“Very musical”: Mick Jagger’s musings on the best period of The Rolling Stones
Throughout the 1960s, the Rolling Stones’ central songwriting partnership between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards grew from strength to strength, eventually derailing Brian Jones’ blues-centric vision in favour of popular acclaim and original composition. A gulf widened between Jones and his bandmates as he became increasingly withdrawn. Still, even during his final years with the band, he made crucial instrumental contributions to classic psychedelic era songs like ‘Ruby Tuesday’, ‘Paint it Black’ and ‘She’s a Rainbow’.
When The Rolling Stones returned from their psychedelic excursion to a more straightforward blues-rock sound in Beggars Banquet, Jones was on his last legs. His contributions to the record were limited but highlighted by his brilliant slide guitar work on ‘No Expectations’. At the time, Jones struggled with spiralling drug addiction, and though his expulsion was amicable, it wasn’t without its bitterness.
Tragically, Jones died less than a month after leaving the Stones in 1969. At his funeral, Jagger and Richards were absent with prior engagements, leaving Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman to represent the band. “Because he’s dead, I can say, ‘Oh, Brian was a fantastic musician’, but it wasn’t true. Brian wasn’t a great musician,” Richards reflected in a 1974 conversation with the NME. “He did have a certain feel for certain things, but then everybody in the band has that for certain things, too. And there was a nice bit of chemistry there for a while, which unfortunately didn’t stay.”
Jones was notoriously difficult to work with, especially later in the 1960s, an attribute that clearly left a mark on his bandmates. However, Richards detailed that Jones’ weakness was songwriting and composition. “Brian, as far as I know, never wrote a single finished song in ‘is life,” he added. “He wrote bits and pieces, but he never presented them to us. No doubt he spent hours, weeks, working on things – but his paranoia was so great that he could never bring himself to present it to us.”
Following Jones’ departure in June 1969, John Mayall recommended one of his talented Bluesbreakers, Mick Taylor, as a replacement. The 20-year-old prodigy had flourished in the prestigious blues collective that had recently nurtured the talents of Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green and Eric Clapton. After impressing Jagger and Richards at an unofficial audition, he played his first concert as a Rolling Stone on July 5th in Hyde Park and made small contributions to Let It Bleed.
Taylor’s contributions over the early 1970s to albums like Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. transformed The Rolling Stones with a hard, melodic approach to blues rock. This period undoubtedly saw the band release some of its greatest hits, with many fans hailing the Taylor years as the peak, leaving Ron Wood and Brian Jones battling it out for second.
Indeed, Taylor helped to refresh the band’s sound with a heavier sound fit for the 1970s. Fortunately, Taylor joined at a time when Jagger and Richards’ writing struck a zenith, and the new guitarist had a vast impact on the new creative direction, coming up with “line after beautiful line,” as Richards remembered in a 2022 interview with Guitar World. “What a player!” he added.
In 1987, Richards reflected on the three chapters as defined by his guitar partners. “I think some of our best work was probably with Mick Taylor,” he told Rolling Stone. However, he maintained that he always had the “most fun” playing with Wood because he is “the most open.” He concluded, “Ronnie’s incredibly underrated in a lot of ways.”
Slightly less definitive are Jagger’s thoughts on the Stones’ best chapter. Speaking to Rolling Stone in 1995, he said Taylor made a “big contribution” to the band’s legacy, noting the young guitarist’s “very fluent, melodic approach” that stood in contrast to Richards and Wood’s respective styles. “It was very good for me working with him,” Jagger continued. “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.”
While admitting that “some people” think that Taylor’s years brought the “best version of the band that existed,” Jagger was hesitant to give his own categorical opinion out of respect for Wood. “They’re all interesting periods,” he said. “They’re all different. I obviously can’t say if I think Mick Taylor was the best because it sort of trashes the period the band is in now.”
