Rolling Stones engineer and producer Glyn Johns witnessed a dramatic change in the group’s guitarist Mick Taylor (above, second from left), who replaced Brian Jones in 1969, after the hedonistic Exile On Main Street sessions in the South of France in 1971.
“He turned from from being a quiet, softly spoken, charming young man into a raving egomaniac junkie,” Johns tells MOJO in the latest issue of the magazine . “I was mixing the record… and said to Mick Jagger, ‘Either he goes or I go.’”
Johns explains how Jagger asked him to work on the tapes of Exile In Main Street in London after sessions at Nellcôte in France “had run riot and people were allowed to do whatever they wanted”.
Johns descibes working on a track at Basing Street Studios on which Taylor had overdubbed backing vocals, drums and a bass.
When Taylor asked the famously no-nonsense producer why he had removed them, he replied, “The Rolling Stones have a f**king great drummer and a really great bass player. You, sunshine, play the guitar and you’ll hear it rather nicely when I’ve finished this.”
It was then left to Jagger to ask the guitarist to leave the studio so Johns could continue mixing the track to his satisfaction. Taylor would sensationally leave the Stones three years later in December 1974, and, after quitting drugs during a long and successful solo career, rejoined the group onstage for their 2013 ‘50 & Counting’ tour.
The producer – who remains on friendly terms with the surviving Stones and worked on their 50th anniversary collection, Grrr! – is currently promoting his memoir, Sound Man, recounting his extraordinary 50-year career as engineer/producer for the Stones, The Beatles, Small Faces, The Who, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, The Eagles, Eric Clapton, The Clash and more.
“Brown Sugar” launches the record with its quintessential blues-rock riff and lyrics that get more questionable the closer you listen (Jagger has since said it was a bit of a wind-up, “all the nasty subjects in one go”). But words were secondary for the band at this point—Sticky Fingers is about melody, and playing, and style. The Stones were always fascinated with American music, but after the death of Brian Jones in 1969 and their move away from psychedelia, their connection to blues, R&B, and country music grew even more intense
