Mick Taylor

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Template:Guitarist infobox Michael "Mick" Kevin Taylor (born 17 January, 1949 in Welwyn Garden City, England) is best known as the former lead guitarist for The Rolling Stones.

Early career

Mick Taylor grew up in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, and began playing guitar at age 9. As a teenager he formed bands with schoolmates and they soon began to do gigs under the name The Juniors (or the Strangers). They even appeared on television and put out a single. Part of the band was recruited for a new group called The Gods which included Ken Hensley (later of Uriah Heep fame). In 1966 The Gods opened up for Cream at the Starlite Ballroom in Wembley. Taylor started to become known as a musical prodigy, and before he was 18, he was playing, touring and recording the album Crusade 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 died tragically by drowning under suspicious circumstances on July 3rd, 1969. 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 arrived at the studio thinking they wanted him to do some session work, but after a while he realised he was in fact being auditioned as a new guitarist for the band. Taylor did overdubs on two tracks, "Country Honk" and "Live With Me" from the 1969 Let It Bleed album. This impressed Richards and Jagger enough to tell him: "See you tomorrow" before he left the studio the first day. The Stones were rehearsing Stevie Wonder's I Don't Know Why (I Love You) when Jagger answered the telephone informing the band Jones had drowned. 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. Legend is that the recording still features guitar by Brian Jones, and this then would make it the only track with Jones and Taylor both playing. However, as with most legends, it can not be true, and it has always been denied by all members of the Stones. In fact, Jones' last guitar contributions at a Stones session are from June 1968. For most of the 1969 Let it Bleed sessions Jones was not present, and his only contributions are autoharp on Let it Bleed's You Got the Silver.

Known as "Little Mick" within the band, Taylor's live presence with the Stones is preserved on the 1970s Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!, a live album recorded over three gigs at the 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 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 heard on obscure sound and film recordings, found on bootlegs of mostly mediocre sound quality although 21st century re-masters of these bootlegs are now becoming readily available and with outstanding sound quality ie: the "Bedspring Symphony Revisited" CD that archives some of the Rolling Stones 1973 European tour among many, many other new releases.

Taylor resigned from the Rolling Stones in December 1974, 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. 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.

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Taylor as a Rolling Stone.

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's guitar prowess at times and the fact that Jagger and Taylor developed a way of working together when Richards was "missing in action" further affected his confidence. In Richards' absence (either because he couldn't be bothered to show up or was physically incapable to come to the studio), Jagger and Taylor recorded songs like "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; it is thought that Taylor songwriting contributions on a number of other Stones songs, including notable ones such as "Moonlight Mile", went uncredited. Two songs of 1981's "Tattoo You" also feature Taylor ("Tops" and "Waiting on a Friend").

But lack of songwriting credits wasn't the only reason he chose to leave the band. While recording Exile on Main Street in the South of France in 1971 Taylor started to dabble with heroin, and as early as 1972 he talked to people about "escaping the Stones". Also important is that after the 1973 European tour, the future for the Stones looked dim. Keith Richards was heavily strung out on drugs, and for a while it looked like the Stones would collapse as a band. Taylor got fed up with waiting for the band to move and felt like it was a stalemate situation (the Stones didn't do much touring between Oct '73 and Dec '74). In December '74 shocked the music world by announcing that he was leaving the band. As he was considered one of the best guitarists in the world, it was expected he could build a solo career as had Eric Clapton.

Solo career

After Taylor had left the Stones, Jack Bruce asked him to form a new "supergroup" together with Carla Bley. After rehearsing with the Jack Bruce Band in '75, they toured Europe (including a performance at the Dutch Pinkpop Festival, but the the group was disbanded for various reasons (mostly conflicting egos) before any studio material was recorded. (In 2004, a live recording of a Manchester gig was finally released on CD.) In the mid 70's there was an extremely unhealthy climate in the music business, which lasted well into the 80's. This may have been part of the reason that Taylor disassociated himself somewhat from the scene. From '77 till '79, after recruiting musicians to work with in the studio, he got on with developing and recording his own musical ideas. He also worked with Pierre Moerlen and his band Gong on their Expresso II album in 1978 and played guitar on John Phillips the Pay Pack and Follow album. Also present in the studio with John Phillips were Richards and Jagger. Taylor contributed to the moviescore of the film "The Man who fell to the Earth", starring David Bowie during this time as well.

In 1979, four years after he had left the Stones, Taylor's first solo album was released on CBS. 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 the height of the punk movement and the record label told Taylor he should promote the record by visiting American radio stations. Taylor, on the other hand, wanted to take a new band on the road, which he saw as the best way to introduce audiences to his own songs, but this plan wasn't backed by the record company. Already frustrated with this situation, Taylor took some time out to consider his options. Like too many people closely associated with the Stones, he suffered addictions, although this didn't stop him from keeping a musical career going.

File:Dylantaylor.jpg
Taylor recorded with Dylan on Infidels.

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In 1981 Taylor toured Europe and America with Alvin Lee (from Ten Years After) and spent most of 1982-1983 on the road with his old mentor John Mayall for the so-called Reunion Tour with John McVie (Fleetwood Mac) and Colin Allen. It was during this tour that Bob Dylan showed up backstage at The Roxy in Los Angeles because he wanted to meet Taylor.

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 Infidels one of Dylan's most critically praised records of the 1980s. Taylor lived in New York throughout the decade, which turned out to be a dark period. He battled with addiction problems for part of the decade before getting back on track the second half of the 80's and moving to Los Angeles in 1990.

Allegedly former wife Rose sold some of Taylor's gold records during the second half of the 70's. She was probably forced to do so because the Stones froze Taylor's assets. Immediately after the Stones left, they tried to get away with not sending Taylor's royalty cheques anymore, but made amends after Taylor sought legal advice. Rose and Taylor split up only a few years after getting married in '75. In 1981, the Stones suddenly instructed their accountants to stop paying Taylor's share of the artist royalties. Taylor stopped receiving any royalties for the records he had helped to create between '69 and '75 and which were released on their own label Rolling Stones Records (the recordlabel the five bandmembers had founded themselves in 1970 as part of forming their own business structure after firing Allen Klein).

At the end of the '80s and early '90s, Taylor managed to find his way back by doing session work and touring in Europe and America with a tight sounding band including Max Middleton (formerly of Jeff Beck group) and Blondie Chaplin (now a back-up musician with the Stones). Taylor moved back to England in the mid 90's. 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 clubs and theatres (impossible for the Stones) as well as appearing at festivals has connected Taylor with an appreciative audience and lasting fanbase.

Rolling Stone discography

Partial credits with Rolling Stones include:

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

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:

Notable work with Bob Dylan

Solo discography

Albums with Carla Olson

Other session work

This album has wrongly been marketed as a Mick Taylor solo album. It is in fact a Sacha album. Taylor was only hired as a guitarist and would not have chosen to put this album out under his own name.

External links

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