7/29/2019 LIFE - The Autobiography of Keith Richards

1/3

Life

By Keith Richards, James Fox, ContributorLittle, Brown, $29.99, 564 pages

Reviewed by Larry Le Francis

LIFE, the autobiography of Keith Richards has all of the salacious, exciting,

delightful and jaw-dropping tales of rock and roll redlining that is to beexpected of one of the most extraordinary and polarizing musical figures ofour time. But what may be lost in the feats of extraordinary financial successand its attendant excesses and madness is what has driven this man fromchildhood into the impending dusk of mortality, kicking and living the hell outof life along the wayan absolute, consuming and complete love affair withmusic. Written with complete candor and a generous helping of humor andbemusement, it is the almost primordial context of music that Keith hasembraced throughout his life that ultimately has sustained him.

His philosophy about music is deceptively simple: People really do want totouch each other, to the heart. Thats why you have music. If you cant say it,

sing it. This is crucial to Keith, to stretch yourself into other peopleshearts.

As a boy, Keiths mum Doris played music every day, exposing the boy toLouis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Big Bill Broonzy, Sarah Vaughn and more. It

just spoke to me. He recounts an early memory of being taken to and sittingin a music repair shop by his beloved grandfather Gus with a biscuit and acup of tea, music floating through the air, instruments being fixed and tested,

1

http://sacramentobookreview.com/biographies_memoirs/life/http://sacramentobookreview.com/biographies_memoirs/life/

7/29/2019 LIFE - The Autobiography of Keith Richards

2/3

vats of hot glue bubbling, guitars and violins hung and turning on conveyerbelts. He writes fondly of Gus merely leaving a Spanish gut-string guitar ontop of the piano for the little boy to stare at with awe, a sweet, lovely littlelady that it took him years to even touch, then grasp with intense desire.

Music was like a drug, in fact, a far bigger drug than smack. I couldnt kick

music. One note leads to another, and you never know quite whats going tocome next, and you dont want to. Its like walking on a beautiful tightrope.

Then, some pivotal points: buying his first rock and roll song, Long Tall Sallyby Little Richard and an early exposure to Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis Presley.It changed his life, the songs rawness appealing to the bullied-at-school littleboy, struggling to hear it and other wondrous music like it on his cheap, tinyradio in bed at night, feverishly twisting the antenna to get a clear signalfrom Radio Luxembourg. His first LP was Elvis Mystery Train whichintroduced him to the great guitarist Scotty Moore.

The love affair with the explosive, raw sound of the blues soon merged withhis rock and roll lust. The story of hooking up with Mike Mick Jagger and theequally driven Brian Jones is now chiseled into music lore. But the earlyStones considered themselves unpaid promoters of the Chicago blues,turning people on to Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and Jimmy Reed. He recountshow a few years later in Manchester, (including countless gigs aroundLondons burgeoning blues club scene) the key troika of the Rollin Stones,Mick, Keith and Brian are blown away seeing their idols Muddy Waters with

Junior Wells, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee, John Lee Hooker and more onstage, only to be astounded when Muddy, after playing acoustically for halfan hour, re-takes the stage and plays electrically, only to be booed by thedie-hard country-style British blues aficionados.

During their first tour of the UK opening for the Everly Brothers and LittleRichard, their popularity exploded, but they became labeled as a pop band,which grated the hell out of them they thought of themselves as blues men.Keith considers one of the greatest contributions of the Stones is turning theAmerican people on to the blues, their own indigenous music.

Some key points that resonate:

On songwriting: You start to become an observerobserving people, howthey react to one anotherIts a little of Peeping Tom to be a songwriter. Youstart looking round, and everythings a subject for a song.

On new bands: I love every band that comes along. Thats why Im here, toencourage guys to play and get bands together.

On the signature rock and roll riffs he has conjured up through the years: heattributes this to open 5-string tunings and what he calls these crucial,wonderful riffs that just came, I dont know where from. Im blessed withthem and I can never get to the bottom of them.

2

7/29/2019 LIFE - The Autobiography of Keith Richards

3/3

He loves stripped-down recording techniques. He created the unique sound ofJumping Jack Flash and Street Fighting Man with layers of acoustic guitarmashed onto a cheap cassette recorder plugged into an equally cheap littleamp. Charlies drums were a simple practice kit that folded out of a suitcase,a technique born out of endless touring, cheap hotels and valuable writingand recording time compressed between relentless gigs. Ultimately, its the

sound of the room with a group of musicians playing together that definesthe music. Everybody got carried away with technology (during the 80s)and slowly theyre swimming back. The idea of separation (walling offmusicians with baffles and sound barriers in the studio) is the total antithesisof rock and rollits the sound [musicians] make together, not separated. AsKeith stresses, some people like to play guitar. Others look for a sound. Keithlooks for THE sound.

The music lover and the musician will be enthralled with this book. Its a dirtylittle pleasure to be the proverbial fly on the wall as music icons, mediapersonalities, derelicts, thieves, addicts, groupies and more weave their waythrough Keiths particular lens. But be prepared for his harrowing tales ofhard drugs use, where the wretched horrors of heroin addiction overshadoweven cocaine. It is with razor-like honesty that only Keith Richards can paintwith a survivors brush. That part of the book is extremely difficult to read.But he doesnt glamorize his experiences in the least. And after all, Keith ismade of sterner stuff than most human beings.

So in the end, the reader has to wonder: is this all true, or has the authortaken liberties with the story of his own life? Maybe that depends upon if youbelieve that the Devil really came a-knockin on Robert Johnsons door and hesaid, Hello, Satan, I believe its time to go.

"Reprinted By Permission with San Francisco Book Review & Sacramento Book Review. All rights reserved.

3