Following Brian Jones’ tragic downfall and demise in 1969, The Rolling Stones reshaped to continue on the trajectory of their 1968 album Beggars Banquet. Following a poorly received psychedelic diversion with Their Satanic Majesties Request, the band settled back into its blues-rock roots and sought a guitarist to complement Keith Richards’ developing style.

Although The Rolling Stones set out with a softer rhythm and blues sound, Richards’ riffs began to take a more jagged form through bold late 1960s singles like ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ and ‘Street Fighting Man’. With the induction of John Mayall’s 20-year-old guitar prodigy Mick Taylor and an ongoing collaboration with producer Jimmy Miller, the Stones continued to pursue this heavier rock sound.

Before Richards and Mick Jagger welcomed Taylor to join the band, they held a brief audition. With Mayall’s recommendation, they had few doubts but were still blown away by the youngster’s talent. “He just came up with line after beautiful line. What a player, man,” Richards recalled in a 2022 interview with Guitar World. At this early stage, Taylor contributed some guitar overdubs to the Let It Bleed tracks’ Country Honk’ and ‘Live with Me’ before heading on his first tour with the Stones.

Taylor’s first significant contributions arrived on the 1971 album Sticky Fingers. If it were not for the more expansive follow-up, Exile on Main Street, the album would be a clear favourite in the group’s album rankings. From the Andy Warhol-designed cover art to the dark psychedelia of ‘Sister Morphine’, the album is one of the finest examples of classic rock and roll in music history.

In Sticky Fingers, all five members of The Rolling Stones seemed to hit peak form. Still, it is difficult not to spare additional praise for Mick Taylor’s influence. He and Richards bounced off one another in fruitful harmony, devising powerful sequences of melodic rhythm work. The pair’s interplay reached a notable zenith in the side one epic, ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’.

The song sets out on a Richards-devised intro riff in his preferred open G tuning, after which he and Taylor trade rhythm and lead duties. The song’s main sequence with Jagger’s lyrics lasts under three minutes before an extended guitar jam. “‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ is one of my favourites,” Taylor reflected in 1979. “[The extended jam] just happened by accident; that was never planned.”

The Stones regard the song as a happy accident due to its spur-of-the-moment inception and the fact that the outro was completely improvised. “Towards the end of the song, I just felt like carrying on playing,” Taylor added. “Everybody was putting their instruments down, but the tape was still rolling, and it sounded good, so everybody quickly picked up their instruments again and carried on playing. It just happened, and it was a one-take thing. A lot of people seem to really like that part.” When compiling the music for mastering, The Rolling Stones intended to cut the song at the three-minute mark but took a shine to the jam after playing it back.

Taylor’s penchant for improvisational jamming would continue to guide the band’s songwriting throughout their most successful run in the early 1970s. “Mick comes along, and it really sort of puts the icing on the cake,” engineer Andy Johns once recalled. “They went in that direction because they could start jamming again. They hadn’t been jamming for a long time.”

Whether there was some friendly competition between Richards and Taylor or not, the latter ignited something in the former and gave rise to the most successful guitar pairing in rock history. “I could sit and listen to Mick Taylor all night,” Johns added. “He would never make a mistake, and every take would be different. And he’d make you cry. It really was good… I loved listening to him play night after night after night. It was not boring.”