What was the first Rolling Stones song to feature Mick Taylor?
The timeline between when Brian Jones was asked to leave The Rolling Stones, his subsequent death, and the introduction of Mick Taylor as the band’s new guitar player all happened within the span of a few weeks.
Jones was out of the band by June 8th, 1969, with the official announcement coming a day later. A little less than a month later, Jones was found dead in his swimming pool. And only a day after that tragedy, Taylor made his official debut on a Rolling Stones single by appearing on ‘Honky Tonk Women’.
Incredibly, the day after that, Taylor made his live debut with the band as The Rolling Stones played a free concert in Hyde Park. No wonder they say that a Rolling Stone gathers no moss.
It was a whirlwind ride for the then-20-year-old Taylor. Having made his name as a teenage guitarist in John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, in the same spot that Eric Clapton and Peter Green had previously stood, Taylor was suddenly a part of one of the most famous British rock groups in the world.
For Taylor, he wasn’t even sure at first if he was to be included as a full-time member. A naturally retiring character, he just quietly went along for the ride and didn’t ask the grieving band too many questions.
“I did accept the offer right away. I didn’t really know if they wanted me to go down to the studio and do some sessions or whether they needed to find another guitar player,” Taylor told writer Gary James. “It was only during the session that I realised that they were actually looking for another guitar player. They seemed to like me, so it was kind of like, more or less settled there and then.”
So, what was the first song Mick Taylor played on?
Although ‘Honky Tonk Women’ would be the song that introduced Mick Taylor to the world, his first session with The Rolling Stones was for the Let It Bleed album track ‘Live with Me’. The rollicking tune featured a number of guests, including pianists Leon Russell and Nicky Hopkins. The song was also the first Rolling Stones song to feature frequent collaborator Bobby Keys on saxophone.
“Both the horns AND Mick Taylor made their debut on the same album on the same track,” Keys would later recall about the session. “At the time, a lot of people overlooked the fact that it wasn’t just Mick (Taylor) joining the band, that was the whole period where the horns joined too. And they all left at the same time.”
“(The first song I worked on with the Stones) was called ‘Live with Me’, very appropriately named because once I joined the Stones, it was like living with a family for the next five or six years,” Taylor recalled in 2000.
He continued, “It was an interesting session, actually, because they were putting the finishing touches on Let It Bleed, and the first track I played on was ‘Live with Me’. We did that live, and the second thing I did was I overdubbed my guitar part on ‘Honky Tonk Women’.”
While ‘Live with Me’ might not be the most memorable song in their discography, it certainly symbolised the start of a scintillating era. “I think some of our best work was probably with Mick Taylor,” Keith Richards told Rolling Stone. And Mick Jagger wasn’t far off agreeing, “It was very good for me working with him,” he explained.
Adding, “Charlie and I were talking about this the other day because we could sit down – I could sit down – with Mick Taylor, and he would play very fluid lines against my vocals. He was exciting, and he was very pretty, and it gave me something to follow, to bang off.” So, while it might have begun in turmoil and with a largely forgotten track, it didn’t take long for Taylor to bring a more melodic approach to the bristling British classic rockers.
