How Ron Wood's Slide Guitar Reshaped the Rolling Stones' Sound After Mick Taylor

Mick Taylor was a fluid, melodic soloist—think the liquid lines in “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” or the slow-burn tension of “Time Waits for No One.” When Ron Wood joined in 1975, the band got a different kind of guitarist: a rhythmic, chordal player who loved open tunings and slide. That slide wasn’t just a gimmick—it became a textural glue that let the Stones shift into a grittier, more groove-based sound.

On “Hot Stuff” (from Black and Blue, 1976), Wood’s slide snakes through the track like a second vocal line, playing off Keith Richards’ choppy rhythm in a way that feels looser than anything Taylor would have done. Taylor might have taken a more traditional solo; Wood instead uses slide to smear notes, creating a humid, after-hours atmosphere. The same trick reappears on “Start Me Up” (from Tattoo You, 1981). That riff is Keith’s, but the slide fills Wood drops between the verses are what give the song its lopsided, wheezing energy—almost like a blues harmonica played through a bottleneck. Without his slide, those tracks would have been tighter, maybe harder, but they would have lost the rattle-and-roll looseness that defined the Stones’ second act.