Replacing Brian Jones in The Rolling Stones seemed an impossible task, but Mick Taylor managed to rise to the occassion with aplomb. After five years with the band, Taylor began to feel dissatisfied with his role in the setup and announced his departure, which opened the door for Ronnie Wood to join. However, another name they considered for the role was the great Rory Gallagher.
The Stones found themselves in turmoil when Taylor handed in his notice, a decision prompted after becoming disillusioned by a lack of credit. “I was a bit peeved about not getting credit for a couple of songs, but that wasn’t the whole reason,” he later said. “I guess I just felt like I had enough. I decided to leave and start a group with Jack Bruce. I never really felt, and I don’t know why, but I never felt I was gonna stay with the Stones forever, even right from the beginning.”
Finding another talented guitarist to join their ranks was never going to be a difficult task because of the prestige attached to The Rolling Stones, but Taylor left big shoes to fill. While an impressionable young musician would have been the easy appointment, talent was their main recruiting criteria, and few had more skill than Gallagher.
Throughout his career, the great Jimi Hendrix spoke at length of his appreciation for Gallagher’s talents, most notably when he appeared on the long-running popular afternoon talk show, The Mike Douglas Show. Douglas asked Hendrix: “What’s it like to be the best rock guitarist in the world?” and, pausing for a moment, Jimi then beautifully responded: “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Rory Gallagher.”
In 1974, when Taylor left The Rolling Stones, Gallagher was already a critically acclaimed artist in his own right who was also commercially successful. Yet, the chance to join the biggest band in the world was an opportunity he wasn’t above exploring. The chance surprised Gallagher, who was at home with his family in Ireland when he received the call to audition.
His brother Dónal later recalled to The Telegraph: “It was about one o’clock the morning. Back then, if the call was overseas, you had to go through the operator. She told my mother she was connecting. I took the call. I was a bit defensive because, in those days, there were a lot of kidnappings [by the Provisional IRA]. The guy says, ‘My name is Ian Stewart… I’m looking for Rory Gallagher.”
He continued: “Rory had gone to bed on one of his rare early nights. When I woke him, he thought I was winding him up. But he agreed to go to Rotterdam to jam with them.”
The trip to Holland was awkward timing for Gallagher because it arrived shortly before his Japanese tour. Reportedly, The Rolling Stones’ manager Marshall Chess even told Rory, “I knew you were the man for the job,” but it didn’t lead to anything. Without hearing he’d landed the job from Mick Jagger or Keith Richards, Gallagher instead headed to Japan to fulfil his touring duties.
Dónal explained to Eon Music how it fell apart: “On the final night, Keith had come down, and they had done sessions over the days, but Mick and Keith weren’t talking to each other. So Rory said, ‘Please let me know what’s going on because I’ve got to be on a plane to Tokyo tomorrow‘. And Mick said, ‘Keith wants to have a good long chat with you. Please go up. He’s waiting in his suite upstairs.’ And Rory went up, and Keith was comatose in the bed”.
He added: “Rory stayed up all night, went back every half hour, and tried talking, but he wasn’t. So Rory made up his own mind, for whatever reason, and just packed up his guitar and amp, and I met him at Heathrow with a fresh suitcase.”
Ultimately, The Rolling Stones chose Ronnie Wood, and Gallagher was never offered the role. While Gallagher was the more talented musician, Wood fit like a glove and is still rocking with them almost 50 years later.
