- Edited
Mick Taylor as a Rolling Stone (1969-74) by GimmeMTguy
Part 1: A Big Task: Reviewing Every Rolling Stones Show of the Mick Taylor Era
Overview
It is daunting to take on the task of listening to every available performance of Mick Taylor while he was a member of the Rolling Stones.
Of course it will be enjoyable, but it is also weighty because of the embedded history of having listened to so much of this music over now so many decades.
In trying to come to my listening with fresh ears, I also want to be able to use what has transpired since to provide some meaningful context. Separating my own reactions now from what they have been over the past 50+ years, and conveying the difference between today's reactions and yesterday's will be hard.
It is really important for me to note that I would probably prefer listening to the worst of 1000 Mick Taylor live performances than almost anything else out there. That being said, no one wants to read overly effusive, uncritical, un-nuanced reviews of show after show.
We may want to promote the musicians we love, but it does no favors to only spout positive generalities, even about musical geniuses.
The most important thing as an advocate is to earn credibility. Earning credibility with the reader requires being honest and balanced.
My reviews are written on the basis that average means the average of the group being judged. The average Rolling Stones performance with Mick Taylor is extremely high.
Thus, an average performance may be pretty great, but it still is in the middle of the pack of the relevant group of performances. And yes, half of the performances will, by definition, be below average!
Since I am not trying to write a lot of negative things about something so wonderful, an absence of commentary might indicate there wasn't anything especially outstanding about a performance of a song to render it above average compared to the rest of them.
Thoughts at the Outset
A lot has been written by professional journalists as well as music fans over the years about the Rolling Stones' 1969 tour and thereafter.
Yet I have not come across a comprehensive show-by-show discussion of any of the tours.
The few attempts I have seen usually just discuss a couple of the famous, officially-released or highly bootlegged shows, and address the rest of the tour with pictures of the band or bootleg covers.
My focus obviously is on Mick Taylor's contribution to these famous shows, and his era, not the entire band's performances.
But it needs to be said up-front: I love everything Charlie Watts plays (played -- to borrow a phrase, "Charlie Watts we miss you!")
My foot always subconsciously taps to his beat even when listening to Indian Girl or some other misbegotten song in the band's incredibly long and productive career.
I love everything Bill Wyman played on the bass. His melodic, very British style wrote the book on harmony and melody as the third guitar in a two-guitar band. The Rolling Stones do not sound as good since he left in 1993.
Keith Richards is my original guitar hero and nothing any of the other Rolling Stones could have played would be as good, or even noticed, perhaps, if Keith had not been playing on them (or at least associated with them, as there were some great Stones songs he did not actually play on or co-write).
Mick Jagger takes a lot of guff from many fans, as well as band members themselves. He's the decider in chief, and without his "uncool" leadership skills and brain for business there would have not been a Rolling Stones in the 1970s or later.
As much as Keith is cooler for guys to emulate, we all secretly love Mick Jagger's voice, persona and songwriting. Without him, we have The X-pensive Winos. As much as I love the Winos, they are not a cultural influence like the Rolling Stones have been.
I remember as a young boy, my Top-40 radio stations in the late 60s and early 70s called them "Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones." And that's what they truly are.
But they are 100 times better together, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and they learned that the hard way in the mid-late 80s.
So my focus on Mick Taylor is not because I lack respect or appreciation for the other four Rolling Stones while Mick Taylor was a member (or for Brian Jones who left and died while I was a wee lad or Ronnie Wood who succeeded Mick Taylor).
It is because his musical contribution was a distinctive part of a crucial era of the Rolling Stones, and one which continues to be seen as such decades later (and will be well into the future).
And because it moves me personally at a different level.
And because his joining the already established for 7 years, rich, internationally famous and culturally significant band when he was just age 20 is alone a fascinating story.
Review Process
My review process for the live recordings of the Stones of the Mick Taylor era is to proceed chronologically, show-by-show, song-by-song.
For the early shows in a tour, I will try to explain things about the songs' arrangements. As we progress, I will try not to be too repetitive, skipping writing much if anything about songs where Mick Taylor does not play (Prodigal Son), or where he is simply playing his style of rhythm throughout an entire song.
We all know and cannot erase what we already know happened by the end of each tour -- the incredible tightness of the band and a virtuoso lead guitar player having honed his improvisations into near human perfection.
So I will try to acknowledge progress toward certain touchstones as they occur over time.
I also will not be trying to review how entire shows stand-up again entire tours -- this is not a "what's the best show of the 1969 tour" type of review. Although it will be hard not to say so when we hit those shows!
In short, my reviews are written first for my own use and reference in the future.
Second, they are written to be something fans with my particular taste will someday stumble upon and say "OMG, this is exactly what I would have written myself!"
Hopefully some readers will become curious and listen along to shows while they read. I would love to be able to read someone else's song-by-song descriptions while I listen. Maybe someday.
Finally, this IS an open site for comments, and I hope some small number of folks will be moved to disagree with my opinions and descriptions, add and expand upon what I am writing by writing and posting themselves.
It would especially great to have the insights of an actual musician. I am not one, although I many years ago I did pick up a guitar and try for a few months. My musical vocabulary is limited and maybe even erroneous at times.
Having been involved heavily in the online Stones world for 30 years, I know that for every person who writes something, there are at least a thousand who will read it, so there is a large drop-off from reading to writing.
But that's OK, anyone who writes wants people to read it. So we need "lurkers" in this ecosystem and I certainly am a lurker myself in many areas of interest outside of the Rolling Stones and Mick Taylor universes.
We do, though, want to encourage others to express their opinions, as our views are simply our own and not the whole story by any means.
dbboots