Wayne Perkins, a session guitarist known for work with Joni Mitchell and Bob Marley, has died at 74 after a stroke. He came close to replacing Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones during their 1975 Black and Blue sessions. Perkins also turned down an offer from Lynyrd Skynyrd shortly before their plane crash.
Wayne Perkins died on Monday after suffering a stroke, his brother Dale announced on Facebook. 'For those who haven’t heard, Wayne passed away yesterday peacefully,' Dale wrote. 'Our sisters and family members were there with him. We appreciate all the kind thoughts and memories. He was one of a kind and we loved him very much, and thank you all.' Perkins was 74 years old. He grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and started playing guitar at age 12, inspired by James Burton and Chet Atkins. After dropping out of high school, he worked at Muscle Shoals Sound studio with artists including Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, and Jimmy Cliff, as part of the group known as the 'Swampers.' In 1973, he contributed guitar to Bob Marley's Catch a Fire, playing on 'Concrete Jungle,' 'Baby We’ve Got a Date (Rock It Baby),' and 'Stir It Up.' Later, he played electric guitar on Joni Mitchell's 'Car on a Hill' from Court and Spark. Perkins nearly joined the Rolling Stones in 1975, recommended by Eric Clapton to replace Mick Taylor. He traveled to Munich for sessions on their 1976 album Black and Blue. 'It was always one of my goals to play lead guitar with the biggest rock & roll bands in the world,' Perkins said in 1996. 'When I got there, it was the strangest thing — they played like the worst garage band I’d ever heard in my life... All of a sudden they went from awful to incredible.' He overdubbed slide guitar on 'Fool to Cry,' contributed to 'Memory Motel' and 'Hand of Fate,' and recorded a solo for 'Worried About You,' released on 1981's Tattoo You. The band selected Ronnie Wood instead. Keith Richards wrote in his 2010 memoir Life, 'We liked Perkins a lot... It came down to the fact that Ronnie was English! ... And we all felt we should retain the nationality of the band at the time.' In December 1976, Perkins declined a position with Lynyrd Skynyrd. 'Something didn’t feel right to me,' he said in 2022. The band's plane crashed in October 1977. Perkins remained active into the 1990s and once joked, 'If I had joined [the Stones], by now I’d probably be a dead millionaire.'
