Personalities | The Rolling Stones (1975) | Key Events

March

Ron Wood Joins

Having been friendly with the Stones since May 1973, Ron Wood agreed to join the group – initially temporarily – to help out on their forthcoming American tour, though he might as well have been hired as a full-time member straightaway. While not the soloist that Mick Taylor was, he had the perfect temperament to smooth over any band disagreements, and got on with Keith like a house on fire. At once younger brother, jester and partyman, ‘Woody’ had the perfect personality to join the group that seemed to be cracking slightly at the seams.

June

TOTA

The funk-tinged TOTA – Tour Of The Americas, initially scheduled to cover South American countries as well as North America – was a rolling cavalcade of stoned and drunk party animals resting on their laurels and playing 47 dates across 27 venues with a ‘loose-lips-cost-wives’ policy, and an overriding ambition to make money. Using props for the first time, and to self-parodying proportions, there were ‘Who the f*** is Mick Jagger?’ T-shirts; a stage designed as a lotus plant that opened up with the band inside; Mick riding a massive blow-up penis to ‘Starfucker’ and sometimes swinging out above the crowd, Tarzan-style; and even a row of elephants acting as security one night. Job done, the group dispersed for most of the remaining year.

Metamorphosis

Compiled without the band’s involvement – and by Allen Klein, who took over control of their Decca recordings in 1970 – Metamorphosis was a collection of outtakes, alternate recordings of well-known Stones songs and largely a cash-in on the Stones’ US tour. It managed to make No. 12 in the States, but limped to No. 45 in the UK.

Personalities | Introducing The Rolling Stones
Personalities | The Rolling Stones (1976) | Key Events

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