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Rock On, Ronnie! Celebrating Ronnie Wood’s Legendary Birthday
Some musicians spend a lifetime searching for the right band. Ronnie Wood somehow kept stumbling into them. Before becoming a fixture in The Rolling Stones, he had already crossed paths with future rock giants, helped shape influential groups, and built a reputation as the guy who always seemed to be in the right studio at the right time. From London’s swinging ’60s scene to stadium tours that never seemed to end, Wood’s career reads less like a carefully planned journey and more like a backstage pass to rock history. And somehow, he still found time to create a remarkable legacy of his own.
Happy birthday to the one and only Ronnie Wood! Born Ronald David Wood on June 1, 1947 at Hillingdon Hospital (in (Hillingdon, Middlesex, England) Ronnie’s been rocking stages and shredding riffs with The Rolling Stones since 1975.
The Rolling Stone Before the Stones
It’s easy to think of Ronnie Wood as “the new guy” in The Rolling Stones—if your definition of new stretches back half a century. Yet by the time he officially joined the band in 1976, Wood had already packed several careers into one. Born in Hillingdon, London, he emerged during the explosive British music boom of the 1960s, first with The Birdsand later with The Creation. His next move proved even more significant. Invited to join the Jeff Beck Group, Wood switched from guitar to bass and teamed up with an ambitious young vocalist named Rod Stewart. Together they helped create two influential albums, Truth and Beck-Ola, records that would later be hailed as building blocks of hard rock. When the Jeff Beck Group fell apart, Wood and Stewart simply carried on joining the Small Faces and helping transform them into The Faces, one of the most entertaining and unpredictable rock bands of the early 1970s.
From Party Band to Rock Royalty
The Faces became famous not only for their music but also for their wild reputation. Their concerts often felt like celebrations that had somehow wandered onto a stage. Albums such as First Step, Long Player, A Nod Is as Good as a Wink…to a Blind Horse andOoh La La established the group as a major force, while Wood’s loose, expressive guitar style became an essential ingredient. At the same time, he quietly began building a solo career. His 1974 debutI’ve Got My Own Album to Do featured an impressive cast of friends, including George Harrison and Keith Richards. That collaboration would soon have lasting consequences. When Mick Taylor departed The Rolling Stones, Richards already knew who could fill the vacancy. Wood contributed to sessions for Black and Blue before officially joining the band, bringing a natural chemistry that made the transition seem almost inevitable. Suddenly, the musician who had spent years moving between projects found himself inside the biggest rock and roll machine in the world.
More Than a Stone
Joining The Rolling Stones did not mean putting everything else aside. Throughout the following decades Woody continued releasing solo albums, including Gimme Some Neck, Slide on This, Not for Beginners and I Feel Like Playing. He also expanded his artistic horizons beyond music, developing a respected career as a painter and hosting his own radio show. Meanwhile, his reputation as a collaborator remained unmatched. His name appeared alongside an extraordinary range of artists, from Rod Stewart, David Bowie, and Eric Clapton to Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, and B.B. King, among many more. In later years Ronnie turned his attention toward celebrating the musicians who inspired him, releasing live tribute projects such as Mad Lad: A Live Tribute to Chuck Berry and Mr. Luck: A Tribute to Jimmy Reed. Long after becoming a Rolling Stone, he continued to approach music not as a legend protecting a legacy, but as a lifelong fan eager to keep exploring. Slide on Ronnie…
From the The Rolling Stones A-Z book (1984)
“Honest” Ron Wood/Woody/Ronnie is the Stones’ Stone—a favorite within and without the Rolling Stones, who has the distinction of being the only band member to be a rock star before being a Rolling Stone. Growing up with two musically motivated brothers, in a household where his father also was in a band, Ron started learning clarinet, drums, and washboard at an early age, making his debut on the last at the age of nine in his brothers’ skiffle band. He studied art and briefly worked as a sign painter while playing guitar in his early- to mid-sixties band, the Birds.
When they broke up, he joined the Jeff Beck Group on bass, and finally, in 1969, the Faces, where he found worldwide fame and fortune as lead guitarist. Ron was the Stones’ choice to replace guitarist Mick Taylor in 1975, but Ron was reluctant to leave the Faces, although he did accompany the Stones on their 1975 Tour of the Americas as a guest artist. In December 1975, upon Rod Stewart’s leaving the Faces, Ron left too, becoming the seventh “official” Stone and taking over Keith’s dreaded job as onstage foil to Mick. The rest is history…
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