UNCUT: Hi Ronnie! Black And Blue is about to be reissued, so your official Stones debut lives again… RONNIE WOOD: Yeah, although don’t forget this was not my guitar’s first appearance on a record with the Stones, because of [the acoustic 12-string part on] “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll”, which Keith forgot to wipe!
UNCUT: Hi Ronnie! Black And Blue is about to be reissued, so your official Stones debut lives again… RONNIE WOOD: Yeah, although don’t forget this was not my guitar’s first appearance on a record with the Stones, because of [the acoustic 12-string part on] “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll”, which Keith forgot to wipe!
What’s the overriding feeling when you think back on Black And Blue? I’ve just realised there’s only eight songs on the album, but they’re eight crackers, aren’t they? One of my favourites was “Hey Negrita”, the first song that I wrapped in the studio and said, ‘Right, we’re going to play this.’ And Charlie said, ‘We’ve only known him five minutes and he’s bossing us around already.’ That was my classic introduction to the boys in the studio. I think I got an ‘inspiration by’ [credit] or something. Coming in the back door the hard way, that was. The only thing I didn’t write were the words. But I thought, ‘Yes, it is possible to get among the writing credits,’ and I’ve had a lot more over the years.
The backdrop to the album was 1975’s Tour Of The Americas, for which you got the call as touring guitarist. Yeah. There were so many songs going round in my head, getting ready for the first night – June 1, my [28th] birthday, in Baton Rouge. And before that, we did “Brown Sugar” on the flatbed truck down Fifth Avenue in New York. That was a great launch. For the rehearsals, we did a huge amount of work on Andy Warhol’s estate [Eothen] in Montauk, on Long Island. Joining the band, I had to take a deep breath and say, ‘Here we go.’ You’d either got it or you hadn’t. From Beggars Banquet onwards, I loved all those albums of theirs. When I actually joined, I thought, ‘I’m finally home now.’ I think I had about 300 songs that I had to learn rapidly. Keith kept me going. We were playing and playing, we hardly slept, and it was certainly a crash course.
What’s your memory of how you came to be on the record? They were halfway through it [from sessions in Rotterdam] when I was called over [to Musicland Studios in Munich]. So they already had Harvey Mandel and Wayne Perkins. Harvey was on “Hot Stuff”, and “Hand Of Fate” was Wayne. Lovely players. I’ve spent 50 years trying to do a tribute to them when we play the songs live. And that’s always a good learning curve for me, as with Mick Taylor and Brian Jones originally – just to pay tribute to the input that those guitar players had. And to keep their legend going, while I put my own stamp on it.
There must have been a huge difference between being in the Stones’ inner circle and actually being in the band… Yeah, [this was the beginning] of being a part of the outfit, the circus. And I remember Keith’s, ‘I’ve got a great idea – let’s not tell anyone you’re in the band.’ Great, thanks, Keith! I came in by osmosis. There was never actually an announcement, so I was still the new boy 20 years later.
Did it feel during these sessions that you were in competition with the other players for the permanent gig? I just had the Stones in my sights. Like, ‘Right, this is where I’m meant to be. This is all going according to plan.’ I didn’t see anybody else. My driving force when I first came into the fold was Billy Preston. He was inspirational, with his poignant piano and electric piano playing, and his singing. We bounced off each other so well, as on “Crazy Mama”, the solo duet we did. That’s one of my favourites.
How about some of the other tracks? “Fool To Cry”, I was just singing that to my little girls. It was so sweet. And they were dancing to “Hey Negrita” and “Cherry Oh Baby”. I think the original was Eric Donaldson, he was wonderful. I mean, there was such a goldmine of great artists from Jamaica, like Max Romeo and Jimmy Cliff and all the lovely people, The Heptones… fantastic.
Black And Blue does feel like an album that shows the Stones’ versatility, not to mention durability. Yeah, it was the predecessor of all of that Pathé Marconi music in Paris, starting with the Some Girls album, fantastic. And Tattoo You and all of those. What else is in there? Emotional Rescue. There’s a whole string of quite quickfire albums, maybe a couple years between each.
How was the European tour that followed the album? We had Mont Blanc superimposed in the background on the tour posters. We could have actually gone up it, because we all had the energy. We needed something to make a statement that we were ready to run in and grab ’em on that tour. It was still very much a learning curve for me to settle in with these songs I knew in my head, but I’d never actually played them until a couple of years before.
And of course the photo session for the album, by the Japanese-American fashion photographer Hiro, produced some classic images. Oh yeah, that was Sanibel Island in Florida. We were all there on the beach, and if you open the cover you see it got to nightfall in the session, and they had these little torches that we made signals and shapes with. The photographer wanted me to paint with light, which was pretty good. We were all shoved around on the beach, and Charlie was in a suit, normal beachware for him! Every request made of him that day, he wasn’t amused. “Oh, we’re going on a beach, are we? OK. Dust my shoes!”
Black And Blue is reissued across multiple formats, including a 5-LP + Blu-ray Super Deluxe Edition, by Universal Music on November 14
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
