Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor was born Michael Kevin Taylor in Welwyn Garden City, England on January 17, 1948. He was raised in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, where his father worked at the nearby de Havilland aircraft plant. Taylor began playing guitar at a young age, taking lessons from a maternal uncle. He was gigging regularly by high school, playing with a band called the Gods, which also included members that went on to form Uriah Heep. With that group, Taylor opened for Cream at Wembley’s Starlight Arena in 1966.Taylor joined the Rolling Stones in 1969 after spending several years with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. By 1974, however, the mild mannered blues master could no longer fit in with the boisterous Stones:“He had a lovely sound, some very soulful stuff. He’d get to where I was going even before I did. . . . I loved the guy, loved to work with him, but he was very shy and very distant,” Mick Jagger later recalled.