The Rolling Stones are one of the biggest rock bands of all time. There are few bands that you can say that about without causing controversy, but the Stones are definitely one of them. Driven forward by the partnership of Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, the group have undoubtedly changed the face of rock and roll indefinitely. As Richards enters his 80th year, he does not show any signs of slowing down anytime soon.
How many people can say they released a number one rock and roll album months before their 80th birthday? Richards is the only name that springs to mind. Released in October, Hackney Diamonds provided the Stones with their 14th number one album since they formed all the way back in 1962.
It is hardly surprising that Richards is still going. After all, such a demented icon of rock and roll could never spend his latter years clad in tweed, sitting in front of daytime television nursing a cup of tea. It simply would not suffice. The guitarist has led a chaotic, incredible, at times unbelievable life. When his grandfather gave him his first guitar as a young boy, his path in life was altered forever, and the rock world would never be the same again.
Forming The Rolling Stones in 1962 with his old school friend Mick Jagger, Richards was enchanted by American blues musicians, as well as rock ‘n’ roll stars like Chuck Berry. Meeting the rest of the members that would eventually become The Rolling Stones at Ealing Jazz Club, the group debuted at the Marquee Club in the summer of 1962, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Peaking in popularity during the ‘British Invasion’ in the mid-1960s, with a string of consecutive number one hits, including the seminal ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, the Stones became poster boys for teenage rebellion. With Jagger’s sneering vocals and the brilliance of Richards’ guitar riffs, the band were juggernauts of rock and roll. Over the years, Richards had been noted for his outlandish, unbelievable escapades during his time with the Stones. It seems you don’t become a rock and roll hero without collecting some anecdotes, and Richards’ life has been chock full of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll for the past six decades.
Soon after formulating the group, Richards made the executive decision that, aside from Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Elvis, high-quality pharmaceuticals should also act as a predominant influence on the group. Musically, this influence led to the creation of some of the Stones’ greatest work, including the trippy psychedelia of Their Satanic Majesties Request and the amphetamine-fuelled energy of Exile on Main St. Outside the studio though, Richards’ drug-fuelled exploits had a lot more to answer for.
One of the most infamous examples of this came in 1977 when Richards’ hotel room in Toronto was raided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police during a tour of Canada. With an ounce of pure-grade heroin on him, the guitarist was bang to rights – or he would have been if they could have woken him up. After staying awake for five days straight, fuelled only by drugs and music, Richards crashed hard. So hard, in fact, that the Canadian police could not rouse him, “By law, you have to be conscious to be arrested,’’ the guitarist recalls in his book Life. “My memory of it is waking up and them going slap, slap, two Mounties dragging me about the room, slapping me. Trying to get me conscious”.
Eventually, once he had risen from the dead, Richards was charged with possession of the heroin, but in an event that could have only happened to him, a young blind fan came to his rescue. Rita Bedard was an avid Stones fan and just so happened to be an organiser at the courts. After speaking with the judge, she managed to get Richards off without jail time, so long as he continued his drug therapy and played a special performance at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.
There are a plethora of similarly unbelievable drug-bust stories from Richards’ time at the height of rock and roll fame, including a widely dispelled rumour about an LSD bust interrupting an orgy involving Marianne Faithful. The record that causes the most pride for Richards during this period, however, is that he once stayed awake for nine days. “I fell asleep standing up, eventually,” the guitarist writes in Life, “I was just putting another cassette back on the shelf, and I was feeling great, and I turned ’round and fell asleep. I fell against the edge of the speaker. Woke up in a pool of blood, wondering, ‘Is that claret?’”
Much more than a simply drug-addled maniac in a pretty successful band, Richards was an incredible composer. His writing partnership with Mick Jagger is among the most legendary coalitions of all. His ability to keep things simple whilst simultaneously breaking down boundaries and creating such a distinct sound marks him out as one of the greatest guitar heroes in history. The hooks featured on tracks like ‘The Last Time’ or ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ are instantly recognisable and have a timeless appeal to them, which sets the Stones apart from other British invasion groups who have since begun to sound somewhat dated.
A disciple of Chuck Berry, Richards once got the chance to meet the man himself. Whereas an ordinary fan might shyly tell Berry about how much the guitar pioneer influenced him, Richards ended up getting punched in the face by the man, a much more fitting meeting between two iconic rock guitarists. Richards told the story on The Tonight Show, saying that Berry’s guitar was lying in its case in the singer’s dressing room and, upon returning to find Richards strumming it, Berry socked him in the eye. Although the relationship between the two improved, collaborating on stage a handful of times, many a rock fan must lay awake at night wishing they could have been a fly on the wall of that dressing room.
Keith Richards is the archetypal rock and roll star, embodying the spirit of sex, drugs and rock and roll even as he enters his eighth decade on Earth. The stereotypical image of wild parties, destroyed hotel rooms, drug-fuelled rampages and acid trips that are associated with rock stars all stems predominantly from the life of Richards. He has had an unimaginable impact on the face of rock music and acts as a suitably terrible role model for anybody looking to enter the world of rock and roll.
So, here’s to you, Keith, and to many more happy years of causing chaos wherever you go.
