Ron Wood, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor joined forces with a gang of boogie-woogie pianists including Jools Holland at a concert to celebrate the life of Ian Stewart, the pianist who co-founded the Rolling Stones and remained a generous contributor to the band’s music and management until his death from a heart attack in 1985.
The gig was masterminded by the pianist Ben Waters to preview an album, Boogie 4 Stu, to which all the Stones, including Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, have contributed.
Waters started the show on his own, setting the joyful tone of the evening as he ran down an old Albert Ammons tune. Joined by a grinning Charlie Watts on drums and the double-bass player Dave Green, the band slowly swelled to include horn players and singers including Mick Hucknall who led the way through a version of Ray Charles’s Drown in my Own Tears.
Around this time, Bill Wyman appeared with his headless bass guitar and slipped, almost surreptitiously, into the rhythm section alongside Watts and Green. But it was the arrival of the guitarists Ron Wood and Mick Taylor in a dusty cloud of bonhomie that sparked the show into life as the pair traded slide guitar lines on Roomin’ House Blues. Wood took over lead vocals for Worried Life Blues and, while it is hard to think of a less worried-looking musician, he flung himself into the song with his usual scatter-brained enthusiasm. Wyman said a few fond words in memory of Stewart before singing You Never Can Tell in a wheezy rumble, followed by a lively cameo from Shakin’ Stevens performing Don’t Lie to Me.
An evident lack of rehearsal resulted in some increasingly quizzical looks among the musicians whenever a song neared its end. But the goodwill index was off the graph by the time the ensemble stumbled through encores of Down the Road Apiece and Can I Get a Witness, even though the guitarists had repaired to the bar.
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Further concerts: Brewhouse, Taunton, March 18; Lighthouse, Poole, April 16; Bull’s Head, SW13, April 25