(Credit: Jonn Leffmann)

Tue 11 November 2025 14:45, UK

Any rock guitarist would have given anything to be able to jam with The Rolling Stones.

Half of the members are practically living monuments to rock and roll, and while not every one of their songs are absolute classics or anything, the fact that they have kept themselves going while still sounding fairly decent is a testament to what a rock and roll band can be. But even though Ronnie Wood would have gladly joined the second he got the call, there was a fair amount of red tape in the way when he was first offered the job.

Then again, Wood was already a legend in his own right before The Stones were even on his radar. The Faces had slowly started to become one of the biggest names in British rock and roll, and even outside of his main outfit, his work with the Jeff Beck Group and working with Rod Stewart on his solo career had cemented his place in rock and roll history. If he couldn’t join the band yet, he could at least become friendly with as many other rock legends as he could.

Even though everyone might not be in love with everything that Wood has ever done, it’s hard to deny the charm that he has whenever he plays. You can tell from the minute he’s onstage that he was never more than happy than playing music, but when you look at his pedigree as a blues guitarist, he was practically born to be a Rolling Stone before Mick Taylor was even out the door.

Was he as good as Taylor? No, but it wasn’t about him trying to eclipse any of the guitarists that came before him. No one was going to be a perfect match for Brian Jones, either, but whenever he started performing with Keith Richards, they each had that sixth sense of where the other one was going to be going, whether that was on an uptempo rock tune or breaking out the slide for a lowdown and dirty blues jam.

When Wood was first asked about auditioning for The Stones, Faces member Ronnie Wood ended up beating him to the phone, with the guitarist recalling, “[He said] ‘Ronnie’s quite happy where he is, thanks,’ and put the phone down. I think everything is fate. If I had joined the Stones at that time, I’d probably be a total junkie.” Granted, it’s not like he didn’t have a fair point there.

It’s not like most people are coming to Richards for advice on clean living or anything, and when Wood eventually did join, he knew enough to realise his limits. They weren’t even close to slowing things down, but when looking at his track record from albums like Some Girls, he fit like a glove as long as he knew not to step on Richards’s toes throughout the night.

There was plenty of wiggle room for him to make his own lead lines, but he said that he learned pretty quickly to keep his volume knob under control, saying, “Technically, I’m not as good a guitarist as Mick [Taylor] but the only way I can really f— up is by being too loud. That is a sore point with Keith and Mick. I’d get my guitar wrapped ’round my head by Keith.” But if the only thing that he ever had to worry about was a little volume control, it was a pretty safe gig for him to have.

He may not have been the core member of The Stones, and he certainly wasn’t going to be a perfect recreation of Jones or Taylor, but if there’s one thing that Wood contributed to The Stones, it was helping them stay together throughout their worst moments. He knew how to keep everything loose and fun throughout every song, and judging by how rough records like Dirty Work became, the band would have imploded if he wasn’t there to diffuse the tension.

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