On April 18, 1966, Eric Clapton failed to show up for a John Mayall's Bluesbreakers gig in Welwyn Garden City, and a 17-year-old in the audience asked to fill in. He played the second set with stunning precision, then packed up his guitar and slipped out the back door before anyone could get his name. That kid was Mick Taylor, born in 1949 in Hertfordshire to a working-class family, who had learned guitar from his uncle at age nine and whose band The Gods opened for Cream that same year. A year later he answered Mayall's Melody Maker ad after Peter Green left to form Fleetwood Mac, and began weaving jazz phrasing and Latin syncopation into British blues.

This episode follows Taylor into the Rolling Stones in June 1969, when he showed up to the Let It Bleed sessions believing he was a day-rate session player and ended up overdubbing Country  ...