Meeting Mick Taylor – Just Wrong

Category: Stories

I saw Mick Taylor perform at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco years ago and waited outside the front with my friend, Record Store Brian to maybe meet him. There’s no load out in the back of the club. Out he came… short, plump and shaggy hanging out with only a few of us as long as we wanted him to. He signed my ticket stub, a Metamorphosis LP and a few Sticky Fingers items for Brian. I didn’t bring up anything about the Stones (his only reference performing was an inspired Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’) but I found myself asking him about his sessions with Dylan on Infidels. He responded with a cryptic half smile and a wink. We all literally kind of milled around with no place to go, looking at each other quietly. He asked a couple of times if we had any other questions. When we finally said no, perhaps out of mercy, we wished him well and thanked him for his playing. I kept thinking he was waiting for his ride to come by, a driver of a modest limo, or taxi, tour bus… something. But instead, his ride was parked at the curb all along. He got behind the wheel of a white full sized older model van, alone, loaded with his guitar and amp, and drove off.