While we’re on vacation, I’m reposting some of my favourite blog posts of the past.
The most grizzled founding member of The Rolling Stones has told his fascinating life story in a thick volume that quickly jumped onto the best-seller lists.
The guitarist’s ghost writer isn’t credited until you crack the spine but it’s not a shock that Richards didn’t peck out every sentence of Life all on his own. It reads as if the sentences were culled from Keith’s rambling voice recordings based on his memories and years of note and diary-keeping. It appears as if his ghost writer, a longtime friend and journalist, merely cleaned it up and made sense of it all. Whatever way it was done, it’s a story well worth telling. It’s a conversational, compelling and fascinating account of one of the world’s most enduring rock bands and Richards’ part in it as well as his battles and triumphs as an individual.
A grown-up never really forgets the circumstances of their childhood. Richards looks like a cool, swaggering rock star but he still gets misty at thoughts of disappointing his father and recalls the relentless bullying and beatings he took in the school yard. His upbringing was bleak, WWII era, with not much money and plenty of isolation but there isn’t a hint of pity in its telling. In fact, there’s pure joy as he recounts meeting Mick Jagger and the ways in which his life then changed for good.
Richards’ years as a hard-core junkie are well documented but the depths to which he sunk and the number of people who were hooked on drugs with him surprised me. So did some of his friendships with the true greats and near-greats of all types of music and the strange and half-crazy women he chose as girlfriends. As an intermittent Stones fan I have never given Richards his due as a songwriter and he takes proper credit in Life but just as generously credits Mick Jagger, too. This is partly a musician’s guidebook. Even though some of what he writes about guitar licks and making certain sounds goes way over my head, guitarists will no doubt get a kick out of learning his “secrets” and details on recording techniques. I loved the relationship stuff; his explosive and long-term love affairs, his drug-fuelled road-trips with the likes of John Lennon, his moves to various parts of Europe and to Jamaica, and especially his eroding partnership with Jagger which really took a hit once Keith finally kicked hard drugs for good.
How does the band endure? How do they keep coming up with songs and staying in the game? How, after what he has done to his body, has Keith managed to dodge the Grim Reaper? All this and more is addressed in Life. It is so very “Keef” that you can almost smell the Jack Daniels and see smoke curls rising from the pages. It’s a heck of a ride and by the time it ends, you’re in awe that the man is still drawing breath and still has the burning desire to keep playing, five decades into rock stardom.
This post was originally published December 31st, 2010.