Ronnie Wood: from the Faces to 50 years as a Rolling Stone | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

RONNIE WOOD has been a Rolling Stone for half a century. He marked 50 years in the band in November 2025, and he did it with a brush rather than a guitar: Paint It Black, a set of his own portraits of the band, Mick Jagger, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) among them.

That says a lot about him. He has painted and drawn for seven decades, he says, longer than he has played music. “Art fills my life, art is my life,” he told NME.

He’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, once with the Stones and once with the Faces. And in July 2026, at 79, he had another UK number 1 album.

Early life and training

He was born Ronald David Wood in Hillingdon, west London, on 1 June 1947. His official site says the family came from “a long line of travelling barge people”, and the house was full of music and art.

The art showed early. As a boy he won an award from the BBC’s Sketch Club for a drawing, and he went on to Ealing Art College. He didn’t stay. He dropped out to concentrate on his first band, the Birds, who were signed to Decca.

Career chapters

1. 1967Joins the Jeff Beck Group, Who’s Who number 15 on bass
2. 1969The Faces form from the Small Faces
3. 1973Ooh La La, the Faces’ last studio album
4. 1975Joins the Rolling Stones
5. 1989Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with the Stones
6. 2012Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with the Small Faces/Faces
7. 2023Hackney Diamonds
8. 2025Grammy for Best Rock Album; 50 years as a Stone
9. 2026Foreign Tongues, UK number 1

Bass for Jeff Beck 1967 to 1969

In 1967 he joined the Jeff Beck Group, Who’s Who number 15, on bass, not guitar. His official site says the group broke up two weeks before they were due to play Woodstock.

The Faces 1969 to 1975

The Faces came together in 1969 from what was left of the Small Faces: Wood, Rod Stewart, Who’s Who number 18 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon), Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones. They made four studio albums, finishing with Ooh La La in 1973, and split in 1975.

Two of the songs to start with come from these years. Wood co-wrote Stay with Me, the Faces’ big rocker, and he sings lead on Ooh La La. In between he played on Stewart’s, Who’s Who number 18 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) solo hit Maggie May, on electric guitar, 12-string and bass.

Joining the Stones 1975

Mick Taylor left the Rolling Stones in December 1974. After the Black and Blue sessions in March 1975, the Stones announced that April that Wood would join them for that year’s tour of the Americas. The Faces split at the end of 1975, and in 1976 he became a full member. Joining was, he has said, his dream job.

Hackney Diamonds to Foreign Tongues 2023 to 2026

Hackney Diamonds, in 2023, was the Stones’ 24th studio album and their first in 18 years. It won the Grammy for Best Rock Album in 2025.

Foreign Tongues followed on 10 July 2026. Andrew Watt produced it, and the guests included Paul McCartney, Who’s Who number 4 in · Ultimate Beatles Reunion (story coming soon), Steve Winwood, Robert Smith and Chad Smith, along with a recording of Charlie Watts, Who’s Who number 22 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon). It went to number 1 in the UK, which was reported as the band’s 15th UK number 1 album, level with the Beatles.

That summer he played his own shows too, with Imelda May as his guest: London on 21 August, Cologne on 3 September and two nights in Amsterdam. NME called them his first full solo sets in more than 16 years.

Craft, sound and style

Wood’s job in the Stones is the second guitar, and Keith Richards, Who’s Who number 31, has a name for the way the two of them play together: “the ancient art of weaving”. Neither one is simply lead or rhythm. The parts wind around each other.

He came to the band as a player who could cover more than one job. He was the bass player in the Jeff Beck Group, Who’s Who number 15, and on Maggie May he played electric, 12-string and bass.

The Zemaitis guitars

His slide guitar is a Zemaitis “Disc Front”, built by Tony Zemaitis with a pirate’s treasure map engraved on its round metal disc and a hollow mahogany body stuffed with cotton. It’s always in open E, and he’s used it with the Faces and the Stones, on record and on stage. Wood asked for a bolt-on neck. Zemaitis built a set neck anyway, then added a bolted plate and a smiling skull as a joke. For the Stones’ 1978 North American tour he had a Zemaitis “Metal Front” made, with an engraved metal top, a 9 volt boost circuit and “Custom Ron Wood 1978” on the truss rod cover. In 1994 he called a black Zemaitis the “Stay with Me” guitar, and said he’d always used it for slide.

Slide, lap steel and a copper pipe

He heard Duane Allman on Aretha Franklin’s The Weight, and when the Jeff Beck, Who’s Who number 15 Group folded he went “immediately” into slide, by his own account. He also plays lap steel, pedal steel and a B-bender guitar. The lap steel is an old one he says he bought for $150 from an old lady’s attic, and it’s on Sweethearts Together. His slide is a 3/4 inch copper pipe, with a Stevens bar on the lap steel and a Bullet bar on the pedal steel. He plays slide on guitars in normal tuning too.

Following Keith

“The Stones follow Keith, and they always have,” Wood said. Other bands follow the drummer. On It’s Only Rock ’n Roll (But I Like It) he played acoustic under Richards’ electric. Before all that he was a guitarist. Steven Van Zandt, Who’s Who number 13 in · Ultimate Gangster Reunion (story coming soon), inducting the Faces, said he’s still trying to get the tone Wood had in the Birds.

Stories people still tell

1. Two best men.

   When Wood married Sally Humphreys on 21 December 2012, he had two best men: his old Faces bandmate Rod Stewart, Who’s Who number 18 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) and Paul McCartney, Who’s Who number 4 in · Ultimate Beatles Reunion (story coming soon).

2. The Faces, again.

   In April 2025 NME reported that Wood, Stewart, Who’s Who number 18 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) and Kenney Jones had recorded about 11 songs together.

3. A radio prize.

   In May 2011 his Absolute Radio show won Music Radio Personality of the Year at the Sony Radio Awards.

4. Waiting for the call.

   In October 2026 he said no Stones tour was planned yet. “When the Stones give me the call-up papers, I’ll be back,” he told Contactmusic.

Legacy

He went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones in 1989, inducted by Pete Townshend, Who’s Who number 8, and again in 2012 with the Small Faces/Faces, inducted by Steven Van Zandt, Who’s Who number 13 in · Ultimate Gangster Reunion (story coming soon).

His health has been public too. In 2017 he had part of a lung removed after a cancer diagnosis, and in 2021 he said he had been treated for small-cell cancer during the pandemic and was clear again.

In October 2026 he was getting ready for South America with his own band.