IN A SENSE, the Black and Blue sessions became the Great Rolling Stones Lead Guitar Search. Just think if Simon Cowell had been making shows in 1975 . . .
To no one’s surprise, Ron Wood was high on the list.
Ron Wood (right) left Rod Stewart and the Faces to become a Rolling Stone in 1975
KEITH RICHARDS: Black and Blue was auditions for guitar players. That’s why you’ve got three or four tracks with Wayne Perkins and two or three tracks with Harvey Mandel. And at the end, it was one of those weird coincidences that seem to happen with us all the time, that just as we were desperately looking for another guitar player, an English player, because that’s what we are—Wayne Perkins is a lovely guitar player, but we’re an English rock ’n’ roll band and we just had to own up that there’s something about having an American guy, that we’re just not common in our upbringing and our culture that would eventually widen. And Woody came in and the Faces just happened to break up at that very moment.
RON WOOD: At the time they were also recording Black and Blue with Harvey Mandel and Wayne Perkins, and Jeff Beck had come and gone, and Eric Clapton had been approached. All kinds of things were going on. I still get ribbed by Eric Clapton. He says to me, “I could have had that job, you know.” I say, “Ah no, sorry Eric, you haven’t got the personality.” I just rib him about it. Basically, the Stones wanted to remain an English rock ’n’ roll band. Eric was already successful in his own right. All the other lovely English guitarists like Jimmy Page, they were doing their own things. When I finally did join, they all expressed that they were really rooting for me and they said that they were really pleased that I did it.
So when did it all happen?
RON WOOD: I had said to Mick, “Only ring me if you get desperate.” They’d been trying all these guitarists, Stevie Marriott, all the ones I said—even more . . . When I was ill after one of the Faces tours, I was bedridden in LA. I was really feeling down. The phone rings and it’s Mick. And he says, “Woody, remember what you said about getting desperate?” And I said, “Well, I see. I’m going back to England when I get better so I’ll call by and see you in Munich.” And he says, “OK then,” and then I went there and I cut “Hey Negrita” and a couple of other tracks for Black and Blue. And they checked me into the hotel in Munich sandwiched between Harvey Mandel on the left and Wayne Perkins on the right. So it was like a whole string of guitarists. I walked in the studio and Charlie says to me, “Christ, out of all these guitarists who’ve walked in here, Woody walks in he starts bossing everybody around, we’ll do this that and the other.” It was no surprise to him that I did get the job just because I was a man after their own heart. Another silly Englishman.
There was still one last obstacle to hurdle before total commitment to the Stones became possible.
RON WOOD: At the time, Rod still hadn’t folded up the Faces. So I still didn’t say that I was joining. I said, “I’ll do your ’75 American tour, I’d love to, but before that I have to do a Faces tour and straight after it, I’ve got to do another one.” So that year I played like three horrendously big tours. I said to Peter Rudge, “If you don’t get me in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most overlooked person who has played in front of more people than anyone in one year . . .”
The definitive word about the transition from Mick to Woody came from Keith, in a 1977 interview with my longtime colleague and friend Dave Herman. Of course it does.
KEITH RICHARDS: I’ll tell you the difference between playing with them two. The roles were much more fixed. With Mick, either I was going to play lead on one number and that was accepted as that, or Mick would which is what he was good at. And when somebody is as good as Mick Taylor, they tend to not realize how good they are and they tend to desperately want to get into other things, they want to sing, write songs, produce. Which is what Mick wanted to do, wants to do, and probably eventually will do. At the moment he hasn’t done anything. Everything that he’s done since, he still could have done and stayed with us. I’m sure it will eventually, in perspective, it will fall into place and probably a period to turn things over to do what he wants to do next.
While he was with the Stones, he very much got into playing drums, playing piano, playing bass. Almost like Brian did. Once they got to a point with an instrument, very much didn’t even realize how good they were at what they were doing and rather would learn all those other things. Whereas with Ronnie there seems to be more of a knowledge of what we can do, what we’re good at, and how we can play together. It’s super-sympathetic, whereas with Mick it was sympathetic. It was quite a rigid role to play, much more so than with Ronnie where we can cross lead to rhythm backwards to forwards in a number.
ROBERT GREENFIELD: Mick Taylor was the sweetest guy who ever lived. Mick was a pure musician and such a pure soul, one of the great players of all time. Keith needs somebody like Ronnie Wood he can smack in the head and is a little scared of him. You can’t say Mick Taylor didn’t belong with the band, because his contribution to the band was immense, because he made them better. And he took them places they would never have gone. But they’re not a solo lead-guitar band. That’s the problem. It goes back to Keith and Brian: they play two guitars as one. You couldn’t tell which was the lead and which was the rhythm. That’s what Keith does as well as anyone except maybe Pete Townshend, he plays rhythm and he plays lead. It’s crazy.
Just as they’d done in Hyde Park for Mick Taylor in 1969, the Stones needed another attention-grabbing way to introduce Ronnie and announce the Tour of the Americas (TOTA, for short) in 1975.