Thank you for the post. Some great licks here.
A few years ago I read
Life: the Autobiography of Keith Richards. I bought it thinking it was going to be an adventure story, full of incredible danger and miraculous escapes, like Indiana Jones rafting down the rivers of the Amazon.
How did he survive? You probably heard the same story: Keith Richards was so strung out on smack he would go to a clinic in Switzerland to have his entire blood supply transfused every 6 months. The stories of his addiction and consumption were the stuff of legend.
When he was a young man, Keith Richards heard the motto
Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse and said
Why leave a good looking corpse? Over the years his on-stage persona gradually morphed into a bandana-wearing skeleton festooned with skull rings wreathed in cigarette smoke. He taught Sir Richard Branson how to roll a joint. He was the inspiration for Johnny Depp's Captain Jack, the pirate that launched a Disney franchise. His very presence on stage seemed to be an incredible act of survival against drugs that had finally met their match. He was both a cautionary tale and the ultimate anti-hero.
So I came into the book with a lot of preconceptions about Richards. Keith knew it.
Keith Richards wrote:I can’t untie the threads of how much I played up to the part that was written for me. I mean the skull ring and the broken tooth and the kohl. Is it half and half? I think in a way your persona, your image, as it used to be known, is like a ball and chain. People think I’m still a goddamn junkie. It’s 30 years since I gave up the dope! Image is like a long shadow. Even when the sun goes down, you can see it.
Image is like a long shadow. Even when the sun goes down, you can see it.If you read
Life you get to know Richards before, during and after his druggie phase of life. But the answer to the question:
How did he survive? - I think the answer is that he had both strong connections with people, and that he was able to express his love of music by creating and performing in a way that gave his life joy and purpose and meaning.
Some rock guitarists confuse virtuosity with
too many notes. Keith Richards is a very unselfish guitar player. His work is always in service to the song. Think of his hook in
Honky Tonk Women. It slithers over and underneath Jagger's vocals. He is always driving the song forward, never calling attention to himself. And yet I defy you to think of anyone (with the possible exception of Robert White of the Funk Brothers) who played as many great guitar hooks as Keith Richards.
Anyway, read
Life if you get a chance. Highly recommended.
