Gazza wrote on Feb 25
th, 2018 at 6:58pm:
Yes but its not their ONLY era. Thats more significant.
Ronnie Wood has played with the Stones for three times as long as Taylor and Jones combined.
You'd have a hard job convincing anyone his contribution was more significant than either of them
Yes but I'm not talking about longevity, I'm talking about contribution purely. For example, I think that very few would argue that Nicky's piano is the foundation of She's A Rainbow. There's a lot of other songs from that era that are like that. Similarly, you can point to how Jones' sitar makes Paint it Black or how Taylor's solo makes Sway stand out.
With Ronnie, while he was there longer you can't really point to these standout moments. With Stu these sort of moments are few and far between too. Yes, Stu was there longer, yes he was an official member, yes Mick and Keith have cited him as an influence as a person, a moral leader in a sense, but how much of that is revisionism?
I mean they all say they loved Stu right? But they went along just fine with ALO removing him from the band because he didn't look the part. When ALO and Allen Klein were gone, they could've reinstated Stu as a real member at any time they wanted, this would've enlarged Stu's bottom line, made his financial situation easier, and given him true influence in the band's musical direction, but they chose not to. Why not?
As far as his input, yeah 1968-1972 aren't the only eras but look at the entire period from 1967 to 1981 where Stu & Nicky both contributed to Stones' records. That's 14 years and in that 14 year period, Nicky did a lot more than Stu, and his moments standout a lot more than Stu's do. Stu isn't really on Dirty Work and not much on Undercover either after Nicky got sickly...So really outside of his role as the second Stone hired and his moral role or whatever....What did he add, especially compared to Nicky?