Should you join an already-established band, your first gig with them will likely be a bit of a nerve-racking experience. Will you fit in musically onstage like you did in rehearsal? Does your onstage presence fit in with the rest of the group? Will their audience be different to what you're used to?

Now, imagine you're joining no less than the Rolling Stones – at the absolute peak of their popularity and cultural sway. Oh, and your first gig with them is a free show at London's Hyde Park. Attendance? At least a quarter of a million people.

Oh! And the man whose shoes you're filling just died tragically two days before, making said show an incredibly bittersweet experience for your new bandmates.

Such was the situation guitarist Mick Taylor, barely out of his teens, found himself in in early July 1969.

Despite his youth, Taylor already had plenty of prestige, and road miles under his belt. At the tender age of 17, he was selected by John Mayall to fill the lead guitar slot in his Bluesbreakers band – the same position once occupied by Eric Clapton and Peter Green.

Brian Jones, whose place Taylor was taking in the Stones, had also once been a formidable presence – but his decline into drug addiction in the two years prior to his tragic death at the age of 27 prevented the band from touring, and made him an increasingly rare presence in the studio.

With his youth and experience following in the footsteps of larger-than-life players, Taylor was seen as the natural choice to give the Stones a new lease on life.

Due to their aforementioned live hiatus, the Stones were quite rusty as a performing unit as they geared up for their comeback performance – to the point where it took their newest member by surprise.

Reflecting on his debut performance with the band in a 2002 interview with Guitar World, Taylor shrugged, “The Rolling Stones were never great musicians.

“When we were rehearsing for [the July 5, 1969 performance at] Hyde Park, when I first joined them, I couldn't believe how bad they were. I thought, ‘How do they make such great records?’”

To hear Taylor tell it, it was Jimmy Miller, the storied producer who manned the boards for all three of the band's golden-era masterpieces – 1969's Let it Bleed, 1971's Sticky Fingers, and 1972's Exile on Main St. – who helped the band's music transcend any lack of technical acumen.

“When I met Jimmy it all fell into place,” Taylor told Guitar World. “It's not about being great musicians but about a certain kind of chemistry the band has, a certain kind of dynamic between Mick [Jagger] and Keith [Richards] and then me and Mick and then Jimmy Miller.”

Saying that Mick Taylor never got enough credit (literal and otherwise) for his six-string contributions to the rock 'n' roll magic the Rolling Stones created during their late-'60s to mid-'70s heyday isn't a particularly hot take. And yet, even after all this time, it remains indisputably true.

1971's Sticky Fingers, the middle child of the trio of albums that marked the Stones' towering creative peak, remains best known for, among other classic rock tentpoles, the pure filth of Brown Sugar, and the sparse, grooving Can't You Hear Me Knocking.

Both driven by page 1 guitar riffs, those tunes helped further set in steel Keith Richards' presence as a larger-than-life, headline-dominating, trend-ignoring character crafting staples of the rock guitar songbook while engaging in legendary feats of debauchery. The people's guitar hero, if you will.

And yet, Sticky Fingers wouldn't be nearly the milestone that it is without, for one, Sway. Placed second on the tracklist after Brown Sugar, Sway perfectly counter-balances the gleeful sinning of the former with vulnerability. Its shining moment is one of the most sublime slide solos ever laid to tape, with Taylor gamely, for a moment, filling the shoes of the Stones' late slide master, Brian Jones.

More of Taylor's graceful slide work can be found on Sticky Fingers closer Moonlight Mile, Mick Jagger's ruminations on the trials and tribulations of the rock star life.

Those of us in 9-5s, overnights, or anything that doesn't involve playing to tens of thousands of people on a nightly basis may find it difficult to relate to lines like “With a head full of snow” and “Just another mad, mad day on the road,” but Taylor's charming slide yawns give it a home-y charm – you're hearing tales from a friend over a beer, not 21st century Western music's Casanova.

With that in mind, the fact that Taylor cited Sway and Moonlight Mile when asked by Guitar World in a 2015 interview which Stones song he was most proud of, or that he felt best represented him, isn't surprising.

“I like a lot of Stones songs – I like Jumping Jack Flash and Street Fighting Man, all for different reasons,” he said. “But as far as the ones I played on, I like Sway – and Moonlight Mile because I sort of had a hand in co-writing that, in a way. Or at least I wrote the riff the string part is based on.”

However, Taylor noted, neither of those songs (both of which he has never received a songwriting credit for) were his favorite “in terms of my own guitar playing.”

That honor, he revealed, goes to Time Waits for No One, from 1974's It's Only Rock 'n' Roll.

“I love that solo. I think it’s probably the best thing I did with the Stones,” Taylor told Guitar World. “It’s not one of their hits; it was an album track. But it’s quite lyrical and it’s a bit different from a lot of other Stones songs. I’d done something that I’d never done. Because of the structure of the song, it pushed my guitar playing in a slightly different direction.

“It’s more – I don’t like to use the term Carlos Santana-esque because it sounds too pretentious, but I kind of played in a different mode. I was playing over a Cmaj7 to an Fmaj7, which aren’t chords the Stones used that much.

“You know, they had their rock and roll songs and they had their ballads as well, and they were very different,” Taylor explained. “And most of the ballads were usually written by me.”

The 1959 Gibson Les Paul that famously appeared on the Rolling Stones' breakthrough Ed Sullivan Show appearance in October 1964 is at the center of a dispute between former Stones guitarist Mick Taylor and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Taylor's representatives are asserting that the guitar – nicknamed the “Keithburst” – belonged to him at one point, and was allegedly stolen when the Stones were recording Exile on Main St. at a mansion on the French Riviera near Nice in 1971.

Therefore, the guitarist expressed his surprise to The New York Post when the guitar resurfaced at the museum, with Taylor’s manager Marlies Damming asking the Met to “make the guitar available so that we can inspect it and confirm its provenance one way or the other.”

Now, the Met shared what it alleges to be a copy of the guitar's recorded provenance with Guitar World. “This guitar has a long and well-documented history of ownership,” states a spokesperson.

The Les Paul's story starts at Farmers Music Store in Luton, England, where it was recorded to have been bought by an individual named John Bowen in March 1961, with a Bigsby vibrato added around 1961–62 by Selmer's Guitar Store.

Reportedly, the guitar was traded for a Gretsch Country Gentleman in late 1962 at Selmer's. Keith Richards acquired it sometime before August 1964 and, according to the provenance, owned it until 1971.

Record producer and manager Adrian Miller is then listed as its owner in 1971 – however, it's not clear whether he bought the guitar from Richards or someone else. Heavy Metal Kids' Cosmo Verrico then reportedly acquired it in 1971 from Adrian Miller, trading it for £125 plus a 1959 Gibson ES-175 with PAFs.

As per the Met's records, in 1974, Whitesnake's Bernie Marsden bought it from Verrico for £400, followed by Mike Jopp in that same year for £450. Fast-forward to 2004, and the historic guitar was part of a very public attempted sale by Christie's (part of lot 267) but was left unsold after it did not reach the desired price.

Swedish producer Peter Svensson bought it two years later, while, a decade later, it was acquired by billionaire businessman Dirk Ziff, with the help and advice of producer and guitar collector Perry Margouleff.

Ziff would later loan the guitar to the Met in 2019 for the Play It Loud exhibition – later moved to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Interestingly, Richards himself was very involved in this exhibition, even sitting for an interview and loaning other instruments and gear to the exhibit. In 2024, Ziff donated the guitar to the Met, where it can be found today alongside the museum’s new collection of guitars, which spans from 1920 to 1970.

“This is not just a once-in-a-lifetime gift,” Jayson Kerr Dobney, the Met’s curator of musical instruments, comments in a press statement. “It is a once-in-a-century opportunity for the museum – a visionary, comprehensive collection of American guitars, unparalleled in both its breadth and variety.”

Guitar World has reached out to Mick Taylor's representatives for comment.

Considering the impact the Rolling Stones' appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in October 1964 had on music history, it perhaps comes as no surprise that the 1959 Gibson Les Paul – complete with its sunburst finish, mahogany body, and maple top – wielded by Keith Richards, would end up at New York's esteemed Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This historic addition was gifted by a collector who, earlier this year, donated 500 vintage guitars to the museum. However, in recent weeks, a representative for former Stones guitarist Mick Taylor stated he was surprised to learn that the guitar is in the museum.

According to Taylor and his representatives, he purchased the Les Paul from one of the Stones' road managers while he was playing with John Mayall. Then, when he joined the Stones in 1969 for five years, he took it with him. His version of events became part of rock ‘n’ roll lore, with Taylor's manager, Marlies Damming, even saying in a statement last month that, at some point, the guitar had “disappeared”.

The museum is now disputing Taylor's story, stating that Taylor played the instrument but never actually owned it. In addition, the Les Paul has had a public history – the guitar went up for auction at Christie's, even appearing on the cover of the catalog, and in 2019, it was also featured in a Met exhibition, with no claims from Taylor or his team.

And while the Met states it was actually Richards who held onto the Les Paul as its owner until 1971, a 2013, 700-page anthology of Stones instruments, Rolling Stones Gear by Andy Babiuk, suggests the contested Gibson was among eight guitars stolen in 1971 when the Stones spent a summer in the French Riviera – a story that the Met refutes.

The museum's provenance does leave somewhat of a gap, however. It lists Adrian Miller as the Les Paul's owner in 1971, but there's no indication of how he acquired the guitar. Miller went on to sell it to Heavy Metal Kids' Cosmo Verrico in 1971, who, according to correspondence with The New York Times, “can't recall how Miller acquired the guitar.”

Alongside listing all the subsequent owners, the provenance also notes its attempted sale at Christie's in 2004. While the bidding did not reach the desired price, the guitar ended up being bought in 2006 by Swedish music producer Peter Svensson. A decade later, investor and billionaire Dirk Ziff acquired it and lent it to the Met in 2019 for its Play It Loud exhibition.

The story doesn't stop there – The New York Times confirms that they have received an email from Damming, saying, “We would like the Metropolitan Museum to make the guitar available so that we can inspect it, and confirm its provenance one way or the other,” as well as the manager publicly sharing a Facebook post stating, “A long-lost piece of rock ‘n’ roll history has resurfaced, decades after it vanished."

Guitar World has reached out to Mick Taylor's representatives and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for comment.

The Met’s new exhibition of guitars has become the center of international intrigue, after a 1959 Les Paul Standard that had been stolen from Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor in the early 1970s mysteriously re-surfaced as part of the collection.

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that it had come into the possession of a 500-strong arsenal of guitars back in May. Included in the hefty donation was a Bigsby-loaded 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard used by Keith Richards during the band’s legendary appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.

Having seen the news of the guitar’s arrival at the Met, Taylor’s manager has now revealed that the guitar’s prominence goes beyond that show, sharing previously unknown details about the guitar.

Taylor had bought the guitar from Richards in 1967 as he prepared to join John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. However, a few years later, after Taylor then joined the Stones in 1969, the guitar was stolen in 1972 during the recording of Exile on Main Street.

It was stolen from Villa Nellcôte, a sprawling mansion in Côte d'Azur, and was said to have been carried out by local drug dealers. Nine guitars ultimately went missing, alongside a bass guitar belonging to Bill Wyman and Bobby Keys’ saxophone.

“There are numerous photos of Mick Taylor playing this Les Paul, as it was his main guitar until it disappeared," says Marlies Damming. “The interesting thing about these vintage Les Pauls is that they are renowned for their flaming, which is unique, like a fingerprint.”

As reported by Louder Sound (via pagesix.com), a source claims, “Taylor says he never received compensation for the theft and is mystified as to how his property found its way into the Met’s collection.”

Jimmy Page is also believed to have played the guitar during his days as a session musician, and Eric Clapton borrowed it for a Cream show in July 1966, after ironically, one of his electric guitars was swiped during rehearsals.

Avid gear collector, Dirk Ziff, was behind the Met’s new donation, which has been in the works since 1987. The instruments date between 1920 and 1970, with guitars that once belonged to notable players including Roy Rogers and Mississippi John Hurt among them. Its existence, up until May, had been kept secret for decades.

“It was so secretive that when I, as a curator of the Met, came to visit, I had no idea what was actually there,” The Met’s Jayson Dobney revealed. “I just saw those eight guitars.”

“Since embarking on this journey with Perry in 1987, our objective has been to assemble a comprehensive collection of American guitars, many of them historic and culturally significant, and preserve them for the benefit of future generations,” Ziff had said in May. “It is genuinely thrilling to see our vision validated at the greatest cultural institution in the world.”

Taylor’s camp has now added more mystery and intrigue to the collection.

Anthony Krizan has recorded with Mick Taylor, backed up Noel Redding and been a member of the Spin Doctors – but it’s his solo music that keeps him inspired. His latest album Cool Shade of Blue, is an example of where he’s at. “It’s a blues, rock and soul vibe,” he says. “Everything I do has the blues in it, but I like to write hooky songs that cross genres.”

He’s already working on his next record, among other things. “I have a lot of new music, and I have a line of pickups from Greenville, a father/son company out of Detroit,” he reports. “I’ve been working on a Strat pickup – we’ve got a line called Sonic Blue 60 Vintage Hot.”

In the late ‘80s you participated in a recording session with Mick Taylor.

“When I had my deal with Chrysalis Records, the management company had us go to LA and we’d get together with some writers. They were really kind of ‘80s pop. It wasn’t our bag. We’d made a record before the Black Crowes came out where we were going for a Stones-type thing.

“We met Greg Sutton, who played bass for Bob Dylan, and we just kind of hit it off. He said, ‘Let’s see if we can get Mick Taylor out.’ So, we paid Mick some money, and got some blow, because he liked coke, and we wrote a few songs.

“Every solo he did was on a tape machine. He’d be like, ‘Let me take it again,’ but I was like, ‘Man, that was unbelievable!’ We’d have to erase a few because we didn’t have enough tape – but every time he played, it was just amazing. It’s true: you get the tone out of your hands. And whatever he plugged into sounded great.”

Those recordings were never released. Where are they now?

“One was called Gospel, and that never made the record. It was a little bit like a Gimme Shelter vibe. We wrote two more – one has never been released and the other one was lost when somebody erased the reel, which I’m kind of pissed at. But getting to sit there and watch him for a whole day was pretty amazing.”

You were in Noel Redding’s band in the ‘90s. How did you get the gig?

“I made a pretty big-budget record with Chrysalis, but it got shelved. So we were being shopped around, and we ended up on Polygram, and our producer, Frankie LaRocka, approached Noel and said, ‘Would you want to do some gigs?’

“A lot of people don’t know this, but Noel Redding died broke because he signed his publishing away. When Noel started coming around, it was me and Frankie the first time, and then Earl Slick was on guitar. We had Jack Daley as a second bass player because we didn’t even know how Noel was playing at the time.

“We’d have Noel come over every few months; we’d book gigs and play colleges and bars, and we’d give Noel the lion’s share of the money.”

Is it true that Noel used your gear?

“Every time Noel came over he’d use my ’71 Fender Jazz Bass. It’s my favorite bass. He’d use that even though Fender reissued the Noel Redding bass! We played for 10 years on and off, and we did a live record in Prague that’s out there somewhere, which is pretty cool.”

Did Noel ever ask you to play like Jimi Hendrix?

“He was so loose – he’d always get a kick out of the fact that it was unrehearsed, and anything could happen. Sometimes he’d forget certain songs, or we’d mess up, but he wouldn’t care.

“I was nervous at first because with some of the Hendrix stuff, I could play just like it, but there’s other stuff that you want to kind of take off and do your own thing. We kind of stuck to the vibe of the records, but during the jam sections we’d do our own thing.”

What was your biggest takeaway from playing with Noel?

“One thing I still try to work on is not overplaying. You want to build solos, but I used to try and rip out of the gate. But getting to look over and see Noel playing just like the records with his attack and stuff was a surreal experience.”

How did you hook up with the Spin Doctors in the mid ‘90s?

“I got the gig because I was playing with Noel. Frankie and I were at the Wetlands when the Spin Doctors were pretty much at their peak. They were at the side of the stage watching me play with Noel, and when it came time to audition guitar players they kind of remembered me.”

What was the audition like?

“Alex Skolnick and Kenny Withrow went before me. I’ve always had a good work ethic and was prepared for that gig. I think I copped the vibe of what Eric Schenkman did when he was in the band, which was definitely cool stuff – and not easy. He came from a jazz background, and I’m not really a jazz guy, but I got the gig.”

Alex Skolnick, while known for playing mostly metal, is phenomenal. Did you actually see his audition?

“Yeah – I was right outside the door. Alex was more of a heavy metal shredder, but he was amazing. Kenny was great too, but I don’t think they fit the vibe. There also wasn’t much time to work with a new guy, and they wanted somebody who could fit the sound so that most people wouldn’t notice Eric wasn’t there. I’m sure if it wasn’t such a rush job, they’d have auditioned more guys.”

You made one record with the Spin Doctors, You’ve Got to Believe in Something. How do you look back on that?

“Even though that record wasn’t a huge success, it was still something cool, and some good stuff came out of it. Playing with the Spin Doctors as a three-piece, you have to cover, and it’s kind of nice. You have freedom; but rhythmically you have to fill spots, and do solos with chordal stuff to fill out the rhythm.”

• Cool Shade of Blue is on sale now.

Shane Fontayne came to America in the ‘70s, aged 21, and once he’d befriended Mick Ronson he set off on an epic guitar journey. In the ‘80s he played with the Mamas & the Papas before hooking up with Lone Justice as they toured with U2.

Fontayne joined Mick Taylor, then quickly moved on to Bruce Springsteen's “Other Band,” which toured the world in 1992 and 1993. Later he became a member of the Kennedy Center Honors house band for seven years. notably backing Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson for a soaring cover of Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven as Jimmy Page watched.

“He was too cool to say anything about that,” Fontayne says of meeting Page after the show. “Just because it’s a staple, it’s almost like a nightmare to endure somebody else performing it! if it turns out well, maybe you’re more surprised than anything. I’m not trying to put words in his mouth – but they all seemed happy.”

Fontayne’s long-running gig with Graham Nash came to an end about a year ago, and he’s looking to get back on the road. “I’ve thrived on the trust of people I’ve worked with,” he reflects. “John Lennon said he was a primitive musician who’d had no schooling but learned enough to express himself. That describes me.”

How did you hook up with Mick Ronson?

“I met Mick and his wife Susie in late ’75 and told them, ‘I’m going to be going to the States in a few month.’ They said, ‘We live in New York – look us up.’ I got to New York in ’76 after hitchhiking around the US and called Mick.

“I went down to rehearsals with him and it just worked. I’d come to America to play with American musicians, but I found myself with Mick! It was life-changing. He was one of the sweetest men I’ve ever known. We went up to Woodstock, all lived in the same house and recorded together.

How did working with Mick shape you as a young player?

“I’ve never considered that. He implicitly trusted me to be a foil for him. He was the sort of player who’d say, ‘Don’t worry about the sound. Just start recording, because in 10 minutes you might lose your opportunity to capture the moment.’”

Why didn’t anything come out of those sessions?

“Mick probably was not a solo artist. His strength, at that time, was the big pop-rock mega-album. His manager was trying to push Mick in that direction. Ultimately, the material probably wasn’t strong enough and the focus changed. But our personal relationship endured – I saw Mick shortly before he died after at one of the Springsteen shows I did.”

In the ‘80s you worked with Lone Justice on their album called Shelter, which differed greatly from their debut record.

“I’d gotten to know Greg Sutton, who’d become the bass player for Lone Justice. They were like the it band; they had that country punk thing and they were media darlings for a moment. But Jimmy Iovine had taken over as manager, and the singer, Maria McKee, had started to change things.

“Greg brought me into audition as they were working on the song I Found Love, which Maria wrote with Stevie Van Zandt. I went down there late one night with my baritone six-string bass, and I got a chance to sit in. At the end of the take, I remember Stevie laughing, ‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that!’ I essentially played what’s on the record. Jimmy called the next day and said, ‘You made a lot of people very happy last night,’ and I was in the band.”

Lone Justice opened for U2 in support of The Joshua Tree. What was that like?

“I remember standing backstage and watching when The Edge started Where the Streets Have No Name; when Bono came out, I swear I saw a halo around the guy’s head! I don’t know… there was a light around him, and I don’t think it was a light from the stage; there was just a presence about him.”

During the last show of the tour, Lone Justice and U2 jammed on a rendition of Sweet Jane. How did that happen?

“I was watching U2 through the curtain at soundcheck. After they stopped, Larry Mullen Jr. beckoned me over, and Bono invited Maria and myself to do Sweet Jane. I was like, ‘We do a version of Sweet Jane every night!’ They had me show them how we did it. I was like, ‘This is probably a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.’”

After Lone Justice, you toured with Mick Taylor, where you sort of played the role of Keith Richards.

“I’m a guitarist who essentially wants to play with abandon. If the person who hired you feels they can trust you, those are the situations that have been the easiest for me to play in. I was doing my thing and Mick was all good with it. It was essentially a situation where we would just go out, play, and have a great time.

“We did some ’Stones material, like Can You Hear Me Knocking? which is one of those songs where part of Mick’s disenchantment was maybe not getting songwriting credit – though I didn’t talk to him about it. Mick had such a huge signature sound. I learned a lot from him. His playing is mesmerizing to me.”

In the early ’90s you joined Bruce Springsteen’s “Other Band” after he folded the E Street Band. How did that happen?

“I got a call from Jimmy Iovine, saying Bruce had seen Lone Justice on Saturday Night Live, which we’d done in ’86 during Christmas. Bruce had seen a re-run and said to Jimmy, ‘Who’s the guitar player?’ So an audition was set up in Los Angeles

“I had a pedalboard at the time, which is somewhere in Bruce’s locker, which I was running in stereo. I remember bringing out that pedalboard, and I asked his team for a couple of amplifiers, and maybe I took my Gretsch Tennessean with me.

“So, I get down to the audition, and Bruce’s right-hand man, if you want to call him that, says, ‘Don’t be nervous about anything. He’s gonna make you feel so comfortable.’”

“I was excited, but I don’t think I was overly nervous. We started playing – and I don’t remember what we played, but it was in the key of B. It’s an interesting key; it’s great on guitar, We jammed, and it was one of those spark-flying moments.

“I don’t know how long we played; it could have been five minutes, it could have been 20, but after we took a break, Bruce goes, ‘Man, that's a lot of twang.’ I said, ‘Too much?’ And he said, ‘Uh uh!’ It was just a feeling that, sensibility-wise, I’m not a technical player; I trust my gut and instincts, and I respond.”

“I was just responding to what was happening in the room – and it seemed to work for him. Later in that session, he said, ‘Man, with some of the stuff you’re playing, I wish I’d had you play on the album’.

“His material was so forgiving for a player like me; it’s not too complicated, so I stumbled – there was just a sensibility to it that I wouldn’t feel like that happened. That made me a good fit.”

Did you get the sense that Bruce trusted you as a player?

“Bruce’s confidence – regardless of any questions we were asked or any feelings from fans who had doubts about his choices – never wavered in front of us. He never gave us anything but total belief.”

There’s an album of unreleased material that you recorded with Bruce. What’s the story there?

“After he did Streets of Philadelphia, he called me to come play on some recordings. His manager, Jon Landau, felt that lyrically the album wasn’t there. A couple of the songs we recorded – one being Secret Garden – were released; I believe the title of the album was to be Waiting on the End of the World. Whenever I see Bruce, he’s told me that he might still [release the recordings] – that he wants to get those sessions out there.”

What led to the end of your time in Bruce’s band after the ’93 tour ended?

“There was never a disbanding; the tour came to an end, and there was no more. The commitment had run its course. I think the next thing that he pivoted to was Blood Brothers, and putting the E Street Band back together. That took on a second life.”

Mick Ronson came out to see you at before the tour ended.

“He actually passed on my birthday. He came to see one of the Springsteen shows, and he was just so proud of me. Mick had kind of a classic rock ‘n’ roll existence – he probably drank too much. But he didn’t say things he didn’t believe, and I love him for all that. I’m grateful that he wanted to be there.”

How did you go about performing Stairway to Heaven with Ann and Nancy Wilson in 2012?

“I was part of the house band for the Kennedy Center Honors, so I ended up playing that song and solo. I didn’t know it [the solo] was that iconic beforehand! It was only when I started seeing all the comments that I realized it.

“The hard rock thing, at the time, hadn’t so much been my kind of thing. So yes, Stairway is a classic rock staple, and I was obviously familiar with it, but it wasn’t something that had spoken to me so much – and it’s a long song!

“You want to be respectful and do not necessarily what they would have done, because you’re not them. So, it’s about what I would want to hear if I was in the audience. In that regard, I wanted to recreate the solo that had been done on the record.

“With Stairway, because I’m not a Jimmy Page kind of player, even though I did get a Les Paul for that show, I listened to the solo. I wanted to try and emulate it with the right spirit and render it somewhat closely – but not just have it be a regurgitation. Fortunately, at the time, I didn’t realize how iconic it was. [laughs]”

How did it go when you met Jimmy afterwards?

“Seeing how good he looked with gray hair is what got me to decide to stop coloring mine! But I actually asked him if he played the solo on The Kinks’ You Really Got Me.

“In these moments – you’ve got a moment here, and somebody could be speaking a completely different language coming back at you – he basically said that he’d been at that session, but I don’t think he played the solo.”

What’s next for you?

“I was on the road for some years with Graham Nash, until separating from Graham over a year ago. I’ve been using the time to continue playing, writing, and potentially doing another solo album; I did one over 20 years ago. And I'm looking to get back on the road; that’s what I miss.”

Mythos and Mick Taylor of That Pedal Show have come together for the Argo Boost Deluxe – a filthy but clear fuzz pedal that can double up as a booster.

Like the original Argo, released in 2022, the stompbox is based on a COB circuit, granting players the freedom to balance out hairy octave fuzz sounds with a boosted clean signal to ensure clarity and grit in equal measure.

However, the Deluxe version aims to go one better. With the Fuzz and Blend controls peeled back, the pedal can masquerade as “a very useful and musical sounding booster”, making this an intriguing twofer at £183 (approx $236).

Taylor had brought the concept to Mythos, with the manufacturer “excited to derive more from a circuit that so many players know and love”.

The pedal is split in two, with the topology of the original Argo unlocked via one footswitch, and the booster – which is paired with a red dial so Taylor “knows which one to twiddle” – accessible via a second footswitch.

“Think of it as changing lanes inside the pedal,” Mythos says of its decision to keep them separate within the same housing.

The benefit here is that players can dial in two different gain stages which can be placed in front of an overdrive pedal or tube amp. The Boost control offers more push, and the fuzz can be paired with it, or have its gritted teeth chomp in isolation.

There’s also a Highs switch hidden within the pedal’s innards. While standing around the drawing board for this collaborative build, Taylor had expressed a desire for a bright boost, but it was ultimately decided to have that functionality switchable depending on each player’s preferences.

Given its placement, it’s not a setting likely to be changed on the fly, but it means there is a little more tweakability to the pedal than first meets the eye.

It ships with the Highs disengaged, but when it's flipped, “a fine amount of high-end sparkle” will be injected into the guitar’s signal. This circuit is separate from the octave fuzz circuit.

“It's a very simple two-in-one pedal that came about entirely by accident,” Taylor reveals. “Regular viewers of the show will know I've used various versions of the Argo, which was based on the Prescription Electronics COB. I fell in love with it via Doyle Bramhall.

“The thing is, unless octave fuzz is part of your core sound, it's the kind of thing that comes on and off your pedalboard.”

Then, one night, blues maestro Aynsley Lister invited him on stage to guest on a few songs. When prepping for Cast a Light, he was looking for “a nice vocal, expressive kind of sound” that didn’t rip Lister off. That's when he discovered the potential of using the pedal as a clean boost, which the collaboration has since grabbed with both hands. And you can’t blame them.

“All of a sudden, my occasional-use pedal has gone to something that can live on the 'board,” Taylor concludes.

The Mythos Argo Boost Deluxe is available to order now for £183 (approx $236).

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The late John Mayall’s ability to nurture blues guitar prodigies is comparable to Yoda’s knack for training hot Jedi prospects. Chiefly known for giving Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor the opportunity to shine in the 1960s, Mayall’s eye for talent proved powerfully sharp both before and after the star trio’s respective stints in his legendary outfit the Bluesbreakers.

The band’s first decade remains of central importance, thanks to the seismic influence of albums like Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, A Hard Road and Crusade. Moreover, Mayall’s artistic development from the band’s formation in 1963 to the end of the ‘60s uncovers a trailblazing trajectory of pioneering, popularizing, then progressing the blues with more experimental records.

Join us now for a whistle-stop guide to the most iconic era of Mayall’s six-stringers.

(All Mayall quotes are taken from his autobiography Blues From Laurel Canyon – My Life As A Bluesman.)

Bernie Watson – 1963-64

Cyril Davies was a leading light of the ’60s, along with Mayall and Alexis Korner. Mayall said that Bernie Watson, who came from Davies’ R&B All Stars, “professed disdain for anything other than classical music” and yet played blues “with such emotion and finesse you’d swear it was his forte.”

Watson’s sharp solo on the Bluesbreakers’ debut single Crawling Up A Hill proves the point.

Davy Graham – 1964

Besides towering achievements as a folk pioneer – penning classic fingerstyle instrumental Angi, which popularized DADGAD tuning – Graham enjoyed a fleeting stint as Mayall’s live guitarist on at least one occasion.

Inserting a pickup into the soundhole of his acoustic guitar, Graham’s performance was described as “spot on” by an eyewitness.

Roger Dean – 1964-65

When brief incumbent John Gilbey proved a bad fit, Mayall recruited Dean, a country and western fan unfamiliar with the blues.

Though the band leader considered Dean a “very accomplished technician,” he felt that on studio recordings, “the fact that he wasn’t a natural blues player was obvious.”

Eric Clapton – 1965-66

Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (aka The Beano Album) is revered as a classic – but the track that sold Mayall on Clapton was the lesser-known Got To Hurry. It was the B-side to the Yardbirds’ For Your Love – the poppy single which had prompted Clapton to quit the band.

Hearing the track, Mayall “felt a surge of excitement,” and explained: “I could almost feel Eric talking to me through his solos, which conveyed the power and emotion of great blues guitarists like Freddie King.” Clapton was working on a building site when Mayall tracked him down. In a tribute after Mayall’s death, Clapton thanked him “for rescuing me from oblivion”.

Mayall later revealed the young guitarist’s groundbreaking approach to recording Blues Breakers, saying that engineer Gus Dudgeon “was horrified that Eric intended to play through his Marshall amp at full volume, [but] Eric stood his ground.” Mayall’s pivotal influence encouraged Clapton to record his first vocal performance on Ramblin’ On My Mind.

Clapton’s tenure proved as tempestuous as it was influential prior to his permanent departure in July 1966, to form Cream with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce – the latter of whom was briefly a Bluesbreaker himself in 1965.

Peter Green – 1965, 66-67

When Clapton quit to travel across Europe in summer 1965, Mayall promised to allow him to rejoin if he wanted. As he held an onstage audition to find a replacement, Green asked to take part. Plugging his Harmony Meteor guitar into Mayall’s amp, Green delivered “a revelation” and “the purest tone I’d heard since Eric,” Mayall enthused.

While being ousted on Clapton’s return in December that year, Green was Mayall’s first and only choice after Clapton’s final exit. The older player dubbed Green “a bona fide blues legend,” praising the “savage genius” of his work on the So Many Roads single.

He even said he preferred 1967’s A Hard Road to the Clapton album, due to its variety – evidenced by the Latin-style percussion on Green’s stunning showcase The Supernatural.

Green left June 1967, forming Fleetwood Mac with ex-Bluesbreakers Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. But he contributed some tasteful acoustic slide work on Mayall’s 1969 solo single Picture On The Wall.

Mick Taylor – 1967-69

Mayall first encountered Taylor in April 1966, when the 18-year-old volunteered his services at at a gig in Hatfield after Clapton failed to arrive. Taylor’s “terrific” playing made a powerful impression on the band leader – but he vanished before phone numbers could be exchanged.

Hoping to reconnect on Green’s departure, Mayall’s ‘guitarist wanted’ ad in Melody Maker brought Taylor into the ranks. A month after joining in June ‘67, the new boy was adding stinging lead work to the raw, exciting Crusade album, cut in 11 breakneck hours.

He developed as a soloist at a remarkable pace through 1968’s experimental Bare Wires and Blues From Laurel Canyon. Onstage, “anything Mick played raised the roof,” Mayall recalled – an impressive feat with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Otis Rush sitting in during the period.

Dissolving the line-up in June 1969 to pursue an acoustic direction, Mayall recommended Taylor to Mick Jagger when the Rolling Stones vocalist sought his advice regarding a replacement for Brian Jones.

Jon Mark – 1969-70

Seeking a break from the guitar, organ, bass and drums lineups he’d favored, Mayall took his experimentation to a bold extreme in 1969 after being inspired by Jimmy Giuffre’s stripped-down, drum-free combo seen in 1958 concert film Jazz On A Summer’s Day.

He recruited acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Mark after first meeting him as a member of Marianne Faithfull’s band. The gamble paid off, most demonstrably on The Turning Point, recorded live at New York’s legendary Filmore East – described by Mayall as “a high point in my career.”

Mark’s nimble licks on I’m Gonna Fight For You J.B. are a mellow delight. He’s less upfront on 1970 studio follow-up Empty Rooms; but his eloquent, minor-key solo on Counting The Days is as arresting as anything played by his plugged-in predecessors.

When Mayall’s muse took him in a different direction in summer 1970, Mark and flautist/saxophonist Johnny Almond kept it low-key and groovy with Mark-Almond (not to be confused with the Soft Cell vocalist).

John Mayall was the linchpin figure behind much of the boom in British blues rock players in the 1960s. The likes of Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Jack Bruce and John McVie all passed through the Bluesbreaker ranks and benefited from Mayall’s passionate guidance and shrewd stewardship.

Clapton put it best, in his response to the blues icon’s passing: “I want to say thank you, chiefly for rescuing me from oblivion and God knows what when I was a young man around the age of 18/19 when I decided that I was going to quit music,” said the guitar hero in his tribute to Mayall.

“He taught me all I really know and gave me the courage and enthusiasm to express myself without fear or without limit.”

A master band-leader, songwriter, vocalist, and no slouch on the guitar himself, Mayall’s early interest in the six-string came as a result of his father’s endeavors as a jazz guitarist – not to mention a record collection containing giants like Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian.

Mayall’s own music would later represent an equally seismic reshaping of the guitar landscape, as with the help of the young Clapton – and ‘the Woman Tone’ created by a pairing of the so-called ‘Beano ’Burst’ Les Paul and a Marshall JTM45 – Mayall was able to summon a hot-rodded take on his beloved Chicago blues.

It laid the foundation for everything from Clapton and Cream to establishing the Fleetwood Mac juggernaut, the Rolling Stones recordings with Mick Taylor (everything from Let It Bleed, to Exile on Mainstreet), and on into the ’70s as Led Zeppelin took heavy blues rock to its world-conquering zenith.

Mayall released no less than 96 albums across a near-70-year career. As such, whittling this legacy down to a single playlist of his most influential and essential recordings is something of a Herculean task, albeit a pleasant one, but in honor of the late and truly great Mayall, we’ve done just that…

1. I'm Your Witchdoctor backed with Telephone Blues (1965)

This Jimmy Page-produced 45 was a powerful harbinger of things to come. The intensity of this track is highlighted by Eric Clapton's incredible tone and haunting controlled feedback.

2. Blues Breakers: John Mayall and Eric Clapton (1966)

From the initial sonic blast – an aggressive slide up the neck at the top of Otis Rush’s All Your Love – the gauntlet is thrown down in terms of a new direction in British blues. Clapton’s virtuosic display on every track is nothing short of phenomenal, as he is backed brilliantly by Mayall’s keyboards and the rock-solid bass/drums combo of John McVie and Hughie Flint.

Standout tracks: Hideaway, Steppin’ Out, Double Crossing Time, Have You Heard

3. A Hard Road (1967)

Peter Green is tasked with filling the shoes of Clapton, the man referred to as God. Green proves to be more than up to the task, providing mind-blowing guitar throughout.

Standout tracks: The Stumble, The Supernatural, Someday After a While (You’ll Be Sorry)

4. Crusade (1967)

Half way through 1967, Green left the Bluesbreakers, along with McVie and Fleetwood, to form Fleetwood Mac. Mayall recruited 18-year-old Mick Taylor, who, like Green, proved himself an able replacement. Within two years, Taylor would leave Mayall’s band to join the Rolling Stones.

Standout tracks: Oh, Pretty Woman, Driving Sideways, Snowy Wood

5. Bare Wires (1968)

Aside from Taylor, this album was recorded with an entirely new lineup and was the last to be credited to the Bluesbreakers.

Standout tracks: Killing Time, Bare Wires Suite, Hartley Quits

6. Blues from Laurel Canyon (1968)

Mayall’s final Decca release features a small four-piece band, including Taylor as well as Green, who guests on one track.

Standout tracks: Laurel Canyon Home, 2401, First Time Alone (with Green)

7. Diary of a Band, Vol. 1 & 2 (1968)

This live collection features Mick Taylor and drummer Keef Hartley along with Chris Mercer and Dick Heckstall-Smith on sax. Culled from 60 hours of club recordings, it is the first of many live collections from Mayall’s personal collection.

Standout tracks: I Can’t Quit You Baby, My Own Fault, Crying Shame

8. Looking Back (1969)

This retrospective is a fantastic document of Mayall’s career, starting with his earliest Bluesbreakers recordings from 1963 up until the spring of 1969.

Standout tracks: Stormy Monday, So Many Roads, Looking Back

9. The Turning Point (1969)

For this July 12, 1969, Fillmore East performance, Mayall assembled yet another lineup, this time designed to play low volume music. The final track, Room to Move, became a minor hit for Mayall and garnered much FM radio airplay.

Standout tracks: Room to Move, The Laws Must Change, I’m Gonna Fight for You J.B.

10. Back to the Roots (1971)

This exceptional double album features a stellar band including Clapton, Taylor and Harvey Mandel on guitars, Larry Taylor on bass, Keef Hartley on drums, Don "Sugarcane" Harris on violin and Johnny Almond on sax and flute.

Standout tracks: Television Eye, Prisons on the Road, Force of Nature

11. Chicago Line (1988)

Roaring back with a new lineup of Bluesbreakers, this disc features great guitar work from Coco Montoya and Walter Trout.

Standout tracks: Chicago Line, The Last Time, Tears Came Rollin’ Down

12. 70th Birthday Concert (2003)

This live set features Clapton, his first time performing with Mayall in nearly 40 years. The double CD also features Taylor and Buddy Whittington.

Standout tracks: Grits Ain’t Groceries, I’m Tore Down, Oh, Pretty Woman

The Rolling Stones have been around since 1962, so this is their seventh decade making music. With such a long history, the iconic band has a massive body of work, a discography that was recently enlarged by their latest album, Hackney Diamonds.

Starting out as a London-based blues group, The Stones achieved phenomenal worldwide success mixing pop, rock, and blues, crafting their own unique sound that’s stood the test of time with classic songs like Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Women, and Angie which, even decades on, still sound fresh and exciting.

The Stones have always been a two-guitar outfit, with the legendary Keith Richards having been there from the beginning, partnered originally by Brian Jones, who tragically drowned in his swimming pool in 1969. Jones was followed by ex-John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers guitarist Mick Taylor, who in turn was replaced by Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood in 1975.

Throughout their recorded works, the guitar sounds of The Rolling Stones have been a mix of electric- and acoustic-based, with references to the band’s blues roots in cover versions of classic songs like I’m A King Bee and Little Red Rooster, and Richards, Jones, Taylor, and Wood all contributing slide guitar in various songs, too. Keith Richards' inspired guitar riffs have become the stuff of legend via songs like Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Satisfaction, the latter of which was played using a Gibson Maestro FZ1 fuzz-tone pedal.

Perhaps one of the most recognizable and consistent musical sounds in the Stones' catalog is Richards' open tunings, where his guitar is tuned to open chords such as D, E, or, usually, G, where he removes the sixth string. This can be heard on numerous songs – such as Honky Tonk Women and Start Me Up – and has a big, rich, immensely pleasing sound. 

These songs, among many others, would probably have been played using arguably Richards' most famously recognizable guitar, his 1950s Fender Telecaster, nicknamed Micawber, which features a Gibson PAF humbucker pickup in the neck position.

In this feature we’ll be looking at the styles of all the Stones' guitarists, with examples featuring their individual approaches – including their use of bluesy ideas such as mixing Minor and Major Pentatonic scales, country style flavors with the use of 6th interval shapes, and rock 'n' roll influenced double-stops.

We also look at Richards' open G-tuned rhythm style, as well as some Brian Jones-esque slide. There are also three ‘mini pieces’ which have a short rhythm guitar beginning followed by a solo. These are in three distinct musical flavors – a Major tonality piece, a Minor tonality piece, and a blues style piece.

It’s only rock 'n' roll, etc, so have fun!

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 4, Bass 3, Middle 6, Treble 7, Reverb

Either a single-coil or humbucker-equipped guitar can be used here, since all four guitarists regularly switched between the two. A higher action might be better suited to slide though. You can use anywhere from clean to light or medium overdrive for both rhythm and solo duties. Feel free to add reverb or a mild delay for ambient thickening.

Keith Richards

Example 1: Keith Richards

This is in the key of C and features melodic C Minor Pentatonic licks (C-Eb-F-G-Bb) over the Major chords C, F, and Bb. 

Example 2: Keith Richards

This demonstrates Richards' rock 'n' roll influence from players such as Chuck Berry. Make sure the third string’s tone interval bends are accurate. 

The double-stop bends on the third and second strings in bars 2-4 can be achieved with either the third or fourth finger of the fretting hand pushing upwards, or the flat of the third finger pulling downwards. Either way, make sure the third string bends up a tone and the second string bends up a semitone.

Example 3: Keith Richards

This exercise demonstrates Richards' style of rhythm playing using open G tuning. Tuning as follows, low to high: D-G-D-F-B-D. However, Richards famously removes his sixth string for this tuning, so as to avoid unwanted sixth string noise completely. 

If you don’t want to go to such lengths, simply mute the sixth string with the tip of your fretting hand’s first finger when fretting the chords. Tuning it down to D of course, means if you do accidentally hit it, it’s not a disaster.

Example 4: Keith Richards

An extension of the previous exercise, this one shows how the chords can be embellished with open-string runs and pull-offs to make for a more involved rhythm part. Richards used this idea in tracks like Tumbling Dice and Honky Tonk Women to create an instantly memorable sound.

Brian Jones

Example 1: Brian Jones

This slide guitar example uses open G tuning and a clean guitar tone. Ensure correct pitching by placing the slide directly over the fret. Then add light vibrato.

Example 2: Brian Jones

Another slide guitar example, this uses open E tuning. Tune the strings low to high: E-B-E-G#-B-E. A distorted guitar tone is used here, and side-to-side slide vibrato. Jones was a natural musician, playing a number of instruments and styles. His slide guitar topped the charts on Little Red Rooster.

Mick Taylor

Example 1: Mick Taylor

This example shows how the ‘country’ 6th interval is often played by the band. Taylor, Wood and Richards can all be heard using this approach at various times. 

Make sure your fretting-hand fingers make the appropriate 6th interval shape, with the picking hand either using a fingerstyle approach of thumb and finger, or a hybrid picking approach of pick and fingers, or just the pick using alternate picking. Of the three approaches, hybrid probably makes the most sense.

Example 2: Mick Taylor

This example features some melodic bluesy licks, typical of Taylor’s lyrical style. Bar 1 involves bending the string up a tone but only letting it down by a semitone, so accurate pitching is essential. 

Taylor likely learned this idea from copying Eric Clapton, who favored this often in his soloing. The repeating phrase over two strings in bar 2 is important to play cleanly. As a suggestion, try a downstroke on the second string and an upstroke on the third string.

Ronnie Wood

Example 1: Ronnie Wood

This country-toned E Major Pentatonic (E-F#-G#-B-C#) idea features a 6th, with the third string bending up a tone (use the fretting hand’s third finger), while the fourth finger frets the first string. In bar 3, use the same fingering for the bend on the second string, with the fourth finger fretting the first string.

Example 2 

This example shows how the Major and Minor Pentatonic scales can inter-weave over a Major tonality chord progression in order to create a colourful mix of sweet Major sounds blending with bluesier Minor approaches. B.B. King was the master of this, with Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and others highly influenced by it.

Rolling Stones Mini-Pieces

Piece 1: Major

This piece is in the key of A and is in open G tuning with the capo at the 2nd fret. The first eight bars are a rhythm part and feature our Keith Richards-style approaches. The following eight bars are the solo. As the first string is lowered by a tone, remember the notes won’t be in the same place as they normally are.

Piece 2: Minor

Our Minor piece has a tonal center of B Minor and alternates between a bar of B Minor and a bar of E; the overall sound is B Dorian (B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A). 

After the first four bars of ‘rhythm,’ the subsequent solo section mainly contains bluesy B Minor Pentatonic (B-D-E-F#-A) licks. In bars 7 and 8 we encounter some E Major Pentatonic country flavored licks over the E chord, adding another tonal character to the solo.

Piece 3 

This 12-bar blues in G has a straight, driving feel, with two bars of chunking blues shuffle rhythm before the solo kicks in. Featuring licks containing both G Major Pentatonic (G-A-B-D-E) and G Minor Pentatonic (G-Bb-C-D-F), the overall feel of the solo is melodic. Make sure your string bends are pitched accurately.   

Jones, Taylor and Wood… It sounds more like the name of a law firm than the surnames of the three phenomenal guitarists who have served alongside Keith Richards during the Rolling Stones’ six-decade-plus career. 

Now that they’ve released Hackney Diamonds, their first album of original material since 2005’s A Bigger Bang, it’s an ideal time to reflect on the contributions that Brian Jones, Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood have made to the evolution, vitality and uncanny longevity of the Stones.

Each guitarist’s tenure with the group – seven years for Jones, five for Taylor and an amazing 48 for Wood – serves to define and delineate three key phases in the Stones’ stellar career. Here’s how it all happened.

1962-1969, Brian Jones: The rock star as tragic hero

It’s not just that Brian Jones founded and named the Rolling Stones in 1962 – giving birth to one of the most important groups in all of rock history. That alone secures his place of high honor in the rock pantheon. But Jones also was an archetype and icon in so many other ways. 

One of the first young, white Britons to play blues-style slide guitar, his role in bringing the venerable, African-American blues idiom (and blues guitar particularly) to the forefront of rock makes him the godfather of a tradition that includes British guitar greats like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Alvin Lee and so many others.  

With his impeccably coiffed blond mane, boldly extravagant fashion sense and dazzling arsenal of ultra-flash guitars, Jones was one of the 1960s’ most influential guitar heroes. He consorted with Swingin’ London’s glamorous models and actresses, hung out with Bob Dylan and journeyed to Morocco in 1967 to smoke hash and pioneer the world music scene. 

The Pied Piper of the psychedelic explosion, Jones adorned the Stones’ mid-’60s oeuvre with a rainbow orchestra of harpsichords, flutes, sitars, dulcimers and Mellotrons. In this, he played a key role in forging the baroque pop/chamber pop subgenre that’s still flourishing today. He introduced the Jimi Hendrix Experience to the audience for the trio’s American debut at the seminal Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. He was always in the vanguard.

The dark side of all this was that Jones was deeply unhappy in his fame – conflicted, ambivalent and embittered. When he lost creative control of the Stones to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in the mid-’60s, he went into a prolonged tailspin, abusing dope and booze in ever-increasing amounts until he ended up dead in a swimming pool at age 27 in July 1969.

In so doing, he became a charter member of the infamous “27 Club” – musical legends who died too soon and whose ranks also include Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. Even in death, Jones rolled with the best.   

“Brian was an impressive musician,” Keith Richards told me in 1997. “Very promising. He was a sax player as well, to start with. He was dedicated to playing in those early days. I’ll tell you what screwed Brian up: it was fame. Something snapped in him the minute that came.” 

Having already played with London blues kingpin Alexis Korner and preceding Eric Clapton in a group called the Roosters, Jones was definitely heavier business than Jagger and Richards when the three first teamed up in 1962. He was the kingpin, but the blues made a brotherhood of the three young musicians. In those hardscrabble days before fame tore them apart, Brian and Keith would spend hours huddled together with their guitars in a dingy, unheated flat they shared with Jagger in London’s Edith Grove. 

They’d riff along to the precious collection of African-American blues and R&B records the three aficionados had amassed. From this emerged the propulsive, tight-yet-fluid  two-guitar style that Keith Richards has ever since called “an ancient form of weaving.”  

“When Brian and I started playing together,” Keef told me, “we were listening to a lot of Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters – the two-guitar thing. The weaving. We did it so much. Which is the way you have to do it. So we knew both parts. You get it to where you get it really flash, and you suddenly switch. The one playing the rhythm picks up the lead, and vice versa.” 

One of the great rhythmic paradigms of rock guitar history, the sound Jones and Richards made together was first committed to tape on March 11, 1963. The Stones’ debut demo session was engineered at London’s IBC Studios by soon to be legendary producer/engineer Glyn Johns (the Beatles, Who, Led Zeppelin, Clapton, etc.). It was immediately clear to Johns who was in charge at that point. 

“Brian was pretty much the leader,” Johns told early Jones biographer Mandy Aftel. “He was certainly the spokesman for the group to me. This was their first recording session and Brian was very much concerned about the sounds that I would produce on tape. He had an exact rhythm and blues sound he wanted – the Jimmy Reed type sound, which was virtually unheard of.”

That murky, mysterious sonic miasma was what made early Stones singles like Tell Me and Time Is on My Side so utterly fascinating when they were first released in 1964. Tone was Jones’ obsession. His guitar contribution to the early Stones oeuvre breaks down into two main areas. For one, there’s his raw, raunchy, open-tuned slide playing on tracks like I’m a King Bee, Mona (I Need You Baby), Grown Up Wrong and Little Red Rooster. 

Secondly, there’s Jones’ co-equal role with Richards in forging the gritty, two-guitar grind of the Stones’ mid-’60s sound. With equal aplomb, Jones could crank out a hooky lead riff on The Last Time or pound out a pumping rhythm on tracks like Satisfaction or 19th Nervous Breakdown. He took a slide to a Rickenbacker 360 12-string electric to create the Middle-Eastern flavored riff on Mother’s Little Helper, doubling Richards, who also played slide on an electric 12-string. 

Jones’ tone-mania led him to acquire new guitars as voraciously as he collected new clothes and new girlfriends. He did much to popularize the Gibson Firebird, which was still quite a new and daring instrument at the time, first introduced in 1963.

But the guitars with which Jones is most closely associated are his two white, teardrop-shaped Vox MK III prototypes, handmade for him by Vox design engineer Mick Bennett. The lute-like body shape was very innovative, and the MK III became a garage band classic as soon as the first production models hit the street in 1964. 

“Brian would hop from instrument to instrument,” Richards told me in 2002. “He was always searching for another sound. As a musician, he was very versatile. He’d be just as happy playing the marimba or bells as he was guitar. Sometimes it was, ‘Oh, make up your mind what sound you’re going to have, Brian!’ ’cause he’d keep changing guitars. He wasn’t one of those guys who say, ‘Right, here’s my axe.’ Brian had so many.”

Despite Jones’ growing alienation from the Stones, he was deeply enthusiastic about the return to basics represented by Mick and Keith’s 1968 song, Jumpin’ Jack Flash. “We’ve been in the studio all morning and we’re going back to rock and roll!,” Jones excitedly told a girlfriend. “They got this Jumpin’ Jack Flash and it’s really great.” 

Indeed, a new era was dawning for the Stones – a return to the primordial blues, R&B, rock ’n’ roll roots they’d first dug into with Jones. It’s nice to think that Jones lived to contribute to the glorious, bluesy rebirth that is the Stones’ 1968 masterpiece, Beggars Banquet. His plaintive slide playing on No Expectations brings the story full circle, returning to the guitar style that had launched Jones’ career. 

The Stones’ longtime producer Jimmy Miller said, “As a musician [Brian] should be remembered for the brilliant bottleneck country guitar work on Beggars Banquet and for his interpretation of the blues played honestly, as a white man.” 

Sadly debilitated by drugs and booze, Jones hung on long enough to strum an autoharp on Keith Richards’ song You’ve Got the Silver on Let It Bleed. Shortly thereafter, in June 1969, Jagger, Richards and Watts fired Jones from the Rolling Stones. 

Less than a month later, he was dead. His passing marked the end of one of the greatest eras in rock music and the career of the Rolling Stones. To this day, his DNA is all over the storied group.

1969-1974, Mick Taylor: Golden boy of the Stones’ golden age

The four-year period that spans Beggars Banquet in 1968 and Exile on Main St. in 1972 is, for many, the absolute zenith of the Stones’ career. Sure, they did amazing work both before and after, but the ’68-’72 period was one of those magical moments when pop culture, the stars and the Stones were all aligned.

A new decade was dawning. Crawling from the wreckage of the ’60s, John Lennon was revisiting his roots in ’50s rock ’n’ roll. Bob Dylan had gone into an introspectively folksy acoustic mode. The Stones had ditched the dandelions and rainbows of the psychedelic era for something more earthy and grounded. 

Meanwhile a new breed of blues-based virtuoso guitarists like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Mike Bloomfield, Peter Green, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and many others had placed amped-up, single-note pentatonic riffing at the forefront of rock music.  

All of which made Mick Taylor a perfect choice to replace Jones. At just 17 years old, Taylor had succeeded Clapton and Green as the guitarist in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers – a band that had set the gold standard for British blues guitar mastery. Mayall himself called Jagger to recommend Taylor. As did Ian Stewart, the erstwhile, and brilliant, Rolling Stones pianist who’d been Jones’ oldest and closest comrade within the Stones’ circle.

Taylor made his recorded debut with the Rolling Stones on their July 1969 single Honky Tonk Women. One of the greatest rock records of all time, it announces the arrival of a triumphant period for the Rolling Stones, with Keef rock solid in his recently discovered five-string open-G tuning and Taylor blazing away in six-string standard. 

But Taylor – a teetotaling vegetarian when he joined the Rolling Stones – never seemed to fit in completely. Several years younger than the other Stones, Taylor would always seem a bit fresh-faced and naive amidst the notorious rock libertines known at the time as “Satan’s Jesters.” 

This mismatched lifestyle stood in stark contrast to the phenomenal musical chemistry going down during this period. Music critic Robert Palmer Jr. summed up the situation quite succinctly: 

“Taylor is the most accomplished musician who ever served as a Stone. A blues guitarist with a jazzman’s flair for melodic invention, Taylor was never a rock and roller and never a showman.”

Taylor made his album debut with the Stones on their 1969 album, Let It Bleed, trading licks with Keef on Live with Me. He also overdubbed slide guitar on Country Honk, taking up the bottleneck role that Brian Jones had abdicated, and slipping into the Stones lineup as Jones slipped away. By the time the Stones released their next album, Sticky Fingers, in 1971, Taylor had been fully integrated into the lineup. 

He and Richards had forged a tight, punchy, two-guitar rhythmic and melodic approach. The way their guitars dart and twine around one another in the intro to Brown Sugar is sheer six-string poetry. Taylor’s spontaneously improvised, Latin-tinged, Gibson ES-345 archtop solo on the outro of Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’ is another landmark Stones guitar moment.

Taylor also notably played a 1961 Gibson SG and 1959 Les Paul with the Stones. He shared Jones’ affection for Gibson Firebirds as well. The Stones were in the midst of an Ampeg amp endorsement when they convened to record their double-disc masterpiece, Exile on Main St. 

That album’s opening track, Rocks Off is another two-guitar Stones classic, replete with a balls-out outro solo from Taylor. He’s a vital part of an album that routinely tops Best Rock Record of All Time lists. 

The live side of Taylor’s work with the Stones was generously captured on disc – the seminal Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out – and on film–the Maysles Brothers’ landmark 1970 documentary, Gimme Shelter, and 1974’s Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones. Post Exile, he played on two more Stones studio albums, Goat’s Head Soup and It’s Only Rock ’n Roll. And then he was gone – his departure taking his fellow Stones and the band’s fans somewhat by surprise. 

“Mick’s a lovely player,” Richards told me. “I never understood why he left. He’s always been a bit restless and a little uneasy inside his skin. But I enjoyed playing with him. I learned a lot from him. We learned a lot about guitar playing from each other. Because he’s another great weaver. His tone and his touch and his melodic ideas wow me. I’d just hoped he would have gone on to bigger and better things than he did. I thought it was an impetuous move.” 

Publicly, Taylor explained his abrupt departure by saying he’d become bored musically and that the enormous entity that is the Rolling Stones had taken his life over. What went unmentioned at the time was that the clean-cut guitarist had also fallen under the spell of Dame Heroin and wanted to get out before flirtation turned to thralldom.  

Tensions had also arisen between Taylor and Richards, as Taylor’s songwriting role within the Stones grew while Keef sank deeper into his own heroin-addicted lethargy. Taylor and Jagger co-wrote Moonlight Mile and Sway from Sticky Fingers and Till the Next Goodbye and Time Waits for No One on It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll, released in 1974. Taylor was especially fond of his guitar solo on the latter track. 

“I think it’s probably the best thing I ever did with the Rolling Stones,” he told GW’s Damian Fanelli in 2012. 

Taylor had expected to receive co-writing credit on those tracks. When he didn’t, the animosity grew. In the middle of a party at rock entrepreneur Robert Stigwood’s home, Taylor informed Jagger that he no longer wished to be a Rolling Stone.  

Of Keith Richards’ three co-guitarists in the Rolling Stones, Taylor’s tenure was the briefest, but, in many regards, the most well-remembered today. While Taylor would go on to do much good work after leaving the group, he’d never again achieve the level of fame he’d attained in the Stones. Much like his predecessor, Brian Jones, he was essentially too much of a blues purist to ride rock ’n’ roll’s roller coaster of fame.  

1975-present, Ronnie Wood: Keeper of the flame

Numerous legendary and respected guitarists were in the running to take Mick Taylor’s place in the Stones. The list includes Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Steve Marriott, Rory Gallagher, Shuggie Otis, Harvey Mandel and Chris Spedding, among others. Many were called, as the saying goes, but only one was chosen. 

There are so many reasons Ronnie Wood has proved to be a perfect match for Keith Richards and the Rolling Stones. He sprang from the same scene as the Stones, playing guitar with a mid-’60s R&B outfit called the Birds (who have absolutely nothing to do with the Byrds, the American band behind Mr. Tambourine Man and Chestnut Mare) and also attending some of the Stones’ earliest gigs at London clubs like the Crawdaddy. So he knew where the Stones were coming from, literally. 

“I was their biggest fan when I joined them,” Wood told me in 1997. “And I still am, while being in the band.” 

Also, unlike both of his predecessors, Wood was no stranger to rock stardom when he first joined the Stones in 1975. Though originally a guitarist, the ever-versatile Wood served as bassist in the Jeff Beck Group, performing on the landmark Beck albums Truth and Beck-Ola and jamming with Jimi Hendrix at the Scene club in New York. From there, Wood had gone on to play guitar with ’70s hitmakers Faces, fronted by former Jeff Beck Group singer Rod Stewart.

So he’d experienced enough of rock ’n’ roll’s fast-lane craziness not to get spooked by the whole thing. In fact, he seemed rather to enjoy it – perhaps a little too much at times. But while he has struggled with addiction issues, Wood has shown much the same uncanny ability to bounce back from oblivion as his Rolling Stones co-guitarist.

Wood made his recording debut with the Stones playing guitar on three tracks from their 1976 album Black and Blue – the funk-inflected Hey Negrita the straight-out rocker Crazy Mama and a cover of the Earl Donaldson reggae classic Cherry Oh Baby (later a hit for UB40).

The Stones were moving in new stylistic directions in the mid-’70s. Wood’s performance on Black and Blue proved that he could go there with them. Musically, he’s the perfect utility man – able to insert himself gracefully into any musical context, as he’s consistently demonstrated over the course of 48 years, 11 studio albums, seven live albums and countless live shows with the Rolling Stones.  

Much like Brian Jones, Wood is a musical chameleon, albeit in a different way. Jones was a multi-instrumentalist; Wood has, for the most part, expressed his own tonal adventurousness within the guitar realm. 

He inherited the Jones/Taylor role of slide guitarist in the Stones, but has expanded on that tonal palette to include lap steel, pedal steel, Dobro and B-benders. A man of many guitars, he’s also versatile and supple on six-string electrics and acoustics in standard tuning. Over the years, he and Richards have developed the kind of intuitive “Vulcan mind meld” approach to guitar arrangement that Keef enjoyed with Jones and Taylor. 

“We just sit down and hack things out,” Wood explained in my ’97 interview. “The great thing about offstage, when Keith and I are together, is that we talk, more or less, through our guitars. We never say, ‘You do this and I’ll do that. I’ll play the riff and you come in and out.’ We weave.”

This approach works very well for Richards too, as he told me in a 1997 interview. “I’m impressed by everything Ronnie does. He’s a great guy to play with. A great guy to hang with. You get two guitars and Ronnie Wood in a room and the rest of the world will go by.”  

Wood’s role within the Rolling Stones is twofold, really. On the one hand, he acts as custodian of the guitar legacy laid down by Jones and Taylor during the Stones’ first dozen or so years. As concerts have come to overshadow albums in the current music industry, this role has been especially crucial – particularly since the departure of the band’s original bassist Bill Wyman and the 2021 passing of Charlie Watts.

“Brian Jones had a very distinctive rhythmic input into the band, which I try and recreate on things like You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” Wood told me. “And on songs like All Down the Line, I try and echo what Mick Taylor did as well. I think that’s part of the song – the melody line he does as a solo.”

But equally important is the role that Wood has played in moving the Stones into the modern era. His guitar work is essential to iconic tracks like Miss You, Beast of Burden and Start Me Up, bringing the Rolling Stones through the disco era and into a new mode of tough, stripped-down contemporary rock classicism that has been their modus operandi ever since – a key ingredient in their phenomenal longevity. 

Latter-day albums like Voodoo Lounge, Steel Wheels and Bridges to Babylon represent a third golden era for the Stones – a triumphant victory lap in which Wood has played no small role. 

He has also manned the bass for tracks like Emotional Rescue and Dance Part 1. The latter song, from 1980’s Emotional Rescue, was also one of Wood’s first co-writing credits with the Stones. 

Credit for songwriting input had been a deal breaker for Mick Taylor, but through patience, perseverance and bonhomie, Wood has been able to gain much-deserved recognition. 

“I spent many years being credited for ‘inspiration’,” he laughed as he told me. “Let’s put it that way. But I didn’t mind waiting. It’s a big nut to crack, that Jagger/Richards songwriting team. I suppose it’s like trying to get a song in with Lennon and McCartney. I like to leave the songwriting for the Stones to Mick and Keith, ’cause they are the institution. But whenever there’s a gap, I’ll gladly offer to fill it. You don’t get anywhere if you don’t try.”

The Rolling Stones’ previous studio album was 2016’s Blue and Lonesome, a down-and-dirty, live-in-the-studio rendition of 12-bar blues classics from legends like Willie Dixon, Little Walter and Jimmy Reed. It’s a loving homage to the music that first inspired the Stones at their inception.

Well more than half a century down the line, the record – and Ronnie Wood’s contribution therein – might well have made the heart of the Stones’ founder Brian Jones swell with pride. The same could be said for Angry, the first single from Hackney Diamonds, which proves that the Stones’ perpetual riff engine is still in fine form. 

The aim of this feature is to focus on many of the concepts employed by five of Great Britain’s best-loved blues guitar players from a hugely important time in contemporary music. 

The so-called British Invasion of the American charts was a cultural phenomenon that kicked off in the early ’60s, spearheaded by bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Herman’s Hermits and others. Prior to this British artists had not really crossed over into the US mainstream. 

The British Blues Boom followed a couple of years later, and this month we have selected five guitar masters from this exciting era to study, each with contrasting styles. 

One thing that these five guitarists have in common is they all served an apprenticeship in either The Yardbirds, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, or both. They used this stint as a launchpad to blast off into the stratosphere with the iconic projects they’d later become best known for. 

The first guitarist we’re looking at is Jeff Beck, who rose to prominence in The Yardbirds before going on to front The Jeff Beck Group. JB has gone from strength to strength, capitalising on his abilities to innovate, compose and a coax new sounds from his Fender Stratocaster. 

His guitar vocabulary is anchored in electric blues, but Jeff has branched out into rock and fusion and has a truly unique approach. During the Invasion years Jeff was a ‘plectrum’ guitarist, but these days he mainly uses his picking-hand thumb to pluck the strings, his fingers manipulating the whammy bar and volume pot in an almost balletic fashion. It really is something to behold.

Second up is Eric Clapton who cultivated an aggressive lead style that was influenced by Freddie King, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and others. Eric would later gain mainstream success by showcasing his vocal and songwriting skills. 

Eric served his time in The Yardbirds before recording the seminal ‘Beano’ Album with John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers. His work with supergroup Cream helped to cement his place as one of the world’s modern guitar legends. 

The third bluesman in our top five is Mick Taylor. Taylor, an exceptionally gifted musician who also played piano and lap steel, served his apprenticeship with Mayall before joining the global phenomenon that is The Rolling Stones. Many say his stint with the band produced some of their best output.

Our fourth choice is the great Jimmy Page. Page began his career as a studio session player in London, before doing his stint with The Yardbirds. When the Yardbirds broke up Jimmy took charge, morphing The ‘New’ Yardbirds into his own creation, Led Zeppelin. Jimmy is a versatile guitarist, master riff writer and producer, and virtually wrote the book on what one should expect from a heavy rock guitarist. 

We finish up with Peter Green, who has a devoted following of blues fans that includes the likes of Noel Gallagher. Peter served his tenure with The Bluesbreakers before founding Fleetwood Mac. His Gibson Les Paul is the stuff of legend. It has its own, unique out-of-phase lead tone and went on to be owned and played by Gary Moore, and more recently found its way to metal legend Kirk Hammett of Metallica.

For each of our artists we have recorded a track consisting of four signature licks so you can pick apart key aspects of each one’s style. The licks are knitted together with a two-bar drum fill so you can make pickup, or volume and tone adjustments on the fly.

Get the tone

Amp settings: Gain 6, Bass 7, Middle 9, Treble 8, Reverb 3

The primary tone used here is just the guitar of choice plugged straight into a Marshall Plexi-style tube amp model, set to a raucous volume. The British blues tone from this era is a pretty straightforward affair. 

Just plug the guitar straight into the amp and turn it up loud. All of the pickup and effects selections are notated at the start of each piece for reference.

Track 1. Jeff Beck style examples 

For these examples, I used my whammy bar-equipped James Tyler Studio Elite with the mid boost circuit engaged to provide a little extra sustain. The picking-hand thumb is used to pluck the strings and this leaves the fingers free to manipulate the whammy bar and volume pot.

EXAMPLE 1 – Bottleneck Slide Jeff is a master of the blues slide and has several placed around the stage when playing live. Our example uses some classic, blues style phrasing. The picking-hand fingers provide good string crossing facility and great warm tone. 

EXAMPLE 2 – Faux Slide Jeff almost constantly manipulates the whammy bar to create vocal and slide style phrases. This example is a version of Example 1 but played without the slide. The natural harmonics work particularly well with the whammy bar as the notes tend to sustain better than fretted ones. 

EXAMPLE 3 – Whammy Bar Scoops Scooping into notes with the whammy bar is a classic Jeff Beck trick and adds a sophisticated quality to the delivery. Simply depress the bar prior to picking the note and then, as you strike the note, let the bar go back up to pitch. The fourth finger can also be used to ‘swell’ the volume pot. 

EXAMPLE 4 – Playing Whammy Bar Melodies  Playing melodies using the whammy bar will take practice in order to get all the notes in tune. Sustain is key so this tends to work best on open-string notes and harmonics. Use fretted target tones to check the tuning, and practise what pressure is needed to create each note. 

Track 2. Eric Clapton style examples

For these examples I used my Tokai Love Rock with the bridge pickup selected and the tone rolled off. 

EXAMPLE 1 – Using Repeating Patterns A classic Clapton trick is to use a three-note repeating phrase and place it in a four-note, semiquaver framework.
This provides a cool rhythmic effect as the three-note pattern shifts to different parts of the bar as it repeats. Playing live with Cream, Eric could really stretch this out!

EXAMPLE 2 – String Bending In Box 1 Eric loves to link mini phrases to create longer, improvised lines. Shape 1 of the Minor Pentatonic is easy to finger and places the notes so that the string bends happen in musical places. The idea is to bend from one scale tone to the next, so practise with the target tone first.

EXAMPLE 3 – Woman Tone Eric discovered ‘woman tone’ by selecting either pickup and rolling the tone control right down. With a bit of experimentation you should be able to find a spot where the tone has boosted middle frequencies and more sustain. Eric used this in Cream songs such as We’re Going Wrong.

EXAMPLE 4 – Mixing Minor and Major Pentatonics Clapton is fantastic at seamlessly moving between the Major and Minor Pentatonic scales. In this example we start out in A Minor Pentatonic territory and then switch to A Major Pentatonic scale for the final bar.

Track 3. Mick Taylor style examples 

For these examples I used my Tokai Love Rock’s bridge pickup. I switched my wah-wah pedal on and left it in one position to provide that signature ‘honky’ tone (also loved by Santana). Slowly rock the wah-wah pedal treadle back and fourth as you play until you find the sweet spot, then leave it be.  

EXAMPLE 1 – Using High String Bends Playing phrases in the higher register can provide ear-catching results. Here a high string bend is re-picked in a catchy rhythm. This idea can be recycled in various positions, styles and keys, using any rhythm you like. 

EXAMPLE 2 – Phrasing In Box 1 This lick features a tried and tested Mick Taylor Pentatonic pattern. Mick plays the Minor Pentatonic scale descending in a triplet rhythm. Each time the next note is missed out, and this provides a cascading effect.

EXAMPLE 3 – Mixing Minor and Major Pentatonics Here we revisit the concept of mixing the Major and Minor Pentatonic scales, this time starting with the Major Pentatonic. Any Minor 3rd notes (C in this example) will sound best if they are bent slightly sharp in a blues ‘curl’.

EXAMPLE 4 – Octave Riff Work To finish off our Mick Taylor licks we are adding some weight to the backing riff by shifting it up an octave. Double-stops are a great way to fill out or beef up the sound. To add that bluesy touch these can be bent slightly sharp too.

Track 4. Jimmy Page style examples

In The Yardbirds Jimmy Page mostly played a Fender Telecaster (as did both Clapton and Beck), and Teles created many if not most of the sounds on Led Zeppelin 1. However, as Page is most strongly associated with a Gibson Les Paul, again I chose my Tokai Love Rock to create our Jimmy tones.

EXAMPLE 1 – Slow Blues Jimmy has recorded some classic slow blues tracks and this example is inspired by songs like I Can’t Quit You Baby and Since I’ve
Been Loving You. The unison bends in bar 6 are a great way to add some extra texture and a bit of voodoo to the presentation. 

EXAMPLE 2 – Using Pentatonic Patterns A favourite Page move is to play Minor Pentatonic ‘cells’ in a ‘groups of three’ pattern. Once this pattern is
mastered it can be repeated ascending or descending for as long as you like. This example is inspired by Jimmy’s lead work on the first Led Zeppelin album. 

EXAMPLE 3 – Big String Bends Big interval leaps have an ear-grabbing quality, and Jimmy’s huge string bends regularly cash in on this. We start this lick with a four-fret (two-tone) bend from 13th to the17th fret on the second string. It’s worth warming up before trying this one.

EXAMPLE 4 – Following The Chords Following the chord progression with the lead line adds a more sophisticated quality. Here the F note in bar 22 is outside the A Minor Pentatonic scale, but landing on it fits in with the F Major chord perfectly. 

Track 5. Peter Green style examples

Yet again for these examples I used my Tokai Love Rock. The guitar is equipped with the same pickup modification as Peter Green’s famous Les Paul so that classic out-of-phase tone can be dialed in by selecting both pickups and turning the bridge pickup volume pot to 10, and the neck volume pot down to 8. 

EXAMPLE 1 – Use Of Chromatic Notes For this first lick we’re referencing some classic BB King style lines, as Peter was a huge BB fan and gleaned many
ideas from the master. The chromatic notes (notes outside the A Minor Pentatonic scale) help to link the notes together while adding a colourful edge. 

EXAMPLE 2 – Navigating The IV Chord A key element of playing blues is navigating the chords. To do this most blues guitarists will have an arsenal of licks that fit the I, IV and V chords. Here’s a classic PG lick to negotiate the IV chord (D7) Targeting the C# in bar 11 really brings us home to chord I (A7). 

EXAMPLE 3 – Turnaround 1 It’s worth having a few turnaround licks up your sleeve so we have recorded two. This first one takes each chord in turn to make sure each tonality is outlined. If you play a great turnaround lick without the backing you should still be able to hear the changes go by. 

EXAMPLE 4 – Turnaround 2 This second turnaround lick can also be used as an ending, or even an intro. Again it’s worth noting that any Minor 3rd notes (C in this case) will sound best if they are bent up a quarter tone sharp for that typical blues ‘curl’. 

lt’s always a happy day when we get to venture into Dan and Mick’s abode – the gear-packed studio where they film their incredibly popular videos on tone, guitars, amps and effects for That Pedal Show. 

As well as being essential YouTube viewing for guitarists, the duo keep themselves extremely busy with Experience Days, in which fans come to learn more about effects direct from Dan and Mick, plus gigging with stellar artists such as Andy Timmons and hunting down exciting new effects in every corner of the globe. 

Who better, then, to get round the table to talk about some of the most iconic pedals of all time…

This year is the 60th anniversary of the first fuzz pedal, the Maestro FZ-1. What’s the greatest fuzz pedal that followed this, in your opinion?

Mick Taylor: “For me, it’s the Fuzz Face because, as you know, they’re all descended from the same thing. When the FZ-1 hit, the whole world cottoned on to it and that begat the Tone Bender, which then became the Fuzz Face, and then in and out we go. 

“And yet things were no different then than they are now: something cool comes out and every company jumps on the bandwagon. So whether it was Dallas Arbiter in London, or Vox or Marshall, or John Hornby Skewes in the North, they all want to make their version of this thing. 

“So, for me, of course it’s the Fuzz Face because of Jimi, but actually it’s probably the [John Hornby Skewes] Zonk Machine. Because it adds this slightly weird octave thing and having known John Hornby Skews and loads of people that have worked there over the years… to think this iconic fuzz came out of this place in the north of England, just because they needed to jump on a bandwagon. 

“And yet it created all this history afterwards – it’s just a magic, magic story. But I’m a massive Doyle Bramhall fan [a present-day Zonk Machine user] and I love people who’ve used it. So it’s actually the Zonk Machine for me.”

Dan Steinhardt: “The tricky thing is, I love all of the paths [that fuzz evolved along]. If you think of the iconic sounds that have been created by all the variants – by the Big Muff variants, the Tone Benders – they’ve all had a special place. That said, I always come back to my Analog Man Sun Face, which is simply a Fuzz Face with an external bias control. That’s the one in my rig that just works. I’ve tried to get away from it, but I always come back to it.

“There’s something really magical about the simplicity of that circuit, and that you can tweak that circuit ever so slightly one way or another [with the bias control] and you have a different animal. So, yeah, just that circuit itself is so magic and so pliable, the way it works with the sensitivity of the instrument.”

Why should we care about fuzz? It’s not amp-like or like the natural voice of the guitar.

Dan: “Fuzz is a journey. And, for me, it’s like the blues. When you start playing guitar, you learn your first little bit of blues, right? And then, a year further down your journey, you’ll play the blues a bit differently, and then five years down the journey as your sensitivity as a musician grows, you’ll play the blues very differently. 

“Fuzz is the same thing. Because if you’re just starting out on your journey, it doesn’t make a lot of sense – it doesn’t sound like a guitar, it’s just a mess. But a really sensitive fuzz is such a dynamic effect and it doesn’t make any sense until you develop sensitivity in your guitar playing. 

“That’s when it comes into its own: when you have your own inflections, your own vibrato and your own dynamics, the fuzz will take all that and just make it an instrument unto itself.”

Is the Tube Screamer the greatest overdrive pedal of all time? Discuss…

Mick: “I think yes, with a caveat. And the caveat is, it arrived at a particular point in history where it was required. So the most popular amps of the day, particularly in the US, were high‑powered Fender types of amp. By the time the Tube Screamer comes along in ’78, Fender had gone from those tweed amps in the late ’50s through the black-panel amps of the mid-’60s into the silver-panel amps of the late ’60s. 

“And what happened all along that curve is they got louder, they got cleaner, they got more anodyne-sounding and the mids got more and more scooped out because of the design of the amp. 

“That was all happening in parallel with people discovering that a cranked Marshall is really brilliant, which, of course, happens as early as the mid-’60s. Clapton kicks it off with his Bluesbreaker, then we go into Hendrix and all of the great classic rock of the ’70s. And that’s a really thick, meaty, brilliant rock sound. 

“But everyone who wasn’t using cranked Marshalls ended up with something like a silver-panel Fender. Well, guess what happens when you put a Tube Screamer into that? It puts back all of that midrange and lovely stuff that the cranked Marshall has got.

“And I just think that it enabled guitar players to revisit some of the things that were really great about some of those earlier cranked amps. Of course, it also gave the Strat the lift it needed and gave birth to that whole generation of mid-boosty, vocal lead tones. In fairness, though, you’d have to say the Boss OD-1 was also in that mix as well.”

Dan: “Also, think of the metal guys that have used absolutely cranked Marshalls in the studio. What they needed was a little bit of bass cut and a little bit of that mid-push, and they got that with a Tube Screamer. So it’s been the basis of so many of those heavy tones, too.” 

Do you think there’s a meaningful sonic difference between the different TS models?

Mick: “I’ve got TS9s and 808s that sound almost identical. And I’ve got 808s that sound very different to each other… so is it the op-amp that makes all the difference or the other component tolerances? So you’re fretting about whether it’s the JRC4558D chip or something else and that’s making one Tube Screamer however many per cent different [from another]. 

“But then if you plug your Tube Screamer into a Twin followed by a Marshall you’ll hear, like, a 99 per cent difference [laughs]. So where is the difference? Having said that, I have one Tube Screamer that is by far my favourite. But I don’t really understand, necessarily, why that is.”

What are your favourite TS-inspired pedals and Tube Screamer clones by other makers?

Mick: “Hudson Sidecar. Without any shadow of a doubt for me. He [Michael Hudson] just did a great job of putting some stuff on there that addresses some of the issues you might have with your Tube Screamer on certain days, like bottom-end response, a bit more attack. 

“Which you could well argue makes it no Tube Screamer any more, but I fundamentally cannot see the point of me-too designs in any part of life. So I would say Hudson Sidecar. Dan lent ours to Ed O’Brien and I miss it greatly [laughs]. But I also love the Wampler Paisley Drive. Working with Brad Paisley, Brian [Wampler] put in a bunch of stuff – so it will do a spot-on TS and it will then do everything you wished your TS would do to either side. It is a fabulous pedal.”

Dan: “We had Kirk Fletcher in years ago, at the old studio, and he kicked on a pedal and it just sounded amazing. And he said, ‘That’s the Jam Pedals Lucydreamer.’ I really like it because it’s got less compression and less humped midrange – so in my setup it’s the one that I liked the most. For some of us, it is the one Tube Screamer variant that does work. And whenever I’ve heard that pedal, it’s always been really standout.”

What do you think are the most underrated overdrives out there?

Dan: “The one that I’d choose is the Keeley Filaments. Years ago in Germany, we did a video with Robert Keeley and I hadn’t seen this thing before I kicked it on – and I thought it sounded absolutely amazing. 

“Whenever we’ve used one on the show, you can dial it in to sound flippin’ fantastic. And yet I never see them out there. It’s a really great alternative to a [Boss] Metal Zone – it’ll give you all that thud and thump and the aggression that you want but without being fizzy. Really amazing.”

Mick: “It’s the Thorpy Warthog for me. First off, everything Thorpy makes is stellar – the way they manufacture, that commitment to really high-quality through whole design. You know, we talked a lot about fuzz earlier. Well, there are a lot of people who really love distortion but struggle with fuzz, and the Warthog straddles those two things beautifully. It can do the late-’60s, slightly heavy distortion, on-the-edge-of-fuzz sounds and you can dial it back from there. 

“If I’m ever looking for a sound that’s got a bit more aggression but still plenty of gain and I don’t want to go full-on fuzz – because sometimes it can be hard to deal with – then it’s The Warthog every time. Just a great, really interesting point between distortion and fuzz. It seems to work with pretty much any amp, too.” 

When it comes to legendary pedals – and infamously valuable ones – you can’t avoid the Klon Centaur. Why is it such a big deal? 

Dan: “The first part of why you should care about it is because, apart from the diodes in it, everything else is off the shelf: simple [componentry]. The genius is in the design and the amount of headroom in it… it’s such a clever design. It goes to show that if you’ve got a really great design, you don’t have to have ‘hen’s teeth’ components.

“But, again, I had a Klon back in the day and I never got on with it. Same thing with a Tube Screamer. I actually had two Klons: bought one, friend lent one to me and said, ‘Let me know if you wanna buy this…’ and I tried it and thought I must have missed a trick. But then later I bought another one and it just didn’t connect with me. However, when I hear Mick with his Klon and a Fuzz Face into a Two-Rock, it’s hands down, easily in the top five guitar sounds I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s absolutely astonishing.”

Mick: “Actually, I think no-one should care about the Klon and the prices should fall dramatically and everyone should put them on eBay [laughs]. I mean, is a ’59 ’Burst a fantastic guitar? Yes, of course it is. Is it worth a million dollars? Yeah, it’s worth that as an investment. But is it worth it as a musical instrument? Dunno. Same as a Klon. 

“You know, the prices that people are paying for them are ridiculous. But if the cash stays in it as an investment, that sort of cancels the monetary argument out. Is it worth it as an investment? Yes. Musically? Dunno. 

“Sonically, it’s important in a number of ways. One, it was a watershed time for effects pedals in that here comes somebody who built something in the true boutique style. It had a custom case, it had this incredible approach to hand-wiring and construction that hadn’t been seen in pedals for some time. And it, along with a handful of other pedals, heralds the beginning of the boutique pedal world… 

“So it’s an important turning point, historically, which is why you should care about it. Whether you like the sound of it or not, alongside everything else, is entirely subjective. I happen to love the sound it helps make in my rig, and in David Grissom’s rig – not that there’s any comparison there!

“It’s the classic ‘more’ pedal. It focuses [your tone] up, sharpens it, carves off a bit of bass, and gives you a bit of bite somewhere between 3k and 4k. But it also does that really important 1k mid-kick, which is the bit where you get feedback. And guess what? It sounds brilliant with Strats, too. So I think it’s as important historically as it is sonically; the value is… like anything else that has stupid value.”

Dan: “But also when you look at an original Klon, it is beautiful – it absolutely is art. And the reason, as far as I’m aware, that Bill [Finnegan] stopped making it wasn’t because he couldn’t get components. It wasn’t because he couldn’t get boards or whatever; it was because they couldn’t make the cases the way he wanted to make them, and that was so important to him. Because you look at that thing, it is so stunning the way that thing is made, and that was as important to him as any other aspect of it.”  

Back in 2013, Ronnie Wood gathered some famous friends – including the likes of Paul Weller, Bobby Womack and Wood's predecessor in the Rolling Stones' second guitar slot, Mick Taylor – together for a live tribute to blues guitar pioneer Jimmy Reed at London's Royal Albert Hall.

Wood recently announced that, as the second album in a planned trilogy of live LPs celebrating Wood's musical influences – following 2019's tribute to Chuck Berry, Mad Lad – he'd release a recording of the concert as Mr. Luck – A Tribute To Jimmy Reed: Live at the Royal Albert Hall.

We've heard some spirited selections from the album already, and now, we've been treated to two more rollicking covers from that fateful night, Shame Shame Shame and Roll and Rhumba.

The Ronnie Wood Band's version of Shame, Shame, Shame (a staple of early Stones setlists) features Weller on vocals, while their explosive interpretation of the instrumental Roll and Rhumba features Taylor's sweetly stinging lead electric guitar work.

Other covers on the album – which is set for a September 17 release via BMG – include versions of Reed classics like Baby What You Want Me to Do, Let's Get Together and Bright Lights Big City.

“Jimmy Reed was one of the premier influences on the Rolling Stones and all the bands that love American blues from that era until the present day,” Wood said in a statement. “It is my honor to have the opportunity to celebrate his life and legacy with this tribute.”

You can check out Mr. Luck's cover art and track list below. To preorder the album, head on over to Wood's website.

The Ronnie Wood Band – Mr. Luck - A Tribute to Jimmy Reed: Live at the Royal Albert Hall:

1. Essence
2. Good Lover
3. Mr. Luck
4. Let’s Get Together
5. Ain’t That Loving You Baby
6. Honest I Do
7. High & Lonesome
8. Baby What You Want Me To Do
9. Roll and Rhumba
10. You Don’t Have To Go
11. Shame Shame Shame
12. I’m That Man Down There
13. Got No Where To Go
14. Big Boss Man
15. I Ain’t Got You
16. I’m Going Upside Your Head
17. Bright Lights Big City
18. Ghost of a Man

The Learn Slide Guitar DVD is available now at the Guitar World Online Store.

It's the ultimate DVD instructional guide to playing slide guitar like a pro. The disc, which was designed for beginning-to-intermediate guitar players, contains more than two hours of lessons that will help you play in open and standard tunings, learn slide scales for soloing in all keys, plus improvising, open-tuning chord forms, muting, vibrato, Delta and electric blues and more.

The Learn Slide Guitar DVD contains:

Chapter 1: Introduction

• Performance/DVD Objectives
• Wearing the Slide: What Finger?
• String Action/String Gauge
• Picking: Fingers vs. Pick
• Slide Types/Materials

Chapter 2: Open E Tuning

• Open E Tuning: E B E G# B E
• Chord Forms in Open E Tuning
• Slide Scales for Soloing
• Slide Positioning/Intonation
• Right-and Left-Hand Muting Techniques
• Expanding Basic Scale Position
• Using Open Strings
• E Major Pentatonic
• E Major Hexatonic
• Medium-Slow Shuffle, Elmore James Style
• Medium-Slow Shuffle, Johnny Winter Style
• E Shuffle, a la Robert Johnson
• Duane Allman Style
• Ry Cooder Style
• Derek Trucks Style

Chapter 3: Open D Tuning

• Open D Tuning: D A D F# A D
• Johnny Winter Style

Chapter 4: Open A Tuning

• Open A Tuning: E A E A C# E
• Chord Forms in Open A Tuning
• Slide Scales for Soloing
• Using Open Strings
• John Lee Hooker Style
• Johnny Winter Style
• Robert Johnson/Sleepy John Estes Style
• Muddy Waters Style

Chapter 5: Open G Tuning

• Open G Tuning: D G D G B D
• Slide Scales for Soloing
• Muddy Waters/Johnny Winter Style
• Keith Richards Style
• Mick Taylor Style

Chapter 6: Standard Tuning

• Slide Scales for Soloing
• Slow Blues in E, Robert Nighthawk Style
• Earl Hooker/Wah-Wah Slide Style
• a la "Statesboro Blues"

Chapter 7: Vibrato

Chapter 8: Standard Tuning with a Twist

• Stevie Ray Vaughan's G String up One Half Step to G#

For more about this exclusive DVD, visit the Guitar World Online Store.

While it was rumored that Keith Richards was going to make a surprise appearance, Rolling Stones guitarists Ronnie Wood and Mick Taylor demonstrated that they were perfectly fine without him as they ripped through more than an hour's worth of gritty blues at an 11 p.m. show at the Cutting Room in New York City Saturday night, November 9.

Focusing primarily on the catalog of Mississippi electric blues pioneer Jimmy Reed, the tight-but-loose band, featuring keyboardist Al Kooper, Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke and two bassists (electric and upright), occasionally sounded like the classic Exile On Main Street-era Stones. But more often they recalled the earthy stomp of the great electric Chess bands from the Fifties, playing Reed classics such as “Big Boss Man” and “Bright Lights, Big City.”

During most of the evening, Wood and Taylor locked in on rhythm parts that were different, but complimentary, as they snaked and slithered around each other, avoiding lengthy solos in favor of tasty fills and sharp statements that would’ve made the economical Reed proud.

More often than not, the comically animated Wood, who sang and stood center stage, let his array of harmonicas do the majority of the soloing as he demonstrated his surprisingly fluid chops on the blues harp.

Fans of Taylor’s great solos on such Stones classics as “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and “Ventilator Blues” weren’t completely shut out. Taylor unleashed his signature vibrato and flurries of notes on his sunburst Les Paul several times during the intimate show on songs like “I Ain’t Got You” and two instrumentals.

Wood also thrilled his diehard guitar fans by breaking out his classic black, three-pickup Zemaitis guitar from his Faces days for some lethal slide licks throughout the night.

Yes, it would’ve been grand to see Keef mix it up in a club setting with the two guitarists, but no one was complaining when the show ended well past midnight. Ronnie and Mick, as New Yorkers would say, “aren’t exactly chopped liver,” and the heartfelt performance that paid tribute to one of their heroes made the late-night show one of the best and most memorable of the year.

Brad Tolinksi is the editor-in-chief of Guitar World magazine.

Last night, the Rolling Stones performed at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Once again, they were joined by their former lead guitarist, Mick Taylor.

The band and Taylor played "Sway," "Midnight Rambler," "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," the classic Sticky Fingers track. You can check out a fan-filmed video of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" — complete with Taylor's lengthy solo — below.

As is always the case with fan-filmed video, we apologize in advance about the quality. (Actually, the picture quality and sound are decent this time around!)

This past Friday night, the Rolling Stones kicked off the 2013 version of their ongoing 50 and Counting Tour at LA's Staples Center.

Surprise guest stars have become the norm during recent Stones shows, with Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor joining the band on different nights in late 2012. So it wasn't a total surprise when Taylor, the former Rolling Stones guitarist, joined the band for "Midnight Rambler." Taylor brought along the same Bigsby-equipped Les Paul he's been seen with lately.

Be sure to check out Taylor's guest appearance below. Other guests May 3 guests included Keith Urban and No Doubt's Gwen Stefani.

P.S.: We've also thrown in a bonus video of the Stones playing "Emotional Rescue" from the same night. Check out the Stones' entire May 3 set list below.

"Get Off of My Cloud" / "The Last Time" / "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)" / "Paint It, Black" / "Gimme Shelter" / "Wild Horses" (with Gwen Stefani) / "Factory Girl" / "Emotional Rescue" / "Respectable" (with Keith Urban) / "Doom and Gloom" / "One More Shot" / "Honky Tonk Women" / "Before They Make Me Run" / "Happy" / "Midnight Rambler" (with Mick Taylor) / "Miss You" / "Start Me Up" / "Tumbling Dice" / "Brown Sugar" / "Sympathy for the Devil" / ENCORE: "You Can't Always Get What You Want" / "Jumpin' Jack Flash" / "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

This past Sunday night at London's O2 Arena, The Rolling Stones performed the first of five 50th-anniversary shows, which are scheduled through December 15.

Several guest stars joined the band that night, including Jeff Beck (who was offered a chance to be in the Stones at one point) and former Stones Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor, who brought along a Bigsby-equipped, vintage Les Paul.

Below, you can check out a fan-shot video of Taylor performing "Midnight Rambler" with the band. The best-known version of the song can be found on the Stones' 1970 live album, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out, which featured Taylor on lead guitar.

The Stones are scheduled to play four more shows celebrating their 50th anniversary, including one in London on November 29, one in Brooklyn at the Barclays Center (December 8) and two in Newark, New Jersey (December 13 and 15).

You can see Beck's guest appearance with the Stones here; they performed "Going Down," a Don Nix song that Beck recorded in 1972.

The band recently released a new greatest-hits package, GRRR!, which included two new songs recorded in Paris earlier this year, "One More Shot" and "Doom and Gloom."

Former Rolling Stones guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Mick Taylor will make a rare New York City appearance for a week of shows at Iridium from May 9 to 14.

The final night, May 14, will mark the launch of "Guitar World & The Iridium Present," a new monthly series highlighting the world's best guitarists performing with The Les Paul Trio.

Tickets are on sale today, with an exclusive pre-sale available to fans of Iridium on Facebook.

Taylor, ranked No. 37 on Rolling Stone's list of the Top 100 Guitarists of All Time, was in The Rolling Stones from 1969 to 1974 and appears on the classic Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. albums.

He came to the band as a 20-year-old, following several years with John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers. After his time with the Stones, he went on to perform with everyone from Bob Dylan to Percy Sledge, even rejoining The Bluesbreakers for a tour in the early '80s.

At the Iridium, Taylor will perform with an all-star band featuring Max Middleon (keyboards), Wilbur Bascomb (bass), Bernard "Pretty" Purdie (drums) and Jon Paris (guitar/vocals). For the May 14 Guitar World & The Iridium Present show, Taylor will be joined by Middleton and The Les Paul Trio.

Since Les Paul's death in 2009, his Trio -- guitarist Lou Pallo, bassist Nicki Parrott and pianist John Colianni -- has carried on his legacy, performing every Monday night with special guests that have included guitar heroes from a variety of genres, including Jeff Beck, Steve Miller, Ted Nugent and Robert Randolph.

IridiumLive, the club's new label launching April 3, will capture the magic of these and other performances at Iridium with its HD 32-track studio. The first release, A Jazz Tribute to Les, features the Trio performing with Nels Cline of Wilco, Stanley Jordan, Bucky Pizzarelli and Jane Monheit.

In Les' honor, Iridium seeks to balance established stars like Taylor with cutting-edge guitarists like Wayne Krantz, who will perform with the Trio April 9 and celebrate his record release at the club April 12 to 15. A portion of the door from each Les Paul Monday show goes to benefit The Les Paul Foundation, which pays tribute to Paul's memory by supporting music education, engineering and innovation.

WHO: Mick Taylor
WHAT: "Guitar World & The Iridium Present" Series Launch
WHERE: Iridium, 1650 Broadway at 51st Street, New York City
WHEN: 8 and 10 p.m. May 9 to 14
TICKETS: theiridium.com

For a complete calendar of events at Iridium, visit Iridium's calendar page.