: Rolling Stones - “Sticky Fingers.”
Released in 1971, this album marked the official debut of new lead guitarist Mick Taylor into the Stones’ lineup, a change that made “Sticky Fingers” the most guitar-intense record in the group’s history.
From the locomotive force of “Brown Sugar” and “Bitch” on to the sinister guitar lines of “Sister Morphine,” all the way to the pure acoustic shine of “Wild Horses” and Delta blues of “You Gotta Move,” Taylor and Keith Richards covered a wide range of guitar territory that encompassed hard rock, country, blues, and even a little jazz.
Taylor shines on the quasi-Latin break in “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and on “Moonlight Mile” (which he cowrote), proving that he was the right man for the job after Brian Jones had been tossed out. Trading riffs and solos, Richards and Taylor were the best guitar duo the Stones ever produced, and this was their finest album together.
: Keith Richards - “Life.” An Autobiography.
Richards’ long-awaited book, “Life,” is now in bookstores, and the Stones’ guitarist is getting rave reviews for telling it like it is - and was. From his take on fellow guitarists like Mick Taylor, Ronnie Wood, and Eric Clapton to his own relationship with the guitar - along with his life of excess - Keef doesn’t leave anything out of this book. A great read.http://tiny.cc/rfjkc
This Could Be The Last Time: Mick Taylor and Bill Wyman joined their former Rolling Stones bandmates at the O2 Arena in London as part of the Stones’ 50th Anniversary show. Taylor cut loose on “Midnight Rambler” while Wyman came in for “It’s Only Rock & Roll” and “Honky Tonk Women.” Jeff Beck also sat in Keef and Ronnie Wood for a version of “I’m Going Down.”
:Gibson S-1- “Ron Wood” Advert 1977.
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Gibson’s S-1 was a guitar that tried to find a niche and couldn’t quite succeed. Created in the late 1970s when the guitar company was owned by Norlin, the S-1 was a hybrid’s hybrid. Featuring three single-coil pickups, a four-position chicken head phase selector switch- plus a toggle switch- but only one tone and one volume knob, and a bolt on the neck, the guitar seemed like an attempt to create an American guitar to outdo the Teisco Spectrum.
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The guitar was sold from 1976 to 1980, but despite getting Ron Wood on board as an endorsee- he had just taken over Mick Taylor’s spot in The Rolling Stones- almost no one was interested in a Gibson that tried to be a Fender by way of Tokyo. It eventually suffered the same ignoble fate as a similarly designed and marketed Gibson, the Marauder.
