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Ron Wood: A Stone Rolls On[/U]
“There’s a basic rule which runs through all kinds of music, kind of an unwritten rule. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve got it.”
Ron Wood
It’s hard to imagine that there is such a thing as a somewhat understated Rolling Stone considering their history as a group but if there were such a thing, it would be guitarist Ronnie Wood. He is a survivor’s survivor. A man who has been in some rather impressive pioneering rock bands before the Rolling Stones and since 1975 has traded licks with none other than the King Hell of Rock and Roll bad boys, Keith Richards. Wood’s own guitar prowess is often over-shadowed by the legend of Richards but to Stones fans, he’s an integral part of The Greatest Rock And Roll Band in the world.
Wood, another of the great batch of British blues-rock guitarist of the early days of rock, was born on June 1st, 1947 in Hillingdon, London. He describes his family as ‘water gypsies’ and has said in several interviews that he and his brothers were the first generation that was actually born on ‘dry land’. His father was a harmonica player that actually led a big band but also held a day job as a tugboat captain. His mother worked in a factory during the Second World War but returned to her life as wife and mother after the war. The youngest of three sons, Ronnie, like so many little brothers before and after, emulated his musically and artistically talented brothers in all of their endeavors.
In an interview with the London Independent in 2003, Wood said, “If they were painting, I would paint, and if they played music, I would copy them and skip from instrument to instrument. We had everything from Chinese woodblocks to old drum kits, tea chest bass, banjos, guitars, trumpets, saxophone, harmonica, Jews harps.”
His initial foray onto the stage was playing washboard at the age of 9 in his brother Teds band, Ted Wood’s Original London Skiffle Group in 1957. According to Wood, “We went on at the intervals between two Tommy Steele films … I even had stage butterflies. Ted had to push me on but then I wouldn’t get off.”
Wood attended the Ealing School of Art (the same school attended by both Pete Townsend and David Bowie) and his artistic talent would resurface again later in his life.
In 1964 Ronnie Wood joined a band called The Birds, a moderately successful British mod group on the London music scene in the mid-60’s. The band, as you might expect, suffered from a confusion of names with The Yardbirds and the American group, The Byrds. The band also suffered under lackluster promotion from the small label they were signed to and the band fell apart in 1967.
By 1968, Wood hooked up with The Creation, another mod outfit that had released several reasonably successful singles during their run. By the time Ronnie hooked up with The Creation, things were on thin ice and despite their small successes, the band split up by June.
A guitarist without a band, Wood contacted Jeff Beck and suggested the formation of a new group. Beck agreed and together with Wood and then unknown vocalist Rod Stewart, The Jeff Beck Group was formed. The groups harder edged bluesy sound was, as many writers and music historians claim, the forerunner to heavy metal.
Stewart and Wood became good friends as well as colleagues, both despite being natural performers, had to deal with serious performance anxiety. There are stories that the pair used to bring a bottle of schnaps or whiskey with them on stage in a brown paper bag for ‘nips’ while performing. Between 1968 and 1969, The Jeff Beck Group only recorded two albums, Truth and Beck-Ola, which most music fans still consider classic recordings. But despite their success, there were conflicts in the band, primarily personality conflicts with Beck. The in fighting brought about the end of the group on the eve of the Woodstock Festival on which they were scheduled to appear. (Something that all of the members of the band now regret)
In one of those fortuitous moments that seem to run through rock history with a weird consistency, Steve Marriott was leaving the Small Faces around the time that Stewart and Wood found themselves adrift from Beck. The remaining members of the Small Faces recruited Wood and Stewart and renamed themselves The Faces, although they did release one disc under the name The Small Faces before changing the name of the group.
The chemistry was immediate and powerful. The Faces were one of those late sixties – early seventies outfits that seemed to hit on all cylinders with a sense that it was just too good to last very long. And it didn’t. As the band began to capitalize on the sound that Stewart and Wood brought to the group (charting with Stay With Me which contains one of rocks more memorable opening riffs) and a few signature Stewart tunes, the band began to have an identity crisis. It was becoming obvious that Stewart was becoming the star and the band began to feel as if they were nothing more than supporting players for the extravagant vocalist.
By 1974, the Faces were beginning to show signs of a pending dissolution. Wood appeared with Clapton, Townsend and Steve Winwood at the Rainbow concert. Following the concert, Wood recorded his first solo effort ‘I’ve Got My Own Album To Do”. The writing was on the wall and the Faces called it quits in 1975.
Around the same time that the Faces were falling apart, Mick Taylor was walking away from the Rolling Stones. According to Wood, he had first seen the Stones at Richmond Jazz and Blues Festival in 1964. After watching the band, he thought ‘That looks like a good job. One day I am going to be in that band”. Little did he know at that time that he was going to get his shot. Wood related in an interview with the UK Guardian in 2007, that he used to run into Mick (Jagger) and Charlie (Watts) at parties in and around London. “Mick said to me, “What am I going to do? Would you join?” I said ‘No, I don’t want to split the Faces up.” And he said, “If I get desperate, can I ring you?” I said ‘Yeah’. A year later he rang me and said, “I’m desperate.” And the Faces are splitting up. And that was it.”
Although it has often been said that the band was auditioning for Taylors replacements (possible replacements being Rory Gallagher, Roy Buchanan, Wayne Perkins or Harvey Mandel), it was almost a given that it was going to be Wood. According to Ronnie, he had known Taylor for years, actually stepping in for Taylor back when Taylor was with The Gods and shared the bill with the Birds. Apparently Taylor would be overcome with performance anxiety at times and was unable to perform. Wood would go on and play Taylors parts and then re-appear on stage with the Birds and play his own show. It didn’t hurt that he and Keith Richards had been friends for years.
Wood stepped in for Taylor on the Stones 1975 US tour, having to learn approximately 140 songs, and contributed on about half the tracks on the Stones 1976 album Black and Blue. As a full time member in 1977 he appeared on Love You Live and 1978’s Some Girls. When asked about stepping in for Taylor, Wood said “I knew those solos in my head. I could reproduce them, with tremendous respect for Mick.” He added “Technically I’m not as good a guitarist as Mick”. He laughs off the thought of screwing up on stage. “The only way I can f**k up is by playing too loud. That’s a sore point with Mick and Keith. I’d get my guitar wrapped ‘round my head by Keith.”
Even as a member of the Rolling Stones, Wood continued to release several solo efforts (including 1976’s Mahoney’s Last Stand, 1979’s Gimme Some Neck and 1992’s Slide On This) and appear as a guest and supporting player on several other albums including a one-off side project with Keith Richards, The New Barbarians. He has shown up on recordings with his old band mate Rod Stewart, including the 1993 MTV’s Unplugged … and seated. Throughout the 80’s, Wood, a visual artist by training, began painting again and he has become very well known in the art community although he tends to polarize critics and collectors alike.
But to go back to what was written at the start, Ron Wood is a survivor’s survivor. His battle with alcohol and drugs began early and continues on. He has been in and out of rehab on 6 different occasions and his dalliance with cocaine resulted in his being given a plastic replacement septum for the one he had destroyed with drugs. He has made and lost a fortune several times over the course of his career and in 2009 he and his then wife Jo were arrested and jailed for 5 days in the Caribbean for the possession of cocaine. Once released, they were immediately deported.
And yet, the 65-year-old Rolling Stone, visual artist and radio host keeps rolling along. Perhaps that’s the secret to longevity. If you never slow down, it’s simply impossible to gather moss.
Picture by:
By Ron-Wood_in_CA.jpg: Catharine Andersonderivative work: Miss-Sophie (Ron-Wood_in_CA.jpg) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
[FONT=Tahoma]"All I can do is be me ... whoever that is". Bob Dylan [/FONT]
