Reading a post in the parallel umpteenth thread on why did MT quit made me curious to know how the fans reacted when he replaced Brian in the band.

Apparently the Rock on Wood book accounts that "Stones fans were becoming divided into two main camps: Stones plus Brian Jones, or Stones plus Mick Taylor in terms of the band's best material".

True?

For sure, judging from our perspective, MT was the best possible man for the kind of music the glimmer twins were writing in that particular period and became one of the columns of the "golden era".

But what then?

From what I learned here and reading books, by 68 Brian might have lost the lead of the band and the ability to contribute to the music, but certainly he still was a huge star, one of the charismatic figures of the stones. I can easily imagine that for a fan in those years it must have been a shock to see their beloved quintessential rock star replaced by a anonymous teenager.

I would love to know more from those who were there!

C



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-10-29 18:30 by liddas.

For me, it was a big shock and disappointment, and the uncertainty of this new guy was a great concern. MT's playing quickly went a long long way to make me feel things were still well, and they found the right guy.

I bought my first Stones record in '64 and saw the band for the first time in '69. But for me the band was bit of a mystery. To this day, I have met very few people who saw them live before '69. You picked up bits of news about this and that. You saw them on TV, but most of those performances were synched. You did not have the extensive exposure and access to clips you have today. You knew the albums, then these monster singles would boost the band's popularity. I did not know which guitar player was playing which part. From TV and photographs you knew Jones had something. Your eyes were drawn to him, but I am not clear what it was and I certainly never experienced it live.

I guess my point is his death is probably more important to me later in life than it was back then. I did not exactly know what I was missing.

Taylor I completely took for granted. He was beautiful and played with an almost bored nonchalance that suited the band's public and stage attitude at the time. And he could play. That was to be expected. It was a time when musicianship was appreciated by audiences who were listening to the music rather than screaming over it.

If you want a heartbreak over Jones I again recommend the TAMI show from '64. The Around And Around and It's All Over Now is as good as the band got...ever. And the camera work is stunning.

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MKjan
For me, it was a big shock and disappointment, and the uncertainty of this new guy was a great concern. MT's playing quickly went a long long way to make me feel things were still well, and they found the right guy.

Possible that it was Ya Ya's what reassured all stones fans?

C

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MKjan
For me, it was a big shock and disappointment,

I wasn't shocked at all, being three months old then.

Mick Taylor is for me the ultimate Rock-Guitarist, that's ever been with the Stones. He was the only virtuoso.

Brian was much more creative in a global way: experimenting with new sounds and instruments, not so much a guitarist at first.

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liddas

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MKjan
For me, it was a big shock and disappointment, and the uncertainty of this new guy was a great concern. MT's playing quickly went a long long way to make me feel things were still well, and they found the right guy.

Possible that it was Ya Ya's what reassured all stones fans?

C

I tend to agree with that. Get your Ya Ya's out was a spectacular live recording and Taylors playing was live, raw and ripping. Although no one can ever really "REPLACE" someone, they can make their own mark and stand the test of time and critics. Mick Taylor did that very well.

With out Brian Jones and his tremendous contributions to the band who's to say where the band would have ended up. The sequence of events over time made the band what they became.

Being only 8 years old at the time of his death, my frame of reference were my teenage sisters. They played the records and listened to the FM Rock station. I liked the sound of dulcimers and mandolins and that was how I knew who Jones was. Once Taylor joined the band, I heard two distinct guitar voices, Mick and Keith.

He was a great recovery after a tragic loss.

CBII

As pmk251 says, in those days they had many fans who had never seen them live (myself included). Our knowledge of the band depended much more on what was broadcast on TV and radio or published in our parents' newspapers (mostly hostile) or fan magazines (mostly aimed at the screaming teenybopper market). It didn't occur to me to wonder who played which bit - which is what Keith still says - it doesn't matter, as long as the band sounds right. And it did.

Somewhere around 1967-8 I began to realise that the band's sound was changing - first with the psychedelia of TSMR and then with the "new Stones" sound of Beggars Banquet and the associated singles. I've said in other posts that at the time I didn't much like the newer stuff and it took me a while to learn to appreciate it. But what I didn't really understand at the time was that I was hearing the sound of Brian's gradual disappearance from the sound of the band and their reinvention of that sound without him. Their music had already changed radically before Mick Taylor came on the scene. I didn't have the information to realise how much Brian had already dropped out of the music before his official departure: he was still always shown as a full member of the Stones in public. When he died I missed him personally: I didn't realise how long I had been missing him musically.

Because I drifted away from rock and pop in general for some years in the early 70s I never became a fan of guitar-God rock, and the personal cult of Mick Taylor passed me by: by the time I came back he was already Stones history. My older self has learned to love the Stones in all their various incarnations and reinventions and to appreciate MT's brilliant musicianship and his contribution to some of their finest work, but neither he nor anybody else ever "replaced" Brian, any more than Ronnie "replaced" Mick Taylor. The Stones have never tried to force a new person to fit the hole left by the previous one (although some of their fans have!) The band reinvents itself and goes on.

Green Lady: teenage fan 1963-69.

i remember totally rejecting the concept that Brian was quitting but the band was continuing -
that just didn't fit into my 14-year-old schemata. a band might break up, but continue without one of the founding members?! how?!
as Green Lady notes, the typical fan in those days didn't know about what was going on inside the band,
and even though Brian wasn't the one i was focussed on, i regarded that original line-up as definitive.
so i dismissed the news that he was leaving as a silly rumour ... and then the next thing we knew he was dead.
and that was so unsettling that the new guitarist was pretty secondary news, you know?
it definitely took a while to sink in that he was a Stone ... which may be part of why it wasn't that surprising when he left.

Ronnie on the other hand was an natural-born thoroughbred Stone right from the get-go.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-10-31 00:00 by with sssoul.

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with sssoul
i remember totally rejecting the concept that Brian was quitting but the band was continuing -
that just didn't fit into my 14-year-old schemata. a band might break up, but continue without one of the founding members?! how?!
as Green Lady notes, the typical fan in those days didn't know about what was going on inside the band,
and even though Brian wasn't the one i was focussed on, i regarded that original line-up as definitive.
so i dismissed the news that he was leaving as a silly rumour ... and then the next thing we knew he was dead.
and that was so unsettling that the new guitarist was pretty secondary news, you know?
it definitely took a while to sink in that he was a Stone ... which may be part of why it wasn't that surprising when he left.

Ronnie on the other hand was an natural-born thoroughbred Stone right from the get-go.

As you and above was said, we didnt knew anything inside the band in those days that was been said Brian quits. I was just 8 and what I knew about came from my elder brother when he listened the LP and and then from TV..just few here, as in that time,, and sadly today,about the Stones.. I recall I was schocked when Brain died, and then MT came in.
He was the right man in that period for the band. But I think he never became a Stone, Never been a good compagnion for Keith and Mick.
Ronnie was the right mate then for Keith.
For a side I'm for Brian, as for their first period. On the second, I'm for MT.
The right sound and the right man in the right period.

what makes me curious is related to Brian's huge popularity at the time.

I was 7 years old when MT quit, and I do not know how the AVERAGE fans reacted to that news either. But I assume that in 74/75 the popularity of the stones was 90% tied to Jagger, 9% to Keith and 1% to the rest of the band. So the reaction would probably have been like that of any AC DC fan when the band changed drummer from time to time.

MT quitting was not exactly like Jagger quitting.

But, as I said, Brian was Brian, a big part of the fame and glamor of the stones. Probably, since he died a short time after he was put out of the band, at the time it was not immediately evident that he was actually replaced by MT, as was the case.

But, as Green Lady says, I can easily imagine that the stones from Bleed (or Banquet, but I would say more Bleed) onwards were seen as a completely different band from the one of 66 and 67.

In any case, is it true that there were fans that actually did not like the "new" stones without Brian?

And, again, how was MT seen on stage, where once was Jones?

C



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2009-10-30 13:00 by liddas.

the popolarity of Brian was immense at the time. He was seen as the leader.
What he made for the band about the songs, he was a versatiles one for the intrsuments played. He could learn all in just a min.
I always I read, he was capable to write songs also, but they wasnt never find or resealed even he really had did it.
To mick didnt liked the man and the mate as well. Mick J.
Brian was been seen as the Stones' world for instance. The 'idea' how to be a Stone in that reasonable time the sixties.
But the quits of MT was seen as a betrayd from the fans.
Ronnie, I'm sorry to say, but wasnt never capable to make the same.. when you hear Cant you hear me knocking.. the way of Mick Taylor.. no one was be able to do the same. Poor Ronnie.
After that, the Stones were Mick J. keith after the '80, yes. he becomes was he is today. But.,. when they will do this new.. album? nevermore?
I'm losting any hope.

This is a nice thread, an the recollections of people - thanks very much! - are very interesting to read. It gives a great original point of view.

Seemingly, Mick Taylor was nervous about filling Brian's shoes. Not musically, but imagewise (there is a Taylor interview of this). Brian was a pop a star, an iconic Rolling Stone, something Keith would still need few years to catch up (this seem to be one the most difficult things to grasp when talking about the Stones in the 60's. Like brilliantly described here in some of these posts here, the way the band was seen by their audience is radically different than what we now can 'know' thanks to dozens of books, films, youtube, etc.). Contrary, When Taylor left, some musical excellence left the building, but nothing essential to the Stones. Brian's original status within the band was never filled. I think the situation can be illustrated like if nowadays if Mick, Keith or Charlie would leave the band (remember the shock of the news of Charlie leaving the band). Or like George Harrison might have left the Beatles, and the three would have go on without him, or replace him with some other guy.

It is toward this picture we can understand why the departure of Brian was a long and difficult process. There is story that Brian wanted to leave already in 1967 but he was not let because he was too important for the band imagewise. In two years the things had changed, but still the news of his departure included possible scenaries of how he might come back in future, etc. I think that was PR talk to not 'shock' the people too much. As horrible as it might sound, in a way Brian's death made things easier to adapt the concept of the new incarnation of the Stones...

- Doxa



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2009-10-30 18:04 by Doxa.

I didn't like the "new" stones without Brian.

I became aware of the Stones around 64-65 back when the Beatles and Stones first broke. It was sort of understood, you couldn't like them both, you had to choose.
I chose the Stones.

I first saw them live in Detroit in 66. Around the time of Aftermath. The first band I was in played a lot of blues and we did a lot of the covers that were
on the first several Stones LP's. I say this just to let you know where I was back then.

I saw Brian as the real heart of the band. It's certainly true that we didn't know as much about the inner workings of the band back then but even though Mick was the singer, I saw Brian as the leader.

I remember being stunned that Brian had quit. Then devastated when I heard he had drown. Then hearing so quickly after that that Taylor was replacing Brian just seemed totally heartless on the part of the Stones.

I think this answers the question you are asking.

Marv

Marv Peck

Y'all remember that rubber legged boy

Funny that none of the above seems to have been an issue for who shot the Hyde Park concert film.

C

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liddas
what makes me curious is related to Brian's huge popularity at the time.

I was 7 years old when MT quit, and I do not know how the AVERAGE fans reacted to that news either. But I assume that in 74/75 the popularity of the stones was 90% tied to Jagger, 9% to Keith and 1% to the rest of the band. So the reaction would probably have been like that of any AC DC fan when the band changed drummer from time to time.

MT quitting was not exactly like Jagger quitting.

But, as I said, Brian was Brian, a big part of the fame and glamor of the stones. Probably, since he died a short time after he was put out of the band, at the time it was not immediately evident that he was actually replaced by MT, as was the case.

But, as Green Lady says, I can easily imagine that the stones from Bleed (or Banquet, but I would say more Bleed) onwards were seen as a completely different band from the one of 66 and 67.

In any case, is it true that there were fans that actually did not like the "new" stones without Brian?

And, again, how was MT seen on stage, where once was Jones?

C

Actually lidas, MT's quitting WAS big news because he'd been almost synonomus with the quality of their live shows in the '69 - '73 period. Since he joined - and especially since there was a live record of it released in 1970 - the Stones had become known/accepted by most as the Greatest live R&R Band - MT was central to that Greatest factor - on Ya Yas and onwards.

Ya Yas and the 69 shows was the springboard for their 70s superstardom. It meant a Stones ticket for future tours was 'must have'. People may still have been drawn to concerts by the strength of their recent material and the counter-culture 60s image (of which Brian was a HUGE part) - but they left concerts being wowed not only by Jagger's animal and vocal charisma and Richard's effortlessly surging open Rhythm - but also by the strength of the tight, instinctive, hand-in-glove guitar partnership and the extra level and dimension added by the young gun's imaginitive, inventive virtuosity - emphasising, extending and enriching his and their palette.

In 1969 it was hard to imagine this pretty and shy teenager as a 'real' stone - in the context of their bad, brutish and uncouth image.

In 1974 it was hard to imagine how on earth they could continue without him.


You ask: "And, again, how was MT seen on stage, where once was Jones?"

Well, ofcourse, he was heard onstage. And after his solos on Ya Ya's Sympathy and Love in Vain and on Sticky's Sway and CYHMKnocking people would know to expect something special. People may have gone to SEE Jagger and once Jones - but after '69 thet went to hear the Stones and to listen to Taylor.

Which makes me think - is it about the '69-70 period that R&R shows started to be referred to as 'concerts' and not just as 'shows'?

Prior to that a live show might have been a 30-40 minute onslaught of hits.

The expression 'Rolling Stones in Concert' must have seemed incongruous and a contradiction in terms - or even horrifying! - to the musically and terminologically conservative parents/adults/establishment of the time!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2009-10-30 23:02 by Four Stone Walls.

Four Walls hit the nail on the head!!!

Exactly how it when down around my parts, I always liked Brian but by the late 60's, it was about the MUSIC!!! and who could deliver LIVE..

I already knew about Taylor, having all the Bluesbreakers albums, couldn't wait
to see what he would "add" to the Stones sound, and boy, did he deliver!!!

MLC

The two. Each one in his time.