It was the band's first studio album released with Ronnie Wood as the replacement for Mick Taylor. Wood had played 12-string acoustic guitar on the track "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)" of the 1974 Rolling Stones album It's Only Rock 'n' Roll and appears on half of the Black and Blue album tracks (mostly backing vocals) with Wayne Perkins and Harvey Mandel playing guitar on the remaining titles. Keith Richards would later comment "Rehearsing guitar players, that's what that one was about."

In December 1974, The Rolling Stones returned to Munich, Germany—the recording site of their previous release It's Only Rock 'n' Roll—and began the recording of their new album at Musicland Studios, with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (as The Glimmer Twins) producing again. With a view to releasing it in time for the summer 1975 Tour of the Americas, the band broke for the holidays and returned in January in Rotterdam, Netherlands to continue working—all the while auditioning new guitarists as they recorded.