The Virtual Press Kit:
Mick Taylor in the Media
Mick gets his share of media attention, the majority of it historically-focused. He is routinely mentioned in articles about the ever-touring and recording John Mayall, where the writer points out that the Bluesbreakers have spawned guitar gods Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick.

Increasingly, writers refer to the Taylor-era Stones as an example of a band at its pinnacle.

Taylor's influence is also referred to by other guitarists in interviews.

Of intense interest has been Taylor's decision to leave the Stones. From time to time Mick has opened up to an enterprising interviewer.

Read about all of this and more in the selected clips below, in no particular order . . .



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From The Baltimore Sun, "Worthy of Prince: Gold Glitters", by J.D. Considine, September 26, 1995:

Listening to the way TAFKAP [the artist formerly known as Prince] and his band, the NPG, work together here, it's hard not to think of James Brown with the JB's, the Rolling Stones with Mick Taylor, or the Miles Davis Quintet with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock -- ensembles that fused flawless musicianship with a singular creative vision.


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From Downbeat, "Riffs", by James Todd, spring 1990:
When guitarist Mick Taylor left The Rolling Stones 16 years ago, after creating the country licks to "Honky Tonk Woman" and the mystically simple solo on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking'," he thought the band "wasn't going anywhere." And he was mad that he hadn't received credit for the songs he wrote: "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'," "Sway," "Moonlight Mile," and "Time Waits For No One."
"I was told I would get credit for those songs -- that's one of the main reasons I left. They don't write songs like that now, do they?" he adds with a chuckle. "But at least the Stones aren't r&r dinosaurs, though everything's in 4/4. I like playing things in 7/8 or 3/4."
Since leaving the Stones, Taylor has played with Jack Bruce ("the most frustrating and musically interesting person I've played with"), Joe Henry, Alvin Lee, and most happily, with Bob Dylan (on Infidels and Real Live). "I loved the way we would go on stage after rehearsing for months and Dylan would still change the key and tempo, without telling anybody."
The otherwise soft-spoken north Londoner has just had his second album released, Stranger in this Town, (Maze 1062), basically a blues album except for "Going South," a Latin fusion tune. Clearly he is going back to his roots -- a blues fan growing up in north London, reading DB, auditioning for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Recorded with keyboardist Max Middleton, bassist Wilbur Bascomb (both from Jeff Beck's band), drummer Eric Parker (Steve Winwood, Paul Butterfield, Joe Cocker), and guitarist Shane Fontayne, the new release is very much a jam session, mistakes and all "which is the nature of a jam session," Taylor says.
"I think the big labels are making a mistake," says Taylor, pointing to the power of live music in the midst of a trend towards tight, power pop. "I think tastes are beginning to change, which is why there are so many independent labels. From living and working in New York City, I know that people are interested in going out and hearing people play live. They are not just interested in hearing a manufactured sort of soulless product. They want to see people and hear people -- especially when they're paying a lot of money for an entertaining evening out. They want to hear something special, that's got some personality -- at least I hope so."


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From Guitar World, "Trading Licks: Slide Primer", by Keith Wyatt, July 1991
A refined vibrato technique does as much to establish a personality on your instrument as any other technique. Some players are instantly identifiable by their vibrato. Great vibratos are handed down from master to pupil, as from Robert Nighthawk to Earl Hooker to Mick Taylor. Unlike normal fingered vibrato . . . slide vibrato can alternate above and below the principal note to create a more natural , voice-like sound.


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From Crawdaddy, "Jack Bruce, Mick Taylor: Disraeli Peers", by Barbara Charone, March 1975
"I just can't believe it!" Jack Bruce is boasting with the excitement of a young musician who had just signed his first record deal . . . . The amazing thing is that I didn't plan the band at all, it just happened . . . . Mick hadn't approached me before because he thought I had Steve Hunter. He had heard my records and liked them, and well," he stammers in slight disbelief, "I think he felt he had done as much as he could with the Stones."
* * *
"Mick was naturally concerned about the length of the band's life, 'cause most of the things I've done have lasted about five minutes . . . and Mick wanted to be sure this was long term. But it really is the musical unit of my life."
* * *
Enter Andy Johns, producer of both Songs for a Tailor and Out of the Storm, who casually suggested Mick Taylor as a possible candidate for filling the guitar vacancy. Bruce and Taylor met, did a few studio sessions, and a week later announced Taylor's departure from the Rolling Stones.
* * *
"Sure, there's a few imitation John McLaughlins and lots of imitation Eric Claptons, and then there's Mick." Bruce pauses in admiration. "A very unique player. I must admit to being ignorant to the Stones' records. Of course they buried Mick because of the difference in musicianship, because the Rolling Stones aren't a musical band, it's something else.
* * *
The Bruce Band will play a smooth synthesis of diverse styles, forging ahead with a firm grasp of '60s rock and '70s space jazz.
* * *


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From Associated Press, "Music Makers: Another Resurrection for Pigboy Crabshaw", by Joel Stashenko, May 4, 1992
The interplay between [Michael] Bloomfield and [Elvin] Bishop [in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band] has also been credited with creating the blueprint for great guitar collaborations of the 1970s between Eric Clapton and Duane Allman, Allman and Dicky Betts, and Keith Richards and Mick Taylor.


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From the Los Angeles Times, "Harman Band, Mick Taylor Put On Some Blues That Clash", by Jim Washburn, February 8, 1991
* * *
Taylor's lyrical, singing guitar leads played a large part in making the Stones "the world's greatest rock'n'roll band" in the late '60s and early '70s. (Perhaps he doesn't deserve to be forgiven for quitting in 1974, leaving us to suffer through Ron Wood in subsequent years). Like Eric Clapton and Peter Green, Taylor served his apprenticeship in the '60's with John Mayall, and he certainly is one of the most tasteful of the Brit blues-based guitarists.
* * *
It may have been inevitable that Taylor and the Harman band's disparate styles would clash onstage Wednesday, what with only one rehearsal the previous day under their belts.
* * *
They possibly gave Taylor the best band setting he's enjoyed since, say, 1974, and there were moments when he seemed to revel in the company. The material fell into two camps: blues-standard guitar showcase numbers, with Taylor providing serviceable vocals, and Harman band tunes on which Taylor joined in. It was the latter category -- when Taylor actually concentrated on playing in a band context and on having his solos service the song -- that his formidable talents were best served. (Nevertheless, the delicate art of backing a harp solo seems beyond him).
* * *
Taylor displayed a masterful touch. Whether working the fret-board with his fingers or a slide, he still has one of the most distinctive vibratos around, with an expressive, crying, human tone few guitarists can match.
* * *
Taylor still possesses a beautiful talent -- though it has perhaps been numbed by years of unfocused guitar here-dom -- and one can only presume that he will benefit from this association.


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From Newsday, title and author unknown", September 22, 1991
* * *
Yet even among big-time, active, first-rate headbangers -- AC/DC, Metallica, Aerosmith -- the members of Guns N' Roses are a special case. They have an expert grasp of rock and are extremely open-minded to its history. They've swallowed up the classic FM sounds, mostly from the '70s, particularly Queen, Elton John and Aerosmith. As often noted, they have a Rolling Stones-ish bite, with Slash citing the Stones' jazzy Mick Taylor years as a particular influence.
* * *


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From The Independent, "Album Reviews: The Highway To Hell", by Andy Gill, May 7, 1992
For the moment, though, [the Black Crowes are] operating at peak 1972 efficiency, soused in the spirit of raunch-rock classics like Exile On Main Street and the Faces' A Nod's As Good As A Wink . . . . Their sound has developed since their debut, but it's in predictable directions: they've added a keyboardist who has those Ian Stewart/Billy Preston licks down pat, and a new guitarist to play Mick Taylor to Rich Robinson's Keef.


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From unknown source, "Have You Seen Mick Taylor, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?", by Cree McCree, sometime in 1990
It's been a long time coming, but Mick Taylor has found his own voice, and he's got something to say. Tonight he's saying it at New York's Lone Star Roadhouse with a pickup blues band, an ensemble so seamless that the drunk in the corner stops slobbering out requests for "Honky Tonk Women".
* * *
"One of the reasons I left [the Stones] was to make a successful career for myself as a contemporary blues guitarist. There were lots of years afterwards when I didn't do that. But sometimes you lose your way, and have to go through all kinds of things to find yourself again."
I witnessed Taylor's Hyde Park debut with the Stones in 1969, when he vanquished the ghost of Brian Jones with guitar solos that soared as high as the white butterflies released into the London skies that day; and I have vivid memories of his remarkable synchronicity with Keith Richards during the golden era of concerts that began with the Let It Bleed tour.
* * *
Taylor's decision to make "Jumpin' Jack Flash" his first-ever Stones cover tune . . . "came to me in a flash on the road," he explains, no pun intended. "I got so sick of people shouting out for bloody Rolling Stones songs, I thought sod them, I'll play one. We played it every night on that particular tour, just for a laugh" . . . . But it's a particularly loaded choice for Taylor, who told me earlier tonight "I don't think Mick has ever really forgiven me for leaving."
* * *
Taylor had just left John Mayall's Bluesbreakers . . . when he got a call from Mick Jagger. Brian Jones was being eased out of the Stones, and the segue to Taylor was so natural he simply walked into the studio where the band was finishing up Let It Bleed, recorded "Live With Me" and overdubbed "Honky Tonk Women," and that was that.
"I think that's when [the Stones] found their voice as a great live rock'n'roll band. Keith and I had a very unconscious, instinctive relationship, we didn't work anything out, even in the studio, and onstage we really inspired each other. In fact the whole band was inspired. That side of things was great."
Taylor would have liked to tour more extensively, and was frustrated by management disputes that precluded the release of an official live album during those years.
* * *
While the Stones floundered collectively, Taylor got lost in his own swamp. "I was very clear about why I was leaving, but I wasn't clear about what I was going to do next. And it wasn't until after I left, and had to deal with things as an individual, that I realized how much being with the Rolling Stones had affected me . . . .You don't have to go to the bank, you don't have to do anything. I had to learn to grow up all over again and pay my dues."
The next decade twisted and turned inside a no-exit labyrinth. A potential supergroup pairing with Jack Bruce misfired, a 1979 solo album went nowhere and a 1983 [sic -- it was 1984] tour with Bob Dylan , which segued into several album tracks, was but a flicker of light in the darkness . . . . In 1984, shortly after his father died, Taylor bottomed out for two blurred years.
When Taylor moved to New York to get a band together and start playing club dates, a parade of people advised him to get a front man. Instead he reached inside himself for his own voice . . . . "I was self-conscious about singing at first, but now I enjoy it. It's made my guitar playing more real."
* * *
I can also sense Taylor's commitment to being a pass-it-on torchbearer in the wisdom he received from legendary bluesman Albert King. "He said, I got no time for cats who think they know everything. I'll still be learning how to play the guitar when I die." . . . . Taylor has a humility in the face of the force of the blues that reminds me of what he said about Jimi Hendrix: "I think he knew he was blessed, and when you know that, you don't take too much credit for yourself."
Taylor still has to contend with industry types who want to exploit the old glory days, but he's gradually making peace with his own history. Keith Richards played on one of his recent demos, and asked Taylor to take a turn on his solo album Talk Is Cheap. "You Don't Move Me" was Richards' direct address to Mick Jagger, and I think the Taylor cut he used -- which harks back to their mutual roots and features Chuck Berry keyboardist Johnny Johnson -- was a subtle message that validates Taylor's belief that "Keith understands why I left": "I Could Have Stood You Up (But I Didn't)."
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From Record Collector, "The Stones Solo", by Mark Paytress, December 1990
For five years, Mick Taylor embellished the Stones' earthy approach with some of the finest technical skills to grace their entire output. Although much was made of the Ron Wood/ Keith Richards twin rhythm/lead axis, as opposed to Taylor's fluid guitar embellishments, the recordings prove otherwise.
* * *
Sadly, since his shock resignation back in December 1974, Mick Taylor hasn't really fulfilled his promise, again proving the rule that being in the Rolling Stones is quite enough to consume a lifetime's energies.
* * *
Taylor failed to come up with his own album until 1979. Assisted by the likes of Lowell George and Pierre Moerlen, its appearance came at a time of considerable music press apathy for the old guard of musicians and it generated little interest. Stones fans will be interested to learn that "Leather Jacket", which has turned up on several bootlegs over the years, finally saw the light of day officially on this album.


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From the Los Angeles Times, "A Healthier Redd Kross Celebrates 'Neurotica', by Craig Lee, April 4, 1987
By now Redd Kross has become something of a local underground institution. though that's not to say that these four teen brats need to be institutionalized . . . . With an acoustic interlude incorporating a chanted tribute to former Rolling Stone Mick Taylor (set to Toni Basil's "Mickey"), the worst of psychedelic thrift-store wear and parodies of rock's most ridiculous poses, one might assume that Redd Kross is Los Angeles' best rock'n'roll joke.
* * *


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From the Los Angeles Times, "Ex-Stone Mick Taylor Still Rollin'", by Jon Matsumoto, November 14, 1986

* * *
Much of "Exile", perhaps the most inspired and unsettling of the Stones' many journeys through the darkness of rock's hedonistic underbelly, would be hard to imagine without Taylor's deft blues guitar solos -- solos that add passionate counterpoint to Keith Richards' raunchy rhythm guitar.

* * *

Asked why he left the Stones, he said cryptically, "It's been so long I can't even remember."

* * *

"I like 'Sticky Fingers' as an album, and there are individual songs . . . that I like, but the best things were some of the live performances," said Taylor, who rarely sees his former band members these days.

"Unfortunately, the only official live album from those days was 'Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!' . . . The band had started touring again after not playing for two years and I had just joined. It's a good album, but we used to record nearly every tour that we did, and some of that stuff is very good. It never came out on an album because of copyright difficulties."

* * *

"Playing with Keith was a very intuitive thing. It was like no other working relationship I ever had. It was a 24-hour-a-day . . . thing. It was a whole life style, a whole way of living, playing and recording."



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From The Washington Post, "Spotlight Mick Taylor, to the Point; With A New Group, His Guitar Does the Talking", by J.D. Considine, July 31, 1986

Mick Taylor has always seemed a bit too unassuming to be a real guitar hero. There's rarely been any sense of the showoff in his work, none of the lightning licks or grandstanding guitar effects expected of a fretboard virtuoso. Instead, his playing has been simple, powerful and to the point, making the music, not the musician, the focus of each solo . . . . "I really don't know what it is," he says. "I just make up what I play. It just comes into my mind and I play it."
* * *

Since [quitting the Stones] "I haven't done very much at all." Which is why he's on tour now. "I'd just been sitting around doing nothing for too long. I wanted to get out on the road and start playing."

* * *



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From Time, "Real Live, Bob Dylan", by David Hiltbrand, February 11, 1985

* * *
The resourceful Taylor, formerly of the Stones, uncorks sterling solos on I and I, Masters of War and Ballad of a Thin Man and even provides momentary echoes of the Stones' "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out" recording on Highway 61 Revisited . . . .



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From The Washington Post, "Bluesbreakers", by Geoffrey Himes, Richard Harrington, June 18, 1982

[Review of Bluesbreakers Reunion concert, Washington, D.C.]
The revelation was Taylor, a superb guitarist who's been little heard in the last five years. On [Buddy] Guy's "My Time", Taylor's moan-like playing was slow and sinewy; elsewhere his pulsing slide work had the house shouting out its approval. Throughout the night, his attack was crisp, gut-wrenching and direct, even during subtle fills and continuations of Mayall's vocal lines.



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From The Washington Post, "Black Sabbath", by Harry Sumrall, December 4, 1981

* * *
By comparison, the Alvin Lee Band, which opened the show, was a study in taste and control. Lee and former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor traded incisive solos that were set against the backdrop of classic rock'n'roll playing styles. They needed no imposing props or eccentric postures to prove and support their musicianship.



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From The Boston Globe, "Mick Taylor Stops By", April 20, 1990

* * *
And regrets about leaving the Stones? "No, not really. I'm one of those idealistic, artistic types," he said. "And if I stayed with the Stones, I might not be alive now."



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Interesting. I think you might have a point to make, OpenG?

By the way, I have read comments by Charlie, MIck and Bill about the meaning and importance of Taylor to the progress of The Stones. Charlie said something like Taylor "brought up professionalism", and Mick has described Taylor to open more melodic opportunities to the band, and helping himself as a singer too, etc. Bill has said something nice also in his books, I think.

So my question is: has Keith ever really overtly recognized the importance of Taylor?

- Doxa

Well keith gave taylor the opportunity live on stage to play those extended
VIBRATO solos and thats big coming from the FORMER musical Director of the
stones.LOL

Wow how much time do you have on your hands. I usually can't stand what the press writes, especially when it comes to the Stones. But its nice to see a bit more positive things coming from the press about the Stones in recent years.

With all of this why oh WHy is Taylor never ever mentioned when there are the lists of the great guitarrists?

"With all of this why oh WHy is Taylor never ever mentioned when there are the lists of the great guitarrists?"

Because he is so good, that if he was No. 1, the next one would be No. 1000......

Thanks AJA for digging up this info, was just listening to:

Leave the Preachin to the Preacher (Taylor's solo's from YCAGWYW - 72/73 tours)

Man I would like to get my hands on those Soundboard recording, the Wash D.C.
show just SMOKES!!! MLC

yeah that july 4th dc show from 72 is a great show.