The forgotten Stone: Mick Taylor still at odds with the world’s best known rock band...

And all because he wasn’t invited to the opening of the Rolling Stones memorabilia exhibition at the
swish Saatchi Gallery in London. Outside the gallery Sir Mick Jagger posed for pictures with Keith Richards, Ronnie Woods and Charlie Watts. Even former bass player Bill Wyman was there. But one person missing from the 500-strong guest list was Taylor, who posted on his social media page: “It appears they are using my name and likeness for another multimillion dollar making exercise.
"I can’t help wondering why nobody has invited me… they could not find it in their hearts to include Mick Taylor.” Taylor, 67, moaned that two tickets were left on the door only after a fan complained to the gallery. “My office received a reply at the eleventh hour that they would let me have two tickets, which needed to be collected before 3pm. They know I live overseas so this does not qualify as an invitation. They waited until it became a logistical impossibility to attend.”

In a stinging sign-off he wrote: “I’m part of the Stones’ history and legacy, which is what this retrospective exhibition is about, isn’t it? The band’s best work – in the studio and on stage – was done while I was involved.” So who is the Forgotten Stone and what has he been doing in the 42 years since he quit?
Taylor came from a working-class family in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, and learned to play the guitar in school bands. In 1965 he went to a John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers concert but star guitarist Eric “Slowhand” Clapton didn’t show. Taylor plucked up the courage in the interval to ask Mayall if he could play the second half. Mayall was so impressed that they swapped phone numbers.

A year later, with Clapton gone and a second guitarist about to leave, Mayall hired Taylor and the music world was agog at how a shy 17-year-old could replace Clapton. Meantime the Stones were recording a string of hits, vying with The Beatles for the No 1 one slot week after week. Then in 1969 Brian Jones was kicked out over his drug addiction and Mayall unselfishly recommended Taylor. Taylor believed he was being called in as a studio session musician but Jagger and Richards were so impressed they invited him back the next day to continue recording, including the mega-hit Honky Tonk Woman.
Taylor’s stage debut as a Stone, at 20, was a free concert in Hyde Park in July 1969. More than 250,000 people watched a show that turned into a tribute to Jones, who had died three days earlier. As Jagger and Richards hogged the spotlight Taylor was the curlyhaired lad at the back modestly getting on with his job. He was one of the most brilliant guitarists of the age, head and shoulders above Richards, and later said of the gig: “I just couldn’t believe how bad they sounded. Their timing was awful.

They sounded like a typical bunch of guys in a garage. Playing out of tune and too loudly. I thought, ‘How is it possible that this band can make hit records?’” Taylor held his tongue and stayed with the Stones until 1974. It wasn’t easy – age was a problem, for example. Taylor was five years younger than Jagger and Richards, eight years younger than Charlie Watts and 12 years younger than Bill Wyman. And the music wasn’t challenging enough. He remembers being bored on stage and once said that 72 minutes of a Stones’ concert seemed to go on for hours.
“For me it was personally restricting. I’m not saying that it wasn’t fun being in the Stones. It was a helluva lot of fun, it was great. But I had to move on.” In his five years as a Stone, Taylor featured on albums such as Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St and Jagger and Taylor formed a close musical relationship. In November 1973 things turned sour. Richards confronted him and said, “Oi! Taylor! You’re playing too f****** loud. I mean, you’re really good live, man, but you’re f****** useless in the studio.”

Richards erased some of the tapes on which Taylor had recorded guitar parts. Just before It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll came out in 1974 Taylor told a journalist he had cowritten two of the tracks with Jagger but wasn’t being given a credit on the record sleeve. It bugged him – and still does to this day – and so at a party for the band he told Jagger he was quitting. “Let’s put it this way, without my contribution those songs would not have existed,” he says.
“We used to fight and argue all the time. I just felt like I’d had enough. I never felt I was gonna stay with the Stones for ever.” Taylor left to form a band with Jack Bruce, of Cream, and appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test but the band disbanded after a year. What followed was a whirlwind. Taylor recorded a solo album which got to No 119 in the charts, toured Europe first with Ten Years After then with John Mayall.

He teamed up with Mark Knopfler, of Dire Straits, to play on a live Bob Dylan album, then guested with the Grateful Dead at Madison Square Garden. Taylor lived in New York, Los Angeles and Miami as he battled addiction demons and toured as a session man with different bands. On the way he got married, divorced and fathered two daughters. In the mid- 1990s he returned to the UK and joined John Mayall for his 70th birthday concert with Eric Clapton.
Lots of session work followed, then in 2007 he toured America with the Experience Hendrix tribute band. Amazingly, despite all the bitterness, Taylor has maintained a musical relationship with the Stones, appearing in their 2012 Reunion, 50 & Counting... and 14 On Fire world tours. He’s also done recording sessions with them and after one astonishing solo Richards is said to have joked: “That’s why I never liked you, you b******!” With their last three tours grossing over £700million, Jagger is now worth an estimated £200million and Richards only a little less.
Taylor lives modestly: his last address in England was a semi in Suffolk and now he’s abroad but no one’s sure where. Taylor may be in the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame but he’s the Rolling Stone who gathered no dosh.

By Chris Roycroft-Davis