Sean Michaels guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 16 September 2009 13.52 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/sep/16/mick-taylor-the-rolling-stones


Mick Taylor (second from left) in the Rolling Stones. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis

Mick Taylor is rich, happy and loves the Rolling Stones. The manager for the Stones' former guitarist has denied reports Taylor is down on his luck and wants to sue his old band, insisting they have "a very good relationship".

According to manager Jeff Allen, Taylor felt "shock, horror and disbelief" reading a recent article in the Mail on Sunday. The piece depicted Taylor as full of regrets and vitriol, living in a "ramshackle cottage" in Suffolk. Despite playing on albums such as Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St, Taylor had allegedly been denied royalties since 1982. "Hiring a lawyer is probably the only way they'll take me seriously," he was quoted as saying.

But that's simply not true, Allen told the NME yesterday. "He certainly didn't say that he was going to sue the Stones," Allen said. "He doesn't feel any need to sue ... Mick's got a very good relationship with the Stones."

"In fact, the last time we met up with them, him and Keith [Richards] were like long-lost lovers – hugging each other and happy to see each other. When Mick was ill either six or eight weeks ago with some kind of chest complaint, Mick Jagger had his office phone up to see what was going on, and then he phoned up the hospital just to check on Mick because they were worried about him. So there's absolutely no animosity between Mick and the Stones."

Not only are Taylor and his former bandmates best buddies, Taylor is living the life you would expect of the man who plays the guitar solo on Can't You Hear Me Knocking. "Mick is living in Holland at the moment with his girlfriend," Allen said. Rather than being "some kind of run-down, down-and-out tramp ... Mick's having the house done up."

The Mick Taylor Band will tour Germany and France in October

Tumbled wrote on Sep 15^th, 2009 at 9:08pm:



I think you'll find that it was the Daily Mail ('Mail on Sunday' to be precise) who did all of the above. No one else did.

Other news agencies and websites merely rehashed or reprinted the story as it was in the public domain, assuming (quite reasonably) it was genuine. This site was one of them.  'The Guardian' also did this and have now clarified things today in the story that Voodoo has posted above.

The NME is a music site, not a celeb gossip page. I somehow doubt they'd be too interested in what Mick Taylor's house looks like.

Hope he sues the Daily Mail re: points 2 & 3, although 'printing pictures of his home without permission' isn't illegal.

Gazza wrote on Sep 16^th, 2009 at 10:59am:

If I were him I'll sue the Daily Mail.
Hoping he will do. Strange stories have come out this summer. And think I have enough of (mine) in my own life. Anyway if he got Royalties .. why not ?

Heart Of Stone wrote on Sep 16^th, 2009 at 12:54pm:


In fairness, pretty much every UK tabloid is like that and has been for decades. The Mail tends to be just less concerned with tits and bums than some of the other less 'respectable' celeb-obsessed rags like the Screws of the World, The Sun, The Star etc - but they still have their own 'agenda'.

Its not quite as simple as 'making up stories' because that would make it too easy to sue. In this case, they cleverly adapted a quote that Mick T apparently made off the record to a journalist many years ago and dressed it up to make it look like it was something new. In some bizarre way, there's an art to this sort of journalism.

Aren't their other,younger stars the British tabs can follow around and make shit up about. What's Amy Winehouse up to these days.

sweetcharmedlife wrote on Sep 16^th, 2009 at 2:20pm:



There's plenty of them. Amy is one, but I can assure you that the vast majority of muck-raking is indeed concerned with talentless publicity-obsessed media whores under 35 such as Jade Goody and her dysfunctional family, Kerry Katona and the ongoing tedium involved in the divorce 'saga' of Peter Andre and the 'frankentitted' ex-model Jordan - a loathsome excuse for a human being who, in her latest desperate attempt to gain public sympathy from the remaining 17 people in the country who aren't sick reading about her, today claims that she was once 'raped' by a well known celebrity.

My guess is that it was Stevie Wonder or our former Home Secretary, David Blunkett.

Ade wrote on Sep 16^th, 2009 at 2:33pm:



An educated lad who also likes big tits.

I think thats a fair enough assessment.

Usually get the 'Express', meself. The wife buys the 'Mail' and then ties me up and beats me when I get home.

Gazza wrote on Sep 16^th, 2009 at 2:35pm:

I think I've seen those rags, Gazza, on the underground.  Yes there seems to be a love of the breastages in the UK...

The Sun, News of the World, The Star and The Sport are the papers you require if you like breasts. If you like men, then there is the Daily Mirror.

I used to buy the Star when I was a 13-year-old on the way to school. The shopkeeper used to browse through it just to make certain there was no images to tarnish my young mind.

Ade wrote on Sep 16^th, 2009 at 3:03pm:


It is now! He let me purchase it every time!

Ade wrote on Sep 16^th, 2009 at 3:09pm:


LOL, no! Though I did read the Beano for many years.

Do today’s kids still buy such things? I dread to think how politically correct it is now.

Ade wrote on Sep 16^th, 2009 at 3:21pm:


Bet they don't let this happen, either! - then again, they'd stopped the slipper punishment by the time I started reading it in the early 90's


http://bp2.blogger.com/_mI0g_G6tjy8/SBEf9iFhTOI/AAAAAAAAAGk/jCgCKH_FfG8/s400/DEN...