mick taylor archive

self-proclaimed connoisseur of michael kevin taylor

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the hyperfixation won, and thus hearmeknocking was born. . . you might know me as @cokesympathy, and this is where i will be sharing everything mick taylor related ♥︎

welcome to my little corner dedicated to michael kevin taylor—prodigy, virtuoso, the best lead guitarist the rolling stones has ever had and will probably never have again. i am a firm believer in Taylor Made The Stones and sometimes i might come off as a bit defensive about him (sometimes sappy and lovey dovey too)

despite being who the fanbase claim as a fan favorite, i can't seem to find any active blogs about him (that i know of); probably just a couple of them that inspired me to be here now and they're mostly discography based. while i don't understand much about guitar / guitar playing, i want to shed light on mick taylor as a person beyond his musicianship, both as a stone and outside of the rolling stones. all those nights and days i have spent thinking about how mick taylor deserved so much better have led me to a decision where i take matters into my own hands and start my own dedicated space for the prettiest, my most beloved, favorite stone

EVERYTHING that i share here are mine / my own finds (photos, gifs, scans, articles, quotes, etc., unless stated otherwise) and more often than not, it costs me money to find them, so i would appreciate it if you don't repost my content without my permission. credits are also mandatory! research work on mick is not an easy thing to do, since we all know how he is generally not the show off kind and he's mostly a private and reserved man

use #cokesympathy for tracking. dms are open, so don't hesitate to interact with me! i may not respond too quickly, though, since i tend to be busy irl but i would be so damn excited if there are any other fans on tumblr who love and adore mick as much as i do ◡̈

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ON THIS DAY, June 10, 1969, MICK TAYLOR went into hiding following news that he had accepted the offer to join The Rolling Stones.

[…] Last night he [Mick Taylor] explained how it happened: "About a week after I left John Mayall, I got a phone call from Mick Jagger. He told me that Brian Jones was thinking of leaving the Stones and asked me to a recording session. I went down to the session and played with them on a group of tracks while they were making a new album. A few days later they asked me if I would like to join them permanently."

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PAUL LAURENCE: Would they [the Stones] make a distinction between, say, "reverb" and "delay"? ANDY JOHNS: Mick [Jagger] might. He's the only one who really gets in on the mixing. Mick Taylor used to come around, but the lead guitar always ended up being too loud, and so they asked him to leave. During Exile, I remember Keith turning around one day and going, "Listen, man, you're great on stage, but you're awful in the studio. Can you just go away for a bit?" I disagree with that, myself. Mick Taylor never played anything that I disliked and thought shouldn't be there. Whenever he played, I always got a rush.

Excerpt from Paul Laurence's Andy Johns Talks About Others and the Stones Album "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" interview feature for Recording Engineer/Producer (RE/P) Magazine

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PAUL LAURENCE: Is it true that the solo on Winter was done live? ANDY JOHNS: Yes. Amazing, isn't it? He [Mick Taylor] would quite often play solos on the track, and they came out that good quite regularly. It's not like that was a coincidence—you know, he'll do it every time. PAUL LAURENCE: Did he seem particularly happy with that solo? ANDY JOHNS: He never mentioned anything about it. I used to flip out about it and tell him how great it was, but he never responded in any way. He's very humble in some ways, and not at all in others. He'll do things like want to overdub bass on something that Bill has already played on—which isn't terribly humble—and then on the other hand, you'll tell him what an amazing guitar player he is and he won't say anything at all.

Excerpt from Paul Laurence's Andy Johns Talks About Others and the Stones Album "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" interview feature for Recording Engineer/Producer (RE/P) Magazine

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PAUL LAURENCE: How about Mick Taylor? How does he record? ANDY JOHNS: Well, Mick Taylor always plays incredibly loud. That's how he gets all of that sustain. It's not just for tone alone—he likes that level as well. Because he does play so loud, you have to screen him off a lot. You tend to have him the furthest out of all the musicians, sort of on the outside. More than just level, he has a very penetrating sound. He also has a lot of bottom end, which you don't really notice so much when you're listening to him with the other instruments. It goes around the room like mad, though, and we often have trouble with it coming in and through the drums or the piano. This happens even when he's using a Tele, which is a bit surprising. As far as his equipment goes, he usually uses Fender amps, like a Twin Reverb or something. He also has one of those little Fender Leslies. When we had 16 tracks, I'd often take two channels of him—one the amp and one the Leslie—and send them to opposite sides in the mix. As a general rule, he doesn't use a lot of effects in the studio. If they're about, you can ask him to use them and he'll give it a try, but he's not totally into it. It's really great to work with Pagey and Mick Taylor and people like that. They're so good that they'll turn you on every time. Just listen to Mick on something like Stop Breaking Down, he's about the best white bottleneck player there is! That's what I really like about it—not the "engineering" as much as working with people who really bring out the best in you. You hear this music coming through and you can't let 'em down—you've got to try to get the best sound possible because it's turning you on so much!

Excerpt from Paul Laurence's Andy Johns Talks About Others and the Stones Album "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" interview feature for Recording Engineer/Producer (RE/P) Magazine

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From left to right, bassist KEITH TILLMAN, sax player DICK HECKSTALL-SMITH, drummer KEEF HARTLEY, sax player CHRIS MERCER, and guitarist MICK TAYLOR performing at the Marquee Club in London as John Mayall (not pictured) and the Bluesbreakers, October 31, 1967

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Rock Guitarist Mick Taylor relaxing reading a Newspaper during a break in recording of "Goats Head Soup" Album at Dynamic Sound Studios, Kingston, Jamaica December 9th 1972.

Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music.

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Nope! This photo was not taken during the Goats Head Soup recording sessions in Jamaica because Mick did not look like this nor did he have this haircut in 1972 (don't even ask me how I know). Getty Images seem to love captioning their images incorrectly, so I assume everyone just decided to go with it.

This picture was actually from June or July 1969 at The Rolling Stones' office in London when Mick had recently joined the Stones, most likely taken by photographer Alan Messer. Here is another angle from the same photo session

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MICK TAYLOR performing with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, March 1969

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Audience point-of-view shots of MICK TAYLOR during a performance with The Rolling Stones at the Frankfurt Festival Arena (Festhalle Messe Frankfurt) in Germany, September 30, 1973

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MICK TAYLOR performing Honky Tonk Women with The Rolling Stones for a broadcast of the BBC television program Top of the Pops, July 3, 1969 (aired on July 10)

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MICK TAYLOR and his Gibson Firebird photographed by Chris Walter on the set of the BBC television program Top of the Pops, July 3, 1969.

Just a couple of weeks after Mick Taylor had officially replaced original member Brian Jones, The Rolling Stones performed their latest single, Honky Tonk Women, which was their first single to feature Mick Taylor on guitar, set to be released the day after the band filmed their appearance. When this performance aired on July 10th, Honky Tonk Women had already debuted at number nine on the UK Singles Chart and reached number one just two weeks later. This Top of the Pops performance would be lost for decades before a rebroadcasted version of the footage that aired on the Swiss television program Hits a Go-Go resurfaced decades later.

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MICK TAYLOR photographed by Chris Walter during rehearsal at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre, October 9, 1970

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MICK TAYLOR and KEITH RICHARDS photographed by Chris Walter during rehearsal at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre, October 9, 1970

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MICK TAYLOR photographed by Wolfgang Heilemann, 1969

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MICK TAYLOR photographed by Bill Wyman

This candid photograph was taken around the period when The Rolling Stones retreated to the South of France—where they recorded the iconic album Exile on Main Street—and was later included in the exhibition for Wyman's original work, titled Stone Alone in Saint-Paul, which was held at the Musée de Saint-Paul de Vence from June 6 to September 30, 2010.

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THE ROLLING STONES photographed backstage at the Palazzo dello Sport in Rome, September 29, 1970

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MICK TAYLOR photographed by Jim Marshall as he practices guitar in preparation for The Rolling Stones' American Tour, or better known as the Stones Touring Party (STP), 1972