Mick Taylor

Mick Taylor's contributions as a guitarist, along with his uncredited songwriting input, proved essential to the Rolling Stones' exceptional run of albums from the late 1960s into the early 1970s, even though Mick Jagger and Keith Richards garnered most of the attention for 1969's Let It Bleed, 1970's Get Yer Ya Ya's Out, 1971's Sticky Fingers, and 1972's Exile on Main St. Michael Kevin Taylor entered the world on January 17, 1949, in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England, and grew up in the London suburb of Hatfield. At age nine he first took up the guitar, motivated by his uncle's playing. Throughout the early and middle 1960s he performed with local bands such as the Juniors and the Gods while immersing himself in the styles of blues guitarists Freddie King and Albert King. According to accounts, he attended a June 1966 concert by John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers in his hometown where Eric Clapton did not appear; Taylor volunteered to fill in and made a strong impression on Mayall, yet the shy musician departed before any discussion of future work could occur, prompting the band to hire Peter Green. When Green departed a year later, Mayall located Taylor through a music paper advertisement and extended an immediate offer to join. Taylor then featured on several late-1960s Mayall releases, including Diary of a Band, Crusade, Bare Wires, and Blues from Laurel Canyon.

Restlessness set in by 1969 after Taylor had outlasted all prior guitarists in the Bluesbreakers, and the timing aligned when the Rolling Stones sought his availability. The band had returned to blues foundations following a psychedelic phase, and Taylor contributed to several tracks on the nearly finished Let It Bleed. The guitar partnership between Taylor and Keith Richards quickly emerged as one of rock's strongest, demonstrated on the live recording Get Yer Ya Ya's Out and the documentary Gimme Shelter. Peak achievements followed with Sticky Fingers, where Taylor reportedly co-wrote "Sway" and "Moonlight Mile" without receiving credit, and the double album Exile on Main St., which granted him one of his rare official songwriting credits on "Ventilator Blues." Subsequent efforts such as Goats Head Soup and It's Only Rock N' Roll marked a decline in quality. Despite the Stones' continued global stature, Taylor grew dissatisfied amid the group's intense lifestyle, and in 1975 he surprised the music industry by exiting.

Right after leaving, Taylor joined the short-lived Jack Bruce Band. He spent the mid- to late 1970s contributing to other artists' projects, among them Ron Wood's Now Look, Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, Gong's Expresso II, and Little Feat's Waiting for Columbus, before issuing his self-titled solo debut in 1979. That album ranks among his strongest solo works yet failed to gain traction amid shifting tastes. Early in the 1980s he performed and toured with Alvin Lee, a reunited John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and Bob Dylan. During this period the Rolling Stones released Tattoo You, which incorporated reworked older recordings from the early 1970s that included some of Taylor's uncredited guitar parts. He next collaborated with American roots rocker Carla Olson and resumed solo activity through regular performances on both U.S. coasts, yielding the live albums Stranger in This Town in 1990 and Too Hot for Snakes in 1991. After moving back to England mid-decade, Taylor continued issuing solo recordings such as 1995's Live at the 14 Below and 1999's A Stone's Throw while forming a project-based alliance with former Pink Floyd and Thin Lizzy guitarist Snowy White and bassist Kuma Harada.