“We age not by holding on to youth, but by letting ourselves grow and embracing whatever youthful parts remain.”
Keith Richards (as recounted by American Songwriter)
This Monday, December 18, Keith Richards turned 80. While I certainly don’t feel an obligation to cover birthdays of each music artist I dig, leaving out this one somehow felt wrong. After all, The Rolling Stones have been among my top favorite bands for 40-plus years, and the Stones simply wouldn’t have been the Stones without their riff master who was instrumental in popularizing open G guitar and other tunings!
Richards got into the guitar during his childhood, a noteworthy anecdote. One day, a guitar on a shelf caught the little boy’s interest, but it was too high to reach. It belonged to his maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore “Gus” Dupree, who played in a jazz big band. Richards wanted to grab the guitar, so Dupree told him that if he could somehow reach it, he could have it. Richards proved to be resourceful, took a chair and stapled books and cushions on top of each other until he finally got high enough to grab the instrument.
Not only did Dupree keep his promise, but he also taught Richards the rudiments of Malagueña, his first guitar tune! Richards turned out to be an eager student, practicing the song all the time. When his grandpa noticed the boy’s enthusiasm, he allowed him to keep the guitar for good. While Richards’ father Herbert William Richards, a factory worker, disparaged his son’s musical enthusiasm, little Keef couldn’t be stopped.
Fast forward to October 1961, when 17-year-old Richards ran into his former classmate and childhood friend Mick Jagger on a Dartford Railway Station platform. When he noticed Jagger was carrying records by Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters, it became evident they dug the same music. A musical partnership started shortly thereafter, which less than two years later culminated in the formation of the world’s greatest rock & roll band.
This shall suffice for general background, given there are countless biographical write-ups on Richards and the Stones. Instead, I’d like to focus on music, specifically six songs in which Richards played a significant role, either as lead vocalist and/or writer, drawing from both the Stones and his solo career. These songs will also be featured in a Spotify playlist at the end of this post, along with 14 others.
Jumpin’ Jack Flash (non-album single, May 1968)
Credited to Jagger and Richards, though Bill Wyman claimed he wrote part of it, Jumpin’ Jack Flash not only is among my all-time favorite Stones songs but also features one of Keef’s best riffs. “When you get a riff like ‘Flash,’ you get a great feeling of elation, a wicked glee,” Richards told Rolling Stone, as captured by Songfacts. “I can hear the whole band take off behind me every time I play ‘Flash’ – there’s this extra sort of turbo overdrive. You jump on the riff and it plays you. Levitation is probably the closest analogy to what I feel.”
You Got the Silver (Let It Bleed, November 1969)
While with Something Happened to Me Yesterday Keef had official lead vocal parts as early as on the Stones’ January 1967 album Between the Buttons, the band’s first song to solely feature him in this role was You Got the Silver. Credited to Jagger and Richards, the song from the Let It Bleed album was written by Richards about his then-girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, who used to go out with Brian Jones – a situation that further estranged Jones from the band. He still played autoharp on the recording, one of his final song contributions before the Stones parted ways with him.
Before They Make Me Run (Some Girls, June 1978)
Before They Make Me Run, off the Some Girls album, is another Stones song that solely features Richards on lead vocals. He also did most of the work on the track, which was recorded while he was out of jail on bail after he had gotten arrested in Toronto for drug trafficking in 1977. He ended up with probation. “That song, which I sang on that record, was a cry from the heart,” explained Richards in his book Life (2010), as documented by Songfacts. “But it burned up the personnel like no other. I was in the studio, without leaving, for five days… I had an engineer called Dave Jordan and I had another engineer, and one of them would flop under the desk and have a few hours’ kip and I’d put the other one in and keep going. We all had black eyes by the time it was finished.”
Start Me Up (Tattoo You, August 1981)
This brings me to the final Stones track highlighted in this post. Opening with one of Keef’s trademark riffs, Start Me Up was initially recorded with a reggae beat in 1977 during the sessions for Some Girls. But the Stones didn’t like the result and shelved the track – until it reemerged for Tattoo You. “The story here is the miracle that we ever found that track,” Richards explained, according to Songfacts. “I was convinced – and I think Mick was – that it was definitely a reggae song. And we did it in 38 takes – ‘Start me up. Yeah, man, cool. You know, you know, Jah Rastafari.’ And it didn’t make it. And somewhere in the middle of a break, just to break the tension, Charlie and I hit the rock and roll version. And right after that we went straight back to reggae. And we forgot totally about this one little burst in the middle, until about five years later when somebody sifted all the way through these reggae takes. After doing about 70 takes of ‘Start Me Up’ he found that one in the middle.”
Take It So Hard (Talk Is Cheap, October 1988)
Let’s next turn to Keef’s first solo album Talk Is Cheap. By the mid-’80s, his relationship with Jagger was on the rocks. When the Stones frontman was more interested in pursuing his solo career than touring behind the group’s March 1986 album Dirty Work, Richards teamed up with Steve Jordan (who has been the Stones’ touring drummer since Charlie Watts’ death in 2021) to write songs. Richards also gathered an impressive backing band whose core members in addition to Jordan (drums) included Waddy Wachtel (guitar), Ivan Neville (piano, keyboards, backing vocals) and Charley Drayton (bass). They became known as The X-Pensive Winos. Here’s Take It So Hard, which also appeared as a single.
Crosseyed Heart (Crosseyed Heart, September 2015)
My final pick is Crosseyed Heart, an homage to one of Richards’ key influences, and the title track of his third and most recent solo album. Like Talk Is Cheap, it featured the X-Pensive Winos. “The ‘Crosseyed Heart’ one came because I wanted to start it off where basically all the music that I know and I’ve played came from,” Richards told Uncut, according to Songfacts. “One of the wellsprings was Robert Johnson, and I’ve always wanted to do something in his style, so ‘Crosseyed Heart’ came from that.”
Richards’ 80th birthday coincided with his 40th wedding anniversary. On December 18, 1983, he married then-27-year-old American model and actress Patti Hansen. They have two daughters, Theodora Dupree, born 1985 and named after Keef’s grandpa; and Alexandra Nicole, born 1986.
“About myself I have no great illusions. I know what I am. I know what I’m good at. I know what I ain’t. I’m always hoping to surprise myself. But I do have a love of music and I do love to communicate it, and that’s the best I can do, really. And I can raise a good family, too.”
Keith Richards (as recounted by American Songwriter)
Last but not least, here’s the aforementioned Spotify playlist.
Sources: Wikipedia; American Songwriter; Songfacts; YouTube; Spotify
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