Credit: Far Out / Alamy
Thu 24 September 2026 20:30, UK
Mick Jagger didn’t need to spend his time thinking about the past with The Rolling Stones.
He wanted to look to the future on each new record, and even if they were going back to the same old grind of making blues songs, there was always some way to twist those three chords around to make them sound different from before. But even if he had Keith Richards by his side to help flesh out all of his tunes, he felt that there were always a few people who left a bigger mark than he ever could have realised.
Then again, it’s not going to be easy to replace someone like Jagger, either. The Stones have been about a brotherhood more than anything ever since their inception, and if there’s anything that he learned from trying his hand at making solo records, it was that the rest of the world wasn’t interested in him unless he had his musical brothers behind him whenever he danced across the stage.
The core piece of the puzzle was The Glimmer Twins working together, but that had to sting knowing that Brian Jones was the one who put the band together. Their guitarist went to great lengths to get them to be the best blues combo in England, but you could see him getting increasingly depressed the further they travelled away from the blues. He had seen his musical baby go off into a different space altogether, and while it was heartbreaking for the band to let him go, Mick Taylor was the kind of upgrade that they needed.
Sure, Jones was perfect for what he did with the band, but Taylor’s touch when it came to lead playing was some of the finest to ever turn up on a Stones record. And given that they were entering their next phase as a 1970s powerhouse, they needed someone like that in their ranks if they were ever going to be able to make an album that sounded as good as Exile on Main Street did.
Richards had all the riffs, but Taylor helped give the songs the musical spine that they needed. He was the one responsible for playing a lot of the classic lines in ‘Moonlight Mile’, and there are more than a few songs where he didn’t get the credit that he probably should have, but Jagger felt that his contribution to The Stones was beyond any other member of the group.
No one seemed to play like him, and according to Jagger, not even Richards or Ronnie Wood was able to play the same kind of licks exactly the same way, saying, “I think he had a big contribution. He made it very musical. He was a very fluent, melodic player, which we never had, and we don’t have now. Neither Keith nor [Ronnie Wood] plays that kind of style. It was very good for me working with him. Charlie and I were talking about this the other day, because we could sit down, I could sit down with Mick Taylor, and he would play very fluid lines against my vocals.”
Further reading: From The Vault
But the fact is that not everyone is cut out to be a member of The Stones, and while anyone would be kicking themselves for opting out of playing with the band, Taylor left for the right reasons. He wanted the opportunity to express himself properly, and getting the chance to make the music that he wanted to make was probably better than growing to resent one of the greatest gigs in the world.
The role of a musician in The Rolling Stones should be anyone’s wildest dream, and while Taylor was never equalled, it’s safe to say that the band was in capable hands with Wood entering the fold. He was the epitome of what the band stood for, and the least he could do was do justice to the kind of licks that Taylor turned into some of their classics back in the day.
ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE 
The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter
All the latest Classic Rock content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.