As the Rolling Stones circle the globe in what they've hinted just might be the last time, one can't help but wonder what's up with the man that bowed out of "the world's greatest rock'n'roll band" at the zenith of their greatness—guitarist Mick Taylor. Turns out that just like his former band, he remains out on the road making music.
Caught at his home about an hour outside London just a week shy of his 58th birthday, the gracious and soft-spoken Taylor—known for his shyness during his days within the maelstrom of the early '70s Stones milieu—is still feeling the buzz from a tour of Sweden with the young Wentus Blues Band from Finland late last year. "This was our second tour together and there were a couple of nights that were just fantastic," he enthuses. "I still just love it," Taylor says of performing. "I also love making records, but there's something about being up there playing for people and interacting with the other musicians. I don't think it's an ego thing for me. But it is something that I need to do."
That need first struck Taylor as a youngster growing up on the outskirts of postwar London when he saw Bill Haley & The Comets and later picked up his uncle's guitar and began delving deep into American blues. His tutelage served him well one Friday night when, at the age of 16, he went to see John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, whose star guitarist Eric Clapton didn't show. "They were playing two sets, and it was obvious from the first set that Eric wasn't going to be there. So I went back to his dressing room between sets and Eric's guitar was there. I told John that I played guitar. I was really just starting out then, but I did know the songs." Indeed he did, sitting in to fill Clapton's considerable shoes and duly impress Mayall, the godfather of British blues. "I think we exchanged phone numbers afterwards but then lost touch with each other. Then about two years later I heard he was looking for someone to replace Peter Green and trying to find me, and I got in touch with him." Taylor cut two of Mayall's seminal albums: Crusade and Blues From Laurel Canyon. And thanks to the band's tours he rubbed shoulders with a number of his blues heroes. "I got to go to America in 1967 and '68 and see a lot of those people play and meet them."
At 21, Taylor was tapped to replace Brian Jones in The Rolling Stones, debuting with the band at their legendary 1969 Hyde Park concert. His tenure with the band coincides with their artistic peak, and for some fans the fluidity, grace, and musicality of his lead work remains the ideal counterpart to the playing of Keith Richards. When he quit the band at the end of 1974, much of the music world was amazed that he bailed out from the very pinnacle of rock'n'roll stardom and success. Taylor long ago gave up trying to explain what to many seems a quixotic move yet to him made perfect sense and still does. "To really understand it, you'd have to have been a member of the Rolling Stones at the time," he says. And his motivation to leave the band wasn't so much the toll of the lifestyle or feeling somewhat slighted by the Jagger/Richards leadership as wanting to follow where the music was leading him rather than the dictates of stardom.
He joined forces with Jack Bruce for a stint, recorded a strong solo debut that never caught commercial fire, and then did another pass through the superstar stratosphere touring and recording with Bob Dylan in the early 1980s. To Taylor, it was at least as amazing as joining the Stones. "If you'd told me when I was 14 years old that I would be playing with Bob Dylan someday, I'd never have believed it," he says. "I think one of the reasons he asked me to work with him was because he really doesn't look for musicians for their technical ability. He likes musicians who are about the feeling and how you play the music."
Although Taylor has primarily stayed outside the spotlight since leaving the Rolling Stones, he has remained active on his own and with other artists. He has reunited a number of times over the years with Mayall, most recently along with Clapton for his 70th birthday concert. "I learned so much from him. He was really like a teacher to me," says Taylor. He has also recorded with Carla Olson, Elliot Murphy, Debbie Davies, and The Golden Palominos, and has continued to release his own albums—1999's A Stone's Throw being his most recent—and perform concerts, club dates, and at festivals with a variety of line-ups. He has also recorded with former Stones bandmates Richards, Bill Wyman, and even his replacement Ron Wood. A couple of years ago revisited his past with a few tracks on Barry Goldberg's instrumental album of Stones songs, Stoned Again. "It was really fun to play those songs again with a different interpretation."
Though far more apt to reinterpret the blues classics in his shows, Taylor remains proud of his Stones legacy, sometimes to his own surprise, as when his wife recently spun Get Yer Ya Ya's Out, the quintessential 1970 live album he played on. "I hadn't listened to it in a long time. And she was playing it the other day and I was listening and thinking, wow, that's really great, isn't it? I really like that."
Taylor hopes he might join his old band on stage when their current tour hits Europe (he also sat in with them in 1981) and doubts that this will be the band's last stand. "They always say that, don't they?" he points out with a chuckle. "And they really don't need to do it for the money. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if they keep going."
Taylor's not about to quit playing shows anytime soon either. "It's addictive," Taylor confesses. But unlike some addictions he struggled with in the past, "Music is very healing. I've met so many people over the years who have told me stories about how something I played on helped them through a rough period in their life or gave them hope when they were down."
Ultimately, Taylor continues to follow the lead of the blues heroes that originally fired his imagination in the 1960s and, to some degree, pointed to life beyond the Rolling Stones when he left the band some three decades ago. "It's a life and a lifestyle," concludes Taylor. "There's no reason why you can't keep doing it. That's what guys like Muddy Waters did."
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