{"id":354232,"date":"2025-12-17T14:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/354232\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T14:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:37:09","slug":"the-guitarist-who-was-too-pretty-to-join-the-rolling-stones-after-mick-taylor-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/354232\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guitarist Who Was \u201cToo Pretty\u201d to Join The Rolling Stones After Mick Taylor Left"},"content":{"rendered":"

The early 1970s were creatively prolific but interpersonally tense years for The Rolling Stones, who were still reeling from the death of founding member Brian Jones and adjusting to the addition of Mick Taylor. By the time the band got their footing with hits like \u201cWild Horses\u201d<\/a> and \u201cGimme Shelter\u201d<\/a>, The Stones faced yet another hurdle as legal troubles, worsening drug use, and personal differences led to Taylor\u2019s departure at the end of 1974.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was when I felt that it wasn\u2019t going somewhere that I left,\u201d Taylor told Guitar World<\/a> years later in 1980. \u201cI was a bit younger than everybody else, and when I joined them, they\u2019d already been successful for a long time. There are some people who can just ride along from crest to crest. They can ride along on somebody else\u2019s success. There are some people for whom that\u2019s not enough. It really wasn\u2019t enough for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Taylor\u2019s departure, The Rolling Stones showed no sign of slowing down. Following the announcement that Taylor would be leaving the band, the public began speculating on who might be the lucky musician to replace him. Several rock \u2018n\u2019 rollers were in the running, including Jeff Beck and Steve Marriott. One player who was supposedly on the shortlist didn\u2019t even know The Stones were considering him for the part.<\/p>\n

In the end, he turned out to be pretty for the band, anyway.<\/p>\n

This Guitarist Was Deemed \u201cToo Pretty\u201d to Be a Part of The Rolling Stones<\/p>\n

Plenty of musicians would have killed for the chance to join The Rolling Stones\u2019 train headed straight for international fame and rock immortality in the early 1970s. Some musicians, like Jeff Beck<\/a>, opted out of the chance because he didn\u2019t want to be restricted to 12-bar blues. Other musicians, like Steve Marriott, wanted the gig but blew their shot when they upstaged frontman Mick Jagger during their audition.<\/p>\n

Unverified rumors claimed that Peter Frampton was also in the running. The guitarist was one year away from finding his own claim to fame with his 1975 album, Frampton Comes Alive! He was clearly at the top of his game and well-deserving of a shot at the gig. But according to Bill Wyman (via MOJO Magazine<\/a>), the rumors were just that\u2014rumors. \u201cI liked Peter, but he never worked with us, and he was too pretty to be a Rolling Stone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good looks aside, Frampton had his own reasoning for why The Rolling Stones wouldn\u2019t have been a good fit. During a March 2016 appearance on The Howard Stern Show<\/a>, Frampton said that although he would have loved the opportunity to play with The Stones, he would have wanted to continue his solo work as well. \u201cThen Keith [Richards] would say, \u2018F*** that,\u2019\u201d Frampton said, imitating the guitarist\u2019s distinct scowl.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Frampton posited that if he had joined The Stones, \u201cI\u2019d probably be dead,\u201d referencing the band\u2019s hedonistic lifestyle. Frampton added, \u201cRonnie [Wood] was a pretty obvious choice and one of Keith\u2019s best friends.\u201d All\u2019s well that ends well, it would seem.<\/p>\n

Photo by Michael Putland\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The early 1970s were creatively prolific but interpersonally tense years for The Rolling Stones, who were still reeling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,41232,216,2156,1735],"class_list":{"0":"post-354232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-mick-taylor","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-rock-music","12":"tag-the-rolling-stones"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}