How Mick Taylor’s Solos on ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ and ‘Sway’ Changed the Rolling Stones Live Sound

Mick Taylor walked in and immediately turned the Stones into a lead-guitar band live. Brian Jones had been a texture guy—sitar, slide, harmonica, rhythm—but rarely a straight, singing soloist. Taylor came from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, where guitar solos were the main course. The band’s live arrangements shifted from Jones’s slightly chaotic free-jazz flourishes to Taylor’s fluid, note-bending blues runs, which gave Jagger more room to play off a single, sustained voice.

On “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” Taylor’s studio solo is the blueprint: a long, lazy, almost Latin-tinged line that climbs and releases like a serpent. Live, he stretched it even further, turning the jam section into a showcase for his vibrato and pentatonic runs. Jones could never have held that kind of melodic focus—he’d have thrown in a marimba or a bottleneck for one bar. Taylor made the solo the centerpiece, and the band learned to lock into a groove behind him rather than follow Jones’s unpredictability.

“Sway” is the other side of the coin. Taylor’s solo there is all tension—short, bent notes that sound like they’re about to snap. He recorded it in one take on a borrowed guitar with a broken string, and that ragged, emotional edge became his live signature. Where Jones might have reached for a flute or a distorted organ, Taylor went straight for the