Black and Blue

Mick Taylor quit in December 1974 as recording began at Musicland in Munich. The band auditioned his replacement in Rotterdam, where the guitarists included Wayne Perkins, Harvey Mandel, Steve Marriott, Rory Gallagher and Ronnie Wood, and Mandel, Perkins and Wood all play on the finished album. Overdubs followed in Montreux and Munich in late 1975, and the record was completed at Atlantic Studios in New York in February 1976.

The album shows reggae and funk influences. Cherry Oh Baby covers Eric Donaldson's 1971 reggae song, Mandel plays lead on Hot Stuff, Perkins plays the leads on Hand of Fate, and Melody derives from a Billy Preston song. Two tracks from the Rotterdam sessions, Slave and Worried About You, were held back until Tattoo You in 1981. The single Fool to Cry reached the top 10 in the US and UK.

The album reached number two in the UK and spent an interrupted four weeks at number one in the US, where it went Platinum. A Sunset Boulevard billboard and print campaign for it drew protests from Women Against Violence Against Women, and the billboard was taken down. Reviews were mixed. Charles Shaar Murray of NME called it a letdown of hideous proportions but praised Watts' drumming as the best white reggae drums he had heard, and Robert Christgau wrote that the diagnosis was not dead by a long shot. Richards admitted in 1977 that it was not very good, and Jagger later described it as a bit of a holiday period.