Human…….riff…….999 takes a pause

There's some great guitar work across the albums he played on. Winter and Time Waits For No One come to mind. The Get Yer Ya Yas album is incredible and Taylor is a big reason why. But he's just one piece of the puzzle. The Stones at the time depended a lot on other players. Across the early seventies, Nicky Hopkins, Billy Preston, and Bobby Keys all made incredible and integral contributions to the songs and sounds. I think Taylor deserves to be lumped more in with them, part of the amazing supporting cast. The band rushed to make him a full time member to replace Brian Jones and keep the image of the 5 piece rock group but it looks like he was never really part of that inner circle.

Now, Ronnie Wood? The man was living like a Rolling Stone in waiting! I've Got My Own Album To Do, in addition to being an excellent album, is a perfect transitional point between the Stones and Faces. And when Taylor left, the Stones were rightly cautious to simply replace him. I'm sure the fact that Woody was still in a group factored in strongly too, but hiring him simply for the '75 tour instead of offering him a full time position out the gate made a lot more sense. And of course, he fucking nailed it. He plays his ass off on that tour. And his contributions are very clearly felt on Black And Blue (where applicable, particularly Hey Negrita which he cowrote).

"He's a good guitar player, but that's all he'll ever be." And when he was at his best, he added some iconic sounds to the Stones' repertoire. But Woody brought so much more to the table. He didn't play on top of the band, but played from within. They tried finding another "good guitar player" which is what the try-outs and Black And Blue sessions were about. But they needed Ronnie Wood. Without him, there's no Some Girls or Emotional Rescue. (Also, just a quick shout out to his tasteful solos and general lead work on Voodoo Lounge. And then to add how great he was on the Stripped tour. He outshines Taylor on performances of Shine A Light).

The only other thing I wanna add is that there is a '75 performance of Sympathy For The Devil where Jesse Ed Davis (at the time Woody's Face-mate) joins onstage (I believe it's the version on the main release of LA Friday, if not the alternate night used on a Japanese edition) and it is very cool to hear the Stones with TWO lead guitarists. It might have been interesting if they explored that sort of sound further, bringing in another great guitarist into the touring band. But I can also appreciate how it would've fucked with their image.

He’s tasty as hell. Not technically amazing, but great feel. 

Mrs. Riff has some competition

Love that thread. 

“Who cares, none of my business, tabloid fodder”

Meanwhile, Rolling Stone mag says Dave Grohl pushed Taylor Hawkins to tour:

”MURDERER! It was Dave’s fault! Dave Grohl is a megalomaniac!”. 

Taylor worked great in the band as long as Richards was awaken enough to take turns with him on lead guitar, on the Leeds or the Brussels shows for instance. When Richards was a little more whacked out under heroin, he tended to noodle forever, as you can hear on the Ladies and Gentlemen film (where he has zero stage presence by the way). At this point, around 1973, he thought that, due to Richards' lethargy, he was assuming musical direction for the band, failing to understand it would always be Jagger and Richards alone in charge, and left when they didn't give him what he felt he deserved (in addition to realizing he had his own addiction problems which were getting worse in such an environment). It's still a bit more than being the George Lazenby of the Stones, the lead guitar player who was lucky enough to be briefly involved with some of their greatest recordings before leaving on a whim.

Ronnie Wood gets a bad rep, but it's mostly due to the Stones entering a globally much less interesting phase as a recording unit, the fact that his parts during concerts tend to be woven with Richards', which means less flash compared to Taylor, and some actual decline when he was taking far too much coke. But it just takes listening to anything recorded by the Faces or Rod Stewart on his early albums to get how much he could bring as a musician. And he also acted as a mediator between Jagger and Richards during their Cold War, as he was in friendly terms with both of them, which contributed in no small way to the band still existing today.
And the live at El Mocambo is truly impressive, much more than what Love You Live could suggest.

And as I speak of John Mayall alumni, James Bond and endless noodling, here's the demo that Clapton recorded with Michael Kamen and Vic Flick (who played on the original recording of the James Bond Theme), and that was mercifully rejected in favor of a subpar track by Gladys Knight and the Pips.

Totally agree.