The favourite blues song of The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood
When Ronnie Wood first joined The Rolling Stones in 1975, he served as a sort of renaissance man that perfectly fit the band’s unique dynamic. He had the same easygoing personality as Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, a penchant for rock star excess that made him perfectly paired with Keith Richards, and an inherent affability that endeared him to Mick Jagger. In terms of attitude and approach to rock and roll, Ronnie Wood was always meant to be a Rolling Stone.
It was more than just personality that got Wood the job, however. Like all of the other band members, Wood began his musical career with a major appreciation for the blues. While the Stones were doing jam sessions with Alex Korner’s Blues Incorporated over at the Marquee Club in London, Wood was just a few blocks away performing with early British R&B outfit The Birds playing largely the same material.
While sitting in as a guest host for the BBC Two radio programme The Blues Show, Wood got to show off his blues bona fides by picking out some of his favourite tracks. Just as he did for years as host of The Ronnie Wood Show radio show and TV programme, Wood hangs loose during his hosting gig, ripping off guitar riffs while sharing stories and keeping things charmingly casual. From the very jump, Wood proclaims his allegiance to the blues.
“If I go right back to my first influences… you’ll hear all the influences from when I was a kid and the things that turned me on to where I am today,” Wood explains as he strums out a bluesy guitar run. “The first guitar player I ever heard that took me back in my seat, like ‘Wow, I want to play like that!’, was this guy called Big Bill Broonzy.” Wood then proceeds to play a live one-man rendition of ‘Guitar Shuffle’ before unleashing the original Broonzy recording.
Wood made sure to mention the origins of blues through jazz, big band swing, and even jug music. Like blues, jug music was an American style of folk music that would find massive influence beyond its relatively modest origins. Everyone from the Grateful Dead to the 13th Floor Elevators had elements of jug music in their DNA and Wood himself has a bit as well, citing Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers’ ‘Viola Lee Blues’ (a song later tripped out by the Dead) as an important building block for his own playing.
As his genre-bending take on rock and roll might suggest, Wood’s view of the blues is as one big melting pot of styles and genres. Gospel is another necessary element to the diverse amalgamation that is the blues. Wood highlighted one of the genre’s greatest singers in Mahalia Jackson, pointing out that Aretha Franklin picked up cues from the legendary singer and civil rights activist, playing Jackson’s classic take on ‘Didn’t It Rain’.
Next up on Wood’s trip through the blues is Slim Harpo, the Louisiana harmonica player who helped popularize blues as a real commercial force of nature through songs like ‘I’m a King Bee’ and ‘Rainin’ in My Heart’. Wood picks out Harpo’s ‘Got Love If You Want It’ for his own list and points out that the Stones frequently played ‘I’m a King Bee’ in their earliest years. What Wood fails to mention is that Slim Harpo gets a namecheck on the Stones’ biggest LP, Exile on Main St., thanks to their take on his track ‘Shake Your Hips’.
Wood makes sure not to skimp on the classics either, with Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Smokestack Lightning’, Robert Johnson’s ‘Crossroads Blues’, and Muddy Waters’ ‘Mannish Boy’ making up a holy trifecta of cornerstone tracks that any aspiring blues scholar needs to know. Wood also pinpointed one of the moments when the blues transitioned into rock and roll with Chuck Berry’s ‘Confessin’ the Blues’ before cheekily unleashing two of his own recordings, a rendition of Aretha Franklin’s ‘Chain of Fools’ and a version of Jimmy Reed’s ‘Mr. Luck’ featuring Mick Taylor.
Check out Wood’s choice cuts from the blues down below and find the full programme here.
Ronnie Wood’s favourite blues songs:
- ‘Guitar Shuffle’ – Big Bill Broonzy
- ‘Viola Lee Blues’ – Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers
- ‘Didn’t It Rain’ – Mahalia Jackson
- ‘Got Love If You Want It’ – Slim Harpo
- ‘Worried Life Blues’ – Big Maceo and Tampa Red
- ‘Somestack Lightning’ – Howlin’ Wolf
- ‘Shame, Shame, Shame’ – Jimmy Reed
- ‘Crossroad Blues’ – Robert Johnson
- ‘Just Your Fool’ – Little Walter
- ‘I’m a Little Mixed Up’ – Betty James
- ‘Chain of Fools’ – Ronnie Wood
- ‘Confessin’ the Blues’ – Chuck Berry
- ‘Big Town Playbow’ – Eddie Taylor
- ‘Mr. Luck’ – The Ronnie Wood Band ft. Mick Taylor
