Former Rolling Stones star Mick Taylor impresses at Kinross gig

Apr 3 2012 by Andrew Welsh, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

GUITAR hero Mick Taylor provided one of the highlights of Fifestock with a top-quality set at Kinross.

The former John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Rolling Stones six-stringer performed to a packed Green Hotel with his full all-star band for backing.

And fans were treated to a host of blues classics and material from Taylor’s impressive back catalogue as the 63-year-old showed all the skills that has earned him his place in the pantheon of the world’s great guitarists.

Efforts including Twisted Sister, It Never Rains But It Pours – with fabulous vocals from keyboard legend Zoot Money – and a sterling rendition of bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowall’s You Gotta Move showed Taylor’s characteristic dexterity.

Others in a tight line-up included Jeff Allen on drums, Michael Bailey on bass and Ronnie Johnson on second guitar.

Giving the proceedings an added dimension with his jazzy R’n’B, Money also sang on Will The Circle Be Unbroken, which he dedicated to those who passed too young, but mostly it was Taylor who took on vocal duties and proved himself to have a strong voice that carried the material well.

None was better than his self-penned A Secret Affair, with it seductive slide guitar, though a cover of Chuck Berry’s Promised Land ran it close.

The show reached a climax with a gritty Stop Breaking Down, from the Stones touchstone Exile On Main Street, before a medley including Dylan’s Blind Willie McTell, the lead lines from Clapton’s Layla and All Along The Watchtower brought a stunning finale.

If it could possibly get any better, then an encore outing for rarely heard Stones ballad No Expectations, from Beggars Banquet, fitted the bill.

It was, in fact, Taylor-made for the occasion.

Andrew Welsh