For at least 50 years, every telling of Keith Richards has been anecdotal.
He is arrested in a drug raid in which Marianne Faithfull misappropriated a chocolate bar. He falls off the ladder in the library. A coconut falls on his head. It is said that he was very shy as a child. And actually he always stayed in the background. In a documentary, he sits in an armchair and thoughtfully plays a few chords while he talks: about the great guitarists, about the origins of the blues, about songwriting. It looks like he’ll never get up from that chair again. It’s like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry are walking in the door.
Richards was born in Dartford, Kent, on December 18, 1943, a war child like Mick Jagger. He went to school in Dartford and later to London’s Sidcup College, an art school. His grandfather played in jazz bands in the 1930s and sparked Keith’s interest in playing the guitar. His mother gave him a western guitar, which he exchanged for an electric Höfner. He collected records and imitated Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong.
In the autumn of 1961 he met Mick Jagger again, whom he had known from primary school, on the train platform in Dartford. Jagger studied in London. Legend has it that Richards carried a stack of blues records with him. Jagger occasionally sang with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated. Richards accompanied him. And soon they were joined by Ian Stewart and Brian Jones. In the summer of 1962 they called themselves The Rolling Stones. Keith Richards dropped out of college. For a while they played songs by Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry, like almost all the bands in London at the time, but from 1964 onwards Richards and Jagger wrote their own songs, inspired by their manager Andrew Loog Oldham and the example of the already successful Beatles. “The Last Time” was a hit in 1965. Then came “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”.
You can debate which is the most important band of all time. Paul McCartney got involved with it later on. He wanted to pay tribute to the Rolling Stones, but it sounded like, “They only play the blues.” But the Rolling Stones have endless ways to play the blues. Keith Richards plays the blues in different ways with a single riff. They know how to tell “Boy meets Girl” in different ways over and over again. For 60 years.
Keith Richards released his first solo record, Talk Is Cheap, in 1988 because Jagger had made two records. Jagger was ambitious, Richards not at all. They insulted each other, continued making albums with the Rolling Stones, and went on tour again. After Richards described one of his friend’s records as “Dogshit In The Doorway”, Jagger stopped recording as a solo record.
In a health bulletin, Keith Richards said: “I’ve done so much cocaine that I don’t miss it. I think the cocaine gave up.”
Today the coolest man in the world turns 80.