In December 1974, The Rolling Stones’ guitarist Mick Taylor announced he was leaving the band. Taylor had been drafted in as a then cherubic-faced 20-year-old following the death of founding member Brian Jones, making his debut at the Stones’ free concert at London’s Hyde Park on July 5, 1969. Taylor’s fluid, emotive playing helped bring the Stones into a new era, adding a level of musical sophistication to arguably their finest run of albums, incorporating Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St. However, tensions between Taylor and his bandmates had rapidly deteriorated, exacerbated by the guitarist’s growing heroin addiction.
READ MORE: Glyn Johns: Why Mick Taylor Had To Go...
The night Taylor told Mick Jagger he was leaving at a party at music business impresario Robert Stigwood’s house, the man who would eventually replace him was sat between the two of them.
“I just laughed” Ronnie Wood tells Mark Blake in the December issue of MOJO, “because that’s always been a cliché among musicians.”
Taylor was serious, though, and Jagger turned to Wood and offered him the gig. Wood turned him down as he was still a member of the Faces, but agreed to help out if the band were desperate.
When the news of Taylor’s departure became public, Melody Maker ran a list of potential replacements, including Wood, Jeff Beck, Ry Cooder, Mick Ronson and – somewhat improbably – Steve Hillage of Canterbury space rockers Gong.
The new box set of the Stones transitionary 1976 LP Black And Blue provides a fascinating insight into what might have been in some of these cases, as cameos for Wood, Wayne Perkins and Harvey Mandel on the original album are joined by tracks featuring Jeff Beck and Robert A Johnson. Here MOJO profiles the guitarists who were briefly in the frame to become a Rolling Stone…
Jeff Beck
The Yardbirds/Jeff Beck Group guitar whizz was invited by Keith Richards to join the Stones early on in the sessions for Black And Blue. The guitarists’ guitarist was obviously technically up to the job, but it’s unlikely the famously creatively strong-willed Beck would have toed an artistic line drawn by Jagger/Richards for long. “They wanted me to join,” Beck recounted. “The money was tempting, but I would have been half-dead and my reputation would have been shot.” As then bassist Bill Wyman recalled to MOJO: “Jeff came and went saying he didn’t want to have to play 12-bar blues all the time.”
Eric Clapton
Another Yardbird alumni, the guitarist formerly known as God was chief among the names being mentioned in the music press to be replacing Taylor. Again, technical proficiency wouldn’t have been a problem, and it’s unlikely Clapton would have shared Beck’s reticence towards playing the blues. “Eric wanted to jump in after Mick Taylor but never did so,” claimed Richards. However, speaking to MOJO, Wyman scotches his bandmate’s assertion: “Clapton was never in the running.”
Steve Marriott
Late of the Small Faces and Humble Pie, Steve Marriott was one of Richards’ drug buddies and, as Blake puts it, “as famous for his paint-peeling vocals as he was for his soul-rock guitar chops.” It appeared the former cost him the gig, though. “Steve was Keith’s number one choice,” Marriott’s former Small Faces bandmate Ian McLagan told biographer Simon Spence. “There were auditions, with Richards offering counsel to Steve – ‘Stay cool, let Mick do all the singing, don’t get in Her Majesty’s way, and the gig’s yours.’ Marriott lasted two minutes, leapt to the mike, upstaged Jagger for the next 20 minutes and blew the audition.”
Peter Frampton
Another name thrown around in the press was Marriott’s former Humble Pie bandmate Peter Frampton. However, this appears to have been based more on rumour than fact, as when Frampton heard the news that he was in the running announced on the radio, he had to pull his car over in shock. “I would have joined if they’d asked,” says Frampton, who’s Frampton Comes Alive! would catapult him to solo stardom a year later. “But I’d have said, I have to do my own solo records as well, and Keith would have said, ‘Fuck that!’” “I liked Peter, but he never worked with us,” says Wyman, “and he was too pretty to be a Rolling Stone.”
Rory Gallagher
Steeped in the Stones’ beloved blues, Irish guitar hero Gallagher visited sessions in Rotterdam and according to the late guitarist’s brother Donal, they were productive, but the main issue was the absence of an increasingly wayward Richards. Gallagher had a solo tour of Japan coming up and need a straight answer. “Rory said, ‘Please let me know what’s going on because I’ve got to be on a plane to Tokyo tomorrow‘. And Mick said, ‘Keith wants to have a good long chat with you. Please go up. He’s waiting in his suite upstairs,’” Donal told the Telegraph. “And Rory went up, and Keith was comatose in the bed”. He took the flight to Tokyo the next morning.
Harvey Mandel
Detroit-born Mandel had previously been in blues rockers Canned Heat and when he got the call from Jagger asking him to play on Black On Blue he initially assumed it was someone playing a prank on him. Mandell can be heard on Memory Motel and Hot Stuff on the record and would later claim that the singer has wanted him to join but Richards wasn’t keen. “He used too many electronic effects,” confirms Wyman. “He wasn’t right at all.”
Robert A Johnson
Somewhat awkwardly, Memphis session ace Robert A Johnson was invited by Jagger to the same session in Holland that Richards had invited Beck to (you can hear them together on Rotterdam Jam on the new boxset). “Everyone was friendly, and we jammed for a couple of hours, and around midnight, Mick said, ‘Don’t be alarmed, but another guitarist is here,’" Johnson tells Blake. “I looked over to see Jeff Beck with a cigar in his mouth, like a gunslinger, and his roadie holding two guitars. He was here for the graveyard shift." Johnson audibly gelled with the band, but they were by that point closing in on their final choice.
Wayne Perkins
Alabaman Wayne Perkins was a veteran of many Muscle Shoals sessions who’d recently played on Bob Marley And The Wailers’ Catch A Fire and came recommended by Eric Clapton. He can be heard on Black And Blue’s Fool To Cry, Hand Of Fate, and Memory Motel. “It was becoming clear to me that these guys were serious,” he recalled, “and wanted me as their new guitar player.”
It wasn’t to be, however. With Faces coming to an end as Rod Stewart's solo career took off, Ronnie Wood arrived at sessions in Munich to play on Crazy Mama, a cover of Jamaican singer-songwriter Eric Donaldson’s Cherry Oh! Baby and Hey Negrita and fitted in immediately. “Wayne Perkins did very well,” Wyman tells MOJO. “But he didn’t look like a Stone. It wasn’t just good musicianship – we had tons of that. We were looking for someone who would merge into the band, which Woody did straight away.”
“We spent a nasty couple of days going cold turkey and trying to make a deal at the same time…”
Get the December issue of MOJO to read the full story of how The Rolling Stones’ emerged from uncertainly bloody but unbowed with Black And Blue. “Everyone was winging it…” they tell Mark Blake. More information and to order a copy HERE.
