Profile of Mick Taylor on Famous Like Me

Michael (Mick) Kevin Taylor (born 17 January 1948 in Welwyn Garden City, England) is best known as the former lead guitarist for The Rolling Stones.

Early career

Taylor grew up in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, and began playing guitar at age 9. He was quickly regarded as a musical prodigy, and before he was 18, he was playing, touring and recording with English blues pioneer John Mayall in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. From 1966-1969 Taylor grew to develop a unique, fluid, emotive guitar style that was consistent with blues and rock and roll.

Rolling as a Stone

When Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wanted to tour North America in 1969, a tour which was to be their first in three years, the problem of founding member and lead guitarist Brian Jones could not be ignored. The drug addiction that afflicted Jones had alienated him from the rest of the group, and would also cripple the tour and slow down the Stones, who even at this early stage of their career were already regarded by some as yesterday's band, and had to prove their worth on the stage each night. Jones was fired, and in 1969 died tragically by drowning under suspicious circumstances. Jagger reportedly did not want to hold auditions to replace him, and the process by which Taylor became a Stone was significantly different from the way in which Ronnie Wood would five years later. Jagger simply asked John Mayall from the Bluesbreakers for his advice. Mick Taylor was recommended, and Jagger invited him to a rehearsal session. Taylor did overdubs on two tracks, "Country Honk" and "Live With Me" from the 1969 Let it Bleed album, and went home thinking it was just some session work. Several days later, Mick Jagger told him he had been chosen as the new guitarist. The electric guitar track "Honky Tonk Women" was inspired by Taylor's country riffs while he was doing overdub takes for the acoustic "Country Honk", and "Honky Tonk Women" was re-recorded by the Stones with Taylor during his second session, although the recording still features three guitars on the track (including some of the work done by Jones before he was fired).

Mick Taylor's live presence with the Stones is preserved on the 1970s Get Yer Ya-Yas Out, a live album recorded over two nights in Madison Square Garden in New York, a week before the Altamont tragedy in San Francisco. Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Goats Head Soup and It's Only Rock and Roll were the four studio albums Taylor recorded with the Stones. Songs like "Sway", "Can't You Hear Me Knocking", "Moonlight Mile", "All Down the Line", "Shine a Light", "Stop breaking Down", "100 Years Ago", "Winter", "Time Waits for No One" and "Fingerprint File" are indelibly the Mick Taylor classics from those four studio records. However, to the many older fans of the Rolling Stones, the Exile on Main Street 1972 tour of the U.S. and the 1973 European Tour are where the true genius of Mick Taylor and the Taylor years can be heard. The band was contractually prohibited from officially releasing any new live material until after 1976. It is a tragedy for Taylor fans that his best live work as a Stone can only be found on obscure sound and film recordings, bootlegs of mostly unreliable quality.

Taylor resigned from the Rolling Stones in 1975, just before a recording session in Munich, West Germany. As the story goes, the Stones were at a party when Taylor announced he was quitting and walked out. Jagger took the news professionally, but Richards, the man who most likely made life in the band most difficult for Taylor, complained about Taylor's departure. Mick Jagger, in a 1995 interview with Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone magazine, nearly admits that the years Taylor was a member of the band were the best musically. Jagger said that Taylor never explained why he had left, and surmised that "he (Taylor) wanted to have a solo career. I think he found it difficult to get on with Keith." Hard feelings dissipated over time: Taylor appears on "I Could Have Stood You Up", a song from Talk is Cheap, Richards' first solo album. On December 14, 1981, Mick Taylor appeared on stage at the Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City with the Rolling Stones; and at a Mick Taylor New York club date on December 28, 1986, Richards appeared on stage with Taylor. Reportedly, they played "Key to the Highway" and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking", which Keith clearly couldn't remember. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Stones and Mick Taylor in 1989.

However, there was something about Taylor that just wasn't Stones-like, especially if the heart of the band is Keith Richards. Richards' playing style with Taylor was brilliant, and Keith's choppy, staccato rhythm guitar blended unforgettably with Taylor's languid, melodious stroke, but ultimately Taylor was too dominating a player for Richards. They could only co-exist for a certain period. Richards resented Taylor at times, and lacked confidence because Jagger was recording many tracks without Richards present, such as "Sway", "Moonlight Mile" and "Winter". Taylor became more disgruntled the longer he worked with the band, because it became clear he would always be a junior partner. The only songwriting credit, a Jagger/Richards/Taylor composition, was "Ventilator Blues" on Exile.

Solo career

After Taylor had left the Stones, he was asked by Jack Bruce to form a new "supergroup" together with Carla Bley. For various reasons (mostly conflicting egos), they only did a very short tour of Europe (including a performance at the Dutch Pinkpop Festival) and the group disbanded before any studio material was recorded. (In 2004, a live recording of a Manchester gig was finally released on CD.) After 1976, Taylor would become a sort of recluse. Aside from some session work for John Phillips and some very scarce session work in 1978, nothing was heard from him until he finally released his self-titled debut in 1979, four years after he had left the Stones. It was considered a great album in every sense, but it couldn't have been released at a worse time. The trend of the day was punk and new wave, while Taylor's album was jazz- and Latin-flavoured blues. It was commercially disappointing, and Taylor's grand ambition of being a successful solo artist faded. During the '70s and '80s, like too many people closely associated with the Stones, he suffered debilitating addictions. John Phillips relates in his autobiography that when he approached Taylor to play on the soundtrack of a David Bowie film, Taylor and his wife Rose were reclusive addicts. Nevertheless, Taylor played on Phillips' second solo recording, Pay, Pack & Follow, with Richards and Jagger.

Perhaps Taylor's second-greatest recorded work came in 1983 with Bob Dylan. Infidels is layered with Taylor's virtuoso performance, which contributes to making the record Dylan's greatest of the 1980s. Taylor lived in New York throughout the decade, which turned out to be a dark period. Highly addicted to cocaine, heroin and alcohol, he even ended up selling all his guitars to sustain his addiction. At the end of the '80s and early '90s, Taylor managed to find his way back by doing session work and small-scale live appearences. He never seemed to feel comfortable in his role as a former Rolling Stone until he released a new record in the year 2000, the CD "A Stone's Throw". Touring small clubs and theatres (impossible for the Stones) has connected Taylor with an appreciative audience and lasting fanbase.

Rolling Stone discography

• Get Yer Ya-Yas Out (1970)
• Sticky Fingers (1971)
• Exile on Main Street (1972)
• Goats Head Soup (1973)
• It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (1974)
• Made in the Shade (1975) (compilation of hits 1971-1974 for 1975 Rolling Stones Tour of the Americas. Re-released by EMI/Virgin April 5th, 2005)

Partial credits with Rolling Stones include:

• Metamorphosis (1975)

Songs such as 'Jiving Sister Fanny" and "I'm Going Down" are classic Taylor cuts.

• Hot Rocks, 1964-1971 (1972) (compilation)
• The London Years: The Singles. (1989) (compilation)
• Tattoo You (1981)

Taylor plays on "Tops" as well as "Waiting on a Friend" both tracks recorded in 1973 during the Goats Head Soup sessions.

Non-Rolling Stones work with Rolling Stones members:

• Pay, Pack & Follow (John Phillips album produced by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards) (2001 release, 1970s recording sessions)
• Talk is Cheap (Keith Richards solo album) (1988)

Notable work with Bob Dylan

• Infidels (1983)
• Real Live (In Europe, 1984) (1984)
• Empire Burlesque (1985)

Solo discography

• Mick Taylor (album)(1979)
• Stranger in This Town (1990)
• Too Hot for Snakes (1991) (Carla Olson & Mick Taylor)
• Stone's Throw (2000)
• Shadow Man (album) (Enhanced re-release) (2003)
• 14 Below (2003)

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Mick Taylor