Wayne Perkins, the Alabama-born session guitarist who nearly joined the Rolling Stones and whose slide guitar featured on some of rock’s most memorable tracks, died on March 16, 2026, at 74. He suffered a stroke on March 1, 2026, and did not recover.
His brother Dale Perkins confirmed the death, saying family members were present when he passed. “He was one of a kind, and we loved him very much,” Dale wrote.
Perkins secured a place in rock lore during a turning point for the Rolling Stones. After Mick Taylor left the group in late 1974, Eric Clapton suggested the Birmingham, Alabama guitarist as a potential replacement. Perkins flew to Munich in 1975 while the Stones were working on the 1976 album “Black and Blue,” contributing standout parts to “Hand of Fate,” “Memory Motel,” and the eerie slide guitar on “Fool to Cry.”
He also recorded a scorching solo on “Worried About You,” although that performance wasn’t released until 1981’s “Tattoo You.” For a short time, it looked likely he might join the band permanently.
Ultimately the spot went to Ron Wood. Keith Richards addressed the choice in his 2010 memoir “Life,” noting that while they liked Perkins and considered him a lovely player whose approach wouldn’t clash with Mick Taylor’s, they picked Wood because he was English. “It is an English band,” Richards wrote, “and we all felt we should retain the nationality of the band at the time.”
Perkins described the odd sensation of recording with the Stones in a 1996 Los Angeles Daily News interview: “When I got there, it was the strangest thing — they played like the worst garage band I’d ever heard in my life.” Yet when the studio mood shifted, the group transformed from clumsy to extraordinary.
The Stones weren’t the only big act he turned down. In December 1976, Lynyrd Skynyrd offered him a spot in the band; he declined. Ten months later, the group’s plane crashed on Oct. 20, 1977, killing his close friend Ronnie Van Zant and others. “Something didn’t feel right to me,” Perkins said in a 2022 interview with Culture Sonar. “Ronnie was one of my best friends. I knew all the guys in the band.”
Born in Birmingham in 1951, Perkins taught himself guitar at 12, influenced by players such as James Burton and Chet Atkins. He left school at 16 to pursue music and eventually became a regular at the famed Muscle Shoals Sound studio, where the session players—known informally as the Swampers—were immortalized in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.”
His session credits read like a roll call of 1970s music. By 1972 he co-founded the trio Smith Perkins Smith, signed to Island Records, which brought him to London. Through that Island connection, Chris Blackwell recruited him to overdub guitar parts on Bob Marley and the Wailers’ landmark “Catch a Fire.” Perkins played on “Concrete Jungle,” “Baby We’ve Got a Date (Rock It Baby),” and “Stir It Up,” though he wasn’t initially credited. He later remembered Marley running out “with a spliff about two feet long, trying to cram it down my throat.”
Joni Mitchell brought him in for “Court and Spark,” where he played electric guitar on “Car on a Hill.” His résumé also includes work with Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, Steve Winwood, and Jimmy Cliff.
Although he never became a household name, Perkins was highly respected among musicians and guitar fans. Harvey Mandel and Rory Gallagher were also in the mix for the Stones position during the Black and Blue sessions, but it was Perkins who left the most lasting imprint on the album.
Throughout his life, Perkins took a philosophical view of narrowly missed fame. He continued recording through the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, earning admiration as one of rock’s top session players. In later years he fought several brain tumors before suffering the stroke that ended his life.
Wayne Perkins may not have joined the Rolling Stones or become a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, but his guitar work on some of the 1970s’ most cherished recordings secures his legacy. His slide guitar on “Fool to Cry” alone ensures a lasting place in rock history.
