Ronnie Wood and Mick Taylor unite for a intimate show in NYC

photo by Katarina Benzova

Around 11 p.m. last night at New York's Cutting Room, Ronnie Wood closed his eyes and began playing a tasteful, descending blues intro before abruptly changing tempos. He instead kicked into Jimmy Reed's shuffle "Shame, Shame, Shame," throwing his arms high while delivering it in a grizzled howl before pointing to Mick Taylor a few feet away, who stoically delivered a searing solo on his Les Paul. "That was one of the first records I bought in high school!" Wood said afterward with a grin. "Not bad, is it?"

                      photo by Katarina Benzova

Wood and Taylor's show last night at the tiny venue was a loose blast as they played the blues they grew up on – the setlist included no Rolling Stones songs and mostly explored Mississippi electric blues pioneer Jimmy Reed. Months after the Stones took the final bow of their "50 and Counting" tour (which reunited Taylor with the band for the first time in decades), the duo have formed a new union, booking small gigs in London and New York with a band of pros including Al Kooper and drummer Simon Kirke. Fans paid up to $300 face value for seats at the mostly invite-only gig, which included everyone from Kinks guitarist Dave Davies to Mary Kate Olsen in the crowd.

                   photo by Katarina Benzova

While the pairing may seem surprising, the duo go way back: Wood was a huge fan of Taylor's in England in the Sixties. He would even fill in for Taylor when he was stricken by stage fright in his band the Gods. "He used to be too nervous even to go on, and he'd say 'Ronnie, play my bit for me," Wood recalled in According to the Rolling Stones. "Mick Taylor always underestimated his talent."  

 photo by Katarina Benzova

That dynamic was still evident last night, with Wood relishing the role of frontman – mugging in exaggerated poses while howling away on classics like the show opener, "I Ain't Got You," and "I'm That Man Down There" and "Big Boss Man." Taylor laid low before breaking into fiery solos – at one point in the night, he made a subtle reference to “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking" (the only Stones nod the entire night). They both harmonized on Reeds' "Bright Lights Big City," and traded raucous slide licks during an extended take on Reed's "Going to New York." The show recalled what those nights must have been like, or something you might see at a late night jam at Woody's on the Beach, Woods' ill-fated Miami nightclub – and proved the duo don't need the Stones touring machine t0 put on a mindblowing show.

photo by Katarina Benzova

Article by Patrick Doyle/Rolling Stone Magazine

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ronnie-wood-and-mick-taylor-unite-in-new-york-20131108#ixzz2kIXMhoN6 
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HAPPY B'DAY MICK JAGGER!!!

 

Mick Jagger 1977/photo by Gijsbert Hanekroot

Mick Jagger will celebrate his 70th birthday Friday, his ecstatic reception last month at the Glastonbury Festival still ringing in the ears, as just one of a generation of wrinkly rockers determined not to go quietly.

The Stones raised the roof at the British music festival on June 29 with a two-hour performance featuring hits from their 50-year back catalogue, including “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”.

Still athletic thanks to a rigorous health and fitness regime, Jagger doesn’t have any problems belting out the numbers either.
Pensionable they may be — Jagger’s birthday will bring their combined age to 277 — but superannuated they are not.
The Glastonbury show was so popular one reviewer said a circus contortionist would have been hard pressed to get within 500 yards (metres) of the stage, and it garnered rave reviews as well as affectionately mocking headlines.
“Glastonbury’s night of the living dead”, said the Daily Mail newspaper, joking that while “Mick looked ready for more, Keith looked in need of a warm malt drink”.

Last year, Jagger and fellow pensioners Keith Richards — 70 later this year — Charlie Watts, 72, and Ronnie Wood, 66, also played to packed houses on their “50 and Counting” tour to mark the group’s 50th anniversary.
“I don’t see why there shouldn’t be a 60th anniversary,” said Richards at the time.
And the Stones — creaking hips and knees permitting — are far from alone.

Many of those who started off with them in the sixties are still performing — alongside musicians who grew up listening to their music and are young enough to be their grandchildren.
The Who, with Roger Daltrey, 69, and Pete Townshend, 68, still tour and last year closed the London Olympics with crowd pleasers Baba O’Riley and “My Generation”.
Earlier this year, David Bowie, 66, surprised the music world with a new album, “The Next Day”, his first in a decade.
His wife Iman hinted that a tour might be in the pipeline despite earlier denials.
Last year, Bob Dylan, 72, Leonard Cohen, 78, and Patti Smith, 66, also recorded new albums, dispelling any lingering sense that pop music is the exclusive territory of the young.
All three continue to criss-cross the world to appear on stage.
Brian Wilson, 71, last year reformed the Beach Boys for the group’s 50th anniversary and released an album, and Paul McCartney, also 71, continues to compose and perform to packed houses.

                       photo by Mark Seigler

A documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year saw forgotten 1970s folk musician Sixto Rodriguez rediscovered.
The “Sugar Man” of Detroit, 71, has since undertaken a sell-out world tour and also put in an appearance at Glastonbury.

But if artists are happy to carry on long beyond what many would have once considered their sell-by date, others wonder if such geriatric rock could stifle younger talents.

“We live in a pop age gone loco for retro and crazy for commemoration. Band re-formations and reunion tours, expanded reissues of classic albums and outtake-crammed box sets, remakes and sequels, tribute albums and mash-ups,” British writer Simon Reynolds said in his 2011 book “Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to its Own Past”.
“But what happens when we run out of past? Are we heading toward a sort of culturalecological catastrophe where the archival stream of pop history has been exhausted?”

by Taboola/The Raw Story