"The sound of an enduring rock'n'roll firm updating the business": The Rolling Stones' first album without Mick Taylor, now available in super deluxe form

Black And Blue is the sound of an enduring rock’n’roll firm updating the business. The departure of guitarist Mick Taylor in December 1974 was never going to be a showstopper for the Rolling Stones. Rather, they tightened the core membership and trialled a bunch of likely replacements.

Established names like Jeff Beck and Rory Gallagher were hardly going to serve under the Jagger-Richards dominion, but there was potential for former Canned Heat player Harvey Mandel, and, even more likely, Wayne Perkins, who had played on albums by Bob Marley and Joni Mitchell. Ultimately, Ronnie Wood’s enthusiasm won him the gig, and Keith gained a fresh party accomplice.

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On this 1976 album, the audition process became a marketable product. Guest players were ushered into jam sessions that sometimes emerged as useful songs. The Stones were already partial to reggae, funk, even disco, and these became some of their future pathways, away from the immense dread of their Mick Taylor period. The track Hot Stuff was proof of this, an uptown groove with a rhythm section that was ready for the challenge. Unsurprisingly, drummer Charlie Watts was a supreme asset – from the skanking cover of Cherry Oh Baby to the horribly titled Hey Negrita, he was reliably on the good foot.

Billy Preston was another secret weapon on keyboards, able to reassure a fractured band, leading the track Melody into a swinging, gospel expression. He also played on Memory Motel, one of the album’s terrific, mascara-streaked ballads. Keith’s backing vocals were the sweetest. On the companion piece, Fool To Cry, Nicky Hopkins played piano and Jagger was vulnerable, jivey and in command of his songwriting chops. This was the record’s bankable hit.

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Expanded versions of this reissue include loose workouts with Jeff Beck, who entertained himself on the Meters-like funk of Rotterdam Jam. There are live recordings from the Pavillion de Paris in 1976, plus a keepsake of the Stones’ Earls Court shows the same year, when a million fans made postal applications for tickets and the homecoming was sufficiently raucous.

Black And Blue wasn’t universally loved at the time, and the band’s new line-up found a better expression on the Some Girls album a couple of years later. But the step change after Taylor’s exit gave the Stones some respite from havoc. Keith had checked into rehab in 1975, a condition for his US tour visa, while Ronnie’s presence on stage became a reminder that the Stones could actually be a gas.