On December 12, 1974, at Eric Clapton's London birthday party, Mick Taylor told Mick Jagger he was quitting the Rolling Stones. The news blindsided the band as they were about to go into the studio for their next Album, Black And Blue, but now they had no lead guitarist. The band's fans asked the same question—Why would anyone quit the greatest job in rock music?
It all began back in May, 1969 at Olympic Studios in London, as the Stones were finishing up Let It Bleed. As the band was about to fire founding member, Brian Jones, they needed another guitar player who’d complement Keith Richards, so they brought in 20-year-old guitar prodigy Mick Taylor for some “session work” that was, unbeknownst to Taylor, an audition to join the band. They asked him to overdub slide guitar on "Country Honk" and lead guitar on the soon-to-be hit single "Honky Tonk Women." After two days of session work, Jagger called Taylor and asked him to join the band.
Jones, the Stones' original leader, was a brilliant musician who could play any instrument. But the power dynamic shifted when Jagger and Richards began writing songs together. The final straw came when a drug bust made Jones ineligible for the work visa needed for the band’s crucial upcoming tour of the U.S. The Stones sacked him, and less than a month later Jones ended up dead in his swimming pool after a late-night swim.
Taylor’s first live appearance with the Stones took place on July 5, 1969 at a free concert in London's Hyde Park that was originally scheduled to introduce him to the band's audience. But after Jones’ death on July 3, the concert turned into a memorial for their fallen founder.
Taylor was at his best, bringing a soaring, melodic lead-guitar sound that meshed to perfection with Richards' raw rhythm guitar. His stoic, affectless presence stood out amidst the dramatic stage posturing of Jagger and Richards.
Before his firing, Jones had lost interest in the band's original blues-based approach, preferring instead to tinker around the edges of the band’s sound by experimenting with world instruments like the sitar and marimba. Taylor's playing at that free concert was an announcement that the Stones were returning to their blues roots. The Stones had found the missing piece of the puzzle that was to help guide them through what would later be called their Golden Era that began in 1968, when Beggars Banquet was released and the bulk of Let It Bleed was completed, and continued through 1972.
The band members were so impressed that they made Taylor a full band member from day one, meaning he received an equal share of all revenues except for the ones associated with songwriting credits—the revenue stream that flows in for the entire life of a songwriter. Taylor went on the American tour that Brian Jones couldn't join. With Taylor aboard, the band’s creativity was blossoming with a force that not even the disastrous Altamont Speedway concert in California—during which a Hells Angels “security guard” knifed an audience member to death—could dampen.
If anything, Altamont ushered in amped-up that creativity. Taylor, who’d previously done a two-year stint as a teenager in the structured environment of John Mayall’s Blues Beakers, was fully immersed in the chaotic world of the Rolling Stones. But he had neither the experience (Jagger and Richards were, respectively, six and five years older) nor the temperament to thrive under those conditions—the conditions that helped to turn Richards into a heroin addict, a road Taylor soon went down himself.
After his two-song contribution to Let It Bleed, Taylor came into his own on the band’s next studio album, Sticky Fingers (1971). On “Sway,” he made a strong claim that he deserved the songwriting credit Jagger/Richards denied him. On “Can't You Hear Me Knocking,” Taylor and Richards teamed up to produce the band’s tour de force of guitar work, with Richards laying down the raw, swaggering anchor riff of the song, and Taylor providing a yin-and-yang contrast with his spontaneous, ethereal outro jam. While Taylor made a major contribution to “Moonlight Mile,” Richards, who didn't participate in the song’s creation, got a co-writing credit, along with Jagger. By any standards, that's an indefensible slap in the face to a band member. Sticky Fingers showcased the full range of Taylor’s talents, but it also planted the first seeds of discontent for him as a Rolling Stone.
While Taylor continued with his superb musicianship on the production of the Rolling Stones's 1972 double album, Exile On Main Street, his personal situation took a sharp downward turn. The band had relocated to the South of France for tax reasons, and the recording sessions took place in the hot and humid basement of Nellcôte, the villa Richards had rented near Nice. Given all the first-name-only heroin dealers and various hangers on at the mansion, Taylor’s proximity to Richards, and the chaos of the sessions, the stage was set for the guitarist's slide into addiction.
His new habit didn't hinder Taylor’s musical performance. It was there on the Côte d’Azur that Taylor got one of only two songwriting credits (“Criss Cross,” released in 2020 was the second one) Jagger/Richards would grant him—this one for “Ventilator Blues.” His slide guitar work on “Tumbling Dice” helped make it one of the band's greatest songs. The guitarist's melodic and soulful playing also stood out on “Loving Cup,” “Happy,” and “Shine A Light,” plus Taylor played bass on several tracks.
Upon the completion of Exile, the soft-spoken and polite Mick Taylor was strung out on heroin, disgruntled with his lack of songwriting credits, and feeling like he didn't belong in the band. His relationship with Richards was troubled.
Exile On Main Street marked the closing of the door on the Stones' peak years. One factor was that Richard's addiction put too much of a burden on Jagger to carry the band. Taylor stepped up to carry much of the load, but didn't feel appreciated. He hung in there with the diminished band through two more albums—Goats Head Soup and It's Only Rock ‘n’ Roll—but the thrill was long gone.
After leaving the band in 1974, Taylor didn't have a financial cushion. In 2009, when a Daily Mail reporter visited his ramshackle Suffolk cottage, he said he saw a stack of unpaid bills, including one threatening to cut off the power.
After quitting, Taylor said he never saw being a Rolling Stone as permanent, and that leaving wasn’t a big deal to him. The band replaced him with a safe choice, Richards’ buddy, Ronnie Wood. The Stones would keep Wood on salary for 18 years before making him a full member.