Black and Blue showed the band blending their traditional rock and roll style with heavy influences from reggae and funk music.

With a view to releasing it in time for a 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.

Guitar heroes Rory Gallagher and Jeff Beck both went over for a jam with the band "just to see what was going on," but both declined interest in joining the group, happy with their solo careers.

[6] Stylistically, Black and Blue embraces hard rock with "Hand of Fate" (solo by Wayne Perkins) and "Crazy Mama"; funk with "Hot Stuff" (solo by Harvey Mandel); reggae with their cover of "Cherry Oh Baby" (Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards weaving guitars); and blues with "Melody," featuring the talents of Billy Preston – a heavy contributor to the album.

Musical and thematic styles were merged on the seven-minute "Memory Motel," with both Jagger and Richards contributing lead vocals to a love song embedded within a life-on-the-road tale.

The album was promoted with a controversial billboard on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood that depicted the model Anita Russell, bound by Jagger[9] under the phrase "I'm Black and Blue from the Rolling Stones – and I love it!"

[21] However, Robert Christgau commended the band for taking musical risks, and singled out "Hot Stuff" and "Fool to Cry" for particular praise before concluding: "diagnosis: not dead by a long shot".

"[23] Retrospectively, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic praised the album for being "longer on grooves and jams than songs", which he felt was inevitable as it was recorded while the Stones auditioned a replacement for Taylor, and for profiling the band's musical chemistry.

[11] Bud Scoppa of Uncut described the record as an "unlikely triumph", with the groove-oriented material and guesting "hotshot musicians" combining for strong performances, "expertly brought out by the ultra-dry sonics of engineers Glyn Johns and Keith Harwood".

"[20] Less favourably, The Rough Guide to Rock contributor Peter Shapiro wrote that following the addition of Wood to their line-up, the Stones slowly transformed into "caricatures of the worst rock'n'roll excesses", adding that on Black and Blue, the group "tried to answer LeRoi Jones's comment that white people were 'the keepers of last year's blues' by appropriating contemporary funk and reggae stylings, with mixed results.

"[24] Colin Larkin of The Encyclopedia of Popular Music wrote that the album "showed the group seeking a possible new direction playing variants on white reggae, but the results were less than impressive.

"[13] Similarly, Martin C. Strong of The Great Rock Discography noted that the record saw "[Wood] brought into the fold and a half hearted attempt at reggae stylings".