concert documentary Sweet Summer Sun: Live in Hyde Park. The following year, he performed with the Stones on the “14 On Fire” jaunt that took them across Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.
Of course, it would be easy to leave it at that, but like most of his British contemporaries, his career’s trajectory started early on, first with several teenage bands, and then via his big break at age 16 when he joined a group that eventually came to be known as The Gods, an outfit that also included Greg Lake and future members of Uriah Heep.
That same year he had a chance opportunity to sit in with the Bluesbreakers while attending a concert for which then Bluesbreaker guitarist Eric Clapton failed to show. Mayall was duly impressed, and when Peter Green exited the Bluesbreakers in 1966, Mayall hired Taylor as Green’s full-time replacement. While many were skeptical that he could meet the challenge of replacing two men who were considered guitar gods — Clapton and Green — Taylor proved up to the task, and went to contribute to such seminal Bluesbreaker albums as Crusade, Diary of a Band, Bare Wires, and Blues From Laurel Canyon, all efforts that are considered by many to be the epochal offerings of Mayall and company’s career.
Nevertheless, Mayall being the dedicated mentor he’s always been, showed he had the young guitarist’s ongoing interests at heart when, following Brian Jones’ departure, he suggested Taylor to be Jones’ replacement. At first, Taylor was one of several session players recruited by the band, but after contributing to two songs on Let It Bleed as well as the single, “Honky Tonk Women,” he passed the proverbial audition and made his debut as an official member of the band, age 20, at a free concert in Hyde Park on July 5, 1969. It was only two days after Jones’ died from drowning in the swimming pool of his Sussex estate.
Yours truly happened to meet Taylor by chance while living in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, the location for the band’s overnight respite during their 1972 American tour. The group was encamped on the beach of a local resort, and it proved no problem at all for this young fan to entrench himself in their midst. Taylor was quiet but polite, the opposite of Richards, who seemed fully intent on mocking me out. (“What have we here, a Pinkerton Guard?”) During a quieter moment, I told Taylor that the Virgin Islands didn’t hold me much promise from. “So why don’t you leave,” Taylor replied, obviously unaware that as an ordinary kid without the wealth accorded a rock star, I was not equipped to do so.
During his tenure with the Stones, Taylor also guested on a pair of 1974 albums by jazz flautist Herbie Mann — London Underground and Reggae — and also played on a pair of live recordings of Tubular Bells alongside Mike Oldfield. However it was his contributions to the Stones that occupied most of his time, even as Richards’ drug problems began to stifle the group’s overall efforts. There were other problems that arose as well. He was denied credit on two songs he cowrote for the It’s Only Rock ’n Roll album, “Till the Next Goodbye” and “Time Waits for No One.” He also insisted that he had a hand in composing the songs “Sway” and “Moonlight Mile,” even though he never got the acknowledgement he felt. He deserved.
“We used to fight and argue all the time,” Taylor told the British music magazine MOJO in 1997. “And one of the things I got angry about was that Mick had promised to give me some credit for some of the songs -– and he didn’t. I believed I’d contributed enough. Let’s put it this way – without my contribution those songs would not have existed.”
The lack of credit merely exacerbated the tension that was growing between him and the rest of the band, specifically with Jagger and Richards. “I was a bit peeved about not getting credit for a couple of songs, but that wasn’t the whole reason [I left the band],” he told another interviewer. “I guess I just felt like I had enough. I decided to leave and start a group with [ex Cream bassist] Jack Bruce. I never really felt…I was gonna stay with the Stones forever, even right from the beginning.”
In his own 1995 interview with Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone, Jagger said that Taylor never fully explained the reasons for his departure, other than the fact he wanted a solo career. “I think he found it difficult to get on with Keith,” Jagger added, although he admitted that Taylor’s melodic style had made a very significant impression. In an October 2002 interview with Guitar World, Richards added, “Mick Taylor and I worked really well together … He had some lovely energy. Sweetly sophisticated playing, way beyond his years. Lovely sense of melody. I never understood why he left the Stones. Nor does he, I think … I had no desire to see him go.”
VIDEO: The Rolling Stones “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll”
Taylor later confessed that he was worried about the drug culture that surrounded the Stones and being intent on protecting his family, he found it imperative to separate himself from that particular milieu.
Nevertheless, Taylor did manage to reunite with his former compatriots even prior to the aforementioned anniversary tours. He appeared with Jagger, Richards and Ron Wood on sessions for former Mamas and Papas leader John Phillips’ solo album Pay Pack & Follow in 1977 and later made a guest appearance with the band at a concert in Kansas City. Richards returned the favor by guesting with Taylor at the Lone Star Cafe in New York in December, 1986. The camaraderie between the guitarists was apparently renewed when Taylor guested on the track “I Could Have Stood You Up” on Richards’ 1988 solo album Talk Is Cheap. He joined Ron Wood for Wood’s first three solo albums, I’ve Got My Own Album To Do, Now Look and Gimme Some Neck, worked with bassist Bill Wyman’s band, the Rhythm Kings, in the early ‘90s, and collaborated with Wood, Watts and Wyman on the Boogie for Stu album, a tribute to the Stones early keyboard player and co-founder, Ian “Stu” Stewart. In 1989, he was inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Rolling Stones, 1989)
Equally significantly, he appears on two tracks on the Stones’ later album, Tattoo You (“Tops and “Waiting on a Friend”), and went on to provide overdubs on an unreleased Stones track titled “Plundered My Soul,” which appeared on the 2010 rerelease of Exile on Main Street.
VIDEO: The Rolling Stones “Waiting On A Friend”
Nevertheless, having freed himself from his obligations to the Stones, Taylor found plenty of time to pursue his own possibilities. First, he formed a jazz-centric band with Jack Bruce, keyboardist Carla Bley and former Knack drummer Bruce Gary. He was also a featured guest with Little Feat on the song “A Apolitical Blues” at the Rainbow Theatre in London, a performance preserved for posterity on the live album Waiting for Columbus. On September 24, 1988, he joined the Grateful Dead at Madison Square Garden. Earlier, in 1982 and 1983, he returned to his roots by joining John Mayall for his “Reunion Tour,” alongside bassist John McVie and drummer Colin Allen. (He would later reunite with Mayall in 2003 for the latter’s 70th Birthday Concert in Liverpool with another former Bluesbreaker, Eric Clapton.
Taylor took another pronounced leap forward when he accepted an invitation to join Bob Dylan’s band on tour and then appear on two of Dylan’s albums, Infidels, Real Live and Empire Burlesque In addition, he also contributed to projects by Joan Jett, Gong, Dramarama, former Manfred Mann vocalist Paul Jones, Percy Sledge, Nikki Sudden, guitarist Miller Anderson, and American singer/songwriter Alan Merrill. In 2007, Taylor was one of a group of guitarists who took part in the Experience Hendrix tour alongside Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, Robby Krieger, and former Hendrix colleagues Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox.
Nevertheless, having been a side man and session player for most of his career, his departure from the Stones meant he was free to focus on a solo career. His eponymous debut album released by Columbia Records in 1979 featured the stand-out song “Leather Jacket,” a track originally demoed by the Stones. Frustration over the album’s lack of significant success and an ongoing battle with drug addiction subsequently found him withdrawing from the music industry after that. He reemerged in 1990 with a live album, Stranger In This Town and then released another effort, A Stone’s Throw, in 1998. Two other live albums appeared in the new millennium, Coastin’ Home (AKA Live at the14 Below), 14 Below and Little Red Rooster, credited to the Mick Taylor Band.
Taylor briefly relocated to Miami in the early 1990s and revived the Stones connection with a band called Tumbling Dice, which featured Stones sidemen Nicky Hopkins and Bobby Keys, along with former Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young bassist Calvin “Fuzzy” Samuels. I had the opportunity to see the band perform at a small, nondescript club in the Miami suburbs, and while there, took the opportunity to remind Taylor of our earlier encounter in the Virgin Islands some 20 years before. He indicated that he remembered, but I got the impression he was simply being polite.
Taylor hit another career milestone when he teamed up with former Textones singer and songwriter Carla Olson for a series of albums that included Too Hot For Snakes, featuring a reprise of the Stones song “Sway,” Within An Ace, Reap The Whirlwind, and The Ring of Truth. Olson and Taylor later rekindled their performing partnership for the Olson-produced Barry Goldberg album Stone Again.
“The most important thing is to follow your instinct and get involved with some friends who have similar tastes and aspirations and like music as much as you do,” Taylor was quoted on BrainyQuote. Given the path he’s pursued so prolifically and proficiently for the past 55 years, he’s clearly committed to following his own advice.
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