Rock's Backpages has several Keith free features up in honor of his upcoming birthday.

Here's the first:

AUDIO: Keith Richards on Talk is Cheap (1997)

Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, April 1997

The Human Riff talks about his solo excursion with the X-Pensive Winos and making Talk is Cheap: sorting out the crack band with Steve Jordan, working with Bootsy and Maceo, and on being a frontman.

[www.rocksbackpages.com]

Keith Richard: The Ignored Stone

Louise Criscione, KRLA Beat, 28 May 1966

WHY IS IT Keith Richard is the Stone who receives the least amount of publicity or fanfare?

Of the three eligible Stones, Keith is the most romantically un­attached member of the group. Mick has been stead­ily dating Chrissie Shrimpton for ages, Brian seems to change girl friends quite often but always manages to have at least one steady all the time. So, you really would think Keith would be the main object of Stone fans' daydreams, wouldn't you? But for some totally unaccountable reason, it just doesn't work that way.

On stage, Mick's movements and Brian's blond hair share the spotlight while Keith's jet black hair and usually dark clothes occupy the extreme stage left. Sometimes he stands motionless with only his fingers flying up and down his guitar strings. Other times he grins from ear to ear as his feet jump wildly to avoid objects hurled in his direction.

Ignored

But motionless or moving, Keith is never the cen­ter of attention. On television, Keith comes across on the extreme right of your screen – if he is seen at all. For some reason television cameramen, caught up in attempting to beam the many faces of Jagger across to the audience, seem to completely ignore Keith.

When they do move from Mick, they tend to con­centrate on the gum-chewing face of Bill Wyman or the unchangeable face of Charlie Watts. But once off Jagger, they would really rather devote their attention to Brian Jones whose face lights up and whose lips spread into an enormous grin whenever he catches sight of himself on the television monitor.

Because Keith is so often in the background, people have come to believe that he is rather shy with a somewhat drab personality. But don't believe it. Keith's personality is anything but drab! He jokes and kids around as much, if not more, than the other Stones.

Big Ears

He's a reporter's delight because no matter what you ask him, Keith always manages to come out with a witty answer. Over and over the question of long hair will come up but instead of answering the monotonous question with a simple "because we want to" or "it's really none of your business," Keith thinks up a different reply each time. Probably his best was a straight-faced: "I wear mine long be­cause I have big ears!"

I particularly remember one Stones' press con­ference when an older reporter insisted upon dwell­ing on the subject of long hair and unsatisfied with Keith's answers, demanded to know if Keith would ever cut his hair – to which Keith replied, again straight-faced: "Well, not unless it falls out!"

Still unsatisfied, the reporter grudgingly admitted that it was probably all right for the Stones to wear their hair long as they were entertainers – but what about the ordinary kids?

Keith knew the reporter was pressing for some sort of an opinion on "ordinary kids" wearing their hair long and was not about to give up until he had cornered Keith into giving one. So, Keith obliged.

He got his opinion but he got it with a Richard twist to it when Keith answered: "If they like it, they should wear it – and anyway, we're ordinary kids."

As the room burst into laughter, the reporter con­sidered himself properly put down. He had lost in the battle of wits, lost to a long-haired ordinary kid named Keith Richard, so he quietly retreated to a chair in the back of the room and was not heard from again during the conference.

Keith will answer any question put to him. But the answer will depend on two things – the question itself and how it's asked. If it is a serious question, Keith will answer seriously and honestly. But if it's a question asked in a sarcastic tone of voice, Keith will shoot back an equally sarcastic answer but he'll do it in such a way that he comes out on top with whoever asked the question looking very much like the dope of the year.

Keith's a firm believer in "a stupid question de­serves a stupid answer." A perfect example oc­curred when a reporter asked out of the clear blue if the Stones had ever broken any bones – to which Keith deadpanned: "No, they don't break." An­other time a reporter suggested that the Stones had never travelled to any Communist countries because they were afraid. Keith, looking very offended, re­plied: "I'm not afraid of the Commies, sir."

The other Stones tease Keith incessantly about his love for the guitar. They say that if it was pos­sible for a person to marry his guitar, Keith would be the first in line! And it is true that Keith is par­ticularly attached to the guitar. Even during a break in a recording session, you'll see Keith head for the pizza or coffee machine with his guitar still strapped around his neck.

Paid Off

His attachment to the guitar has paid off for him, though. Many declare Keith one of the best, if not the best, guitarist on the scene today. He rarely makes audible mistakes. In fact, I can remember only one time when he did goof. It was at a recording session and he breezed through hours minus one mistake and then on about the fifth take of a song, Keith played the wrong chord. All Stones halted and Keith said simply: "Sorry," as he began the count again.

Keith is the most obviously nervous Stone. He unconsciously chews his fingernails and is seldom found without a cigarette in his hand. Perhaps he's the worrier of the group and while concentrating on whatever happens to be worrying him at the time will pick up any wad of paper which is lying around and stick it into his mouth.

One time he did that on a plane and when the man sitting next to him went to light a cigarette, Keith (without thinking) stuck the end of the paper up for a light. Not knowing what Keith was up to, the man obligingly lit the end of the paper and at the smell of something burning somewhere, Keith finally came back from his contemplation just in time to discover that the burning was coming from somewhere very near the end of his nose!

A witty, friendly, good-looking and highly intelli­gent young man is Keith Richard. I wonder why more people don't appreciate him?

© Louise Criscione, 1966

Long article, so I didn't put it all up. Link to the full article at the bottom.

The Sound of the Stones

James Fox, Sunday Times Magazine, August 1973

ALL THROUGH THE night while they rehearsed for the European tour, Keith Richards stood there in a trance with himself, rocking slowly backwards and forwards, playing the same riff again and again. He has a mean face anyway, but he puts meanness and physical menace – the old Stones' flavour – into his movements as he plays. He cultivates it nicely, showing the whites of his eyes like a frightened horse as he lays it down, hitting the guitar downwards with a movement of his whole arm.

His playing is the essence of the Stones' sound, the backbone of the music that has been a ten-year phenomenon in rock history; he emerges more and more as leader of the band, propelling the music with his hard-driving rhythm guitar playing. The musicians – Stones and session men – take their cues from Keith. It's all in that opening riff on 'Jumping Jack Flash', two bars of Keith's guitar playing, using only three notes that come near to a timeless slogan for rock.

"Music is one of those things you can never get to the bottom of, thank God," he says. "It has never-ending possibilities. No matter how limited you are, you can still find variations and things that please you. Even with the most blatant bubblegum music, the roots of it are so obvious to me, and I discovered that a long time ago and I stuck with it. And it's still the most enjoyable way of spending time I can think of."

There are technical secrets to his playing, but mainly he has held on to its original simplicity – rare for rock/blues guitarists of talent – and never grown tired of it. He lays down their best-known sound on a five-string guitar tuned to an open chord like the old "bottleneck" blues guitar players of 40 years ago ('Brown Sugar', 'Jumping Jack Flash', 'Honky Tonk Women', 'Tumbling Dice', 'Happy' and their greatest hit, 'Satisfaction').

Keith was already playing extraordinary rock guitar in 1964, on tracks like 'It's All Over Now', when the Stones were still imitating their heroes on Chess Records. Nobody was playing like that then. Ian Stewart, who has played piano for the Stones since the beginning, and now manages the road shows as well, knew Keith's playing in the days when they were obsessed by the music of Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters and so on. "We talked about it to insane and ridiculous lengths," said Mick Jagger.

"Keith was about 18 when I met him," says Stewart, "and he was well steeped in Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry then, so the feel was there from an early age, and what you can't copy is the feel for the thing. Instead of going after the rather flashy B.B. King approach, he plays like the older players. He has never developed that sort of Eric Clapton approach – very fast virtuoso-type guitar. He's still a really good swinging blues guitar player and he leaves these gaps and his timing is perfect. He worries about things like tempo rather than how many notes he can cram into a bar. And he is unique in that he has maintained that approach to guitar playing, whereas everyone else has gone away and seen how fast he can go.

"If you call someone a rhythm guitar player these days it's almost an insult, which it shouldn't be, of course. Keith is just the ultimate rhythm guitar player. He concentrates on laying it down. On a good night, if he lays something down well, it's laid down the way nobody else can do it. And this is where he's become unique."

What is coming down from the rehearsal studio is the rich sound of vintage Rolling Stones rock – hard and funky with a three-man brass section blowing tight harmonies, featuring Bobby Keys, the session tenor sax who has played Rolling Stones tours for years. Charlie Watts is laying down a beat with a maniacal look in his eyes, energized to be playing music again. Mick Jagger is tinkering with the quadraphonic mixer which balances the sound, needles jumping in their little coral-blue light boxes. Even without an audience, except for the musicians and the sullen-faced roadies, he takes his prancing sex act for a gentle canter – left had backwards on hip, left toe pointed forwards, rocking the beat on his heel. Try and you'll feel like the greatest rock star in the world – or that barroom queen in Nashville the Stones sing about.

[www.rocksbackpages.com]

Another long one, so if you want to read the whole thing, the link's at the bottom.

How to be Keef: A User's Guide

Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, 9 July 2006

WHAT GOES through the mind of a rock colossus as he falls from a coconut tree? Depends on your rock colossus, of course. So let's be specific. What passed through Keith Richards's mind as he made his short, as-the-crow-plummets journey to the beach last month?

Did the whole of his life flash by in that second and a half? In what order did it flash? Did the flash begin with Spitfires circling over Dartford, or end there? Did he flash on the good he's done or the bad (or are ethics not relevant in the moment of life's consummation)? Did he re-dream the riff to 'Satisfaction'? Did his cheeks smart afresh to the sting of Mountie palms? This time, did his toy Colt 45 have real bullets in the magazine?

Or was that second-and-a-half a riot of cold, slapping, material panic? Jesus, man, this is it! Who'da thunk it? Rolling Stone stone-dead in the sand in his smalls, his bald patch an arbour for crabs. How's that gonna play in the papers? How's that gonna look?

One thing's for sure. We can be confident that Keith's descent would not have been fraught with questions of the self-doubting kind. For a man whose life has been a continuation of his style by other means (and whose style is absolutely continuous with the doings of his surprisingly long life), the question "who or what or why am I?" will not have been asked in that moment of crisis, because the answer is so bleedin' obvious: I am Keith Richards therefore I am. Keith Richards is Keith Richards is Keith Richards. Boom! The man is a fully achieved realisation of the idea of the man.

At least that's the way he'd like to see it. It's certainly the way we like to see him. Richards – the Human Riff – is what you get when you have the time, the money, the status, the talent, the luck, the wit, the resilience, the selfishness, the modesty, the arrogance and, crucially, the diehard romanticism to, in the words of every Big Brother contestant, really be yourself. Camille Paglia may analyse her "role model for 40 years" in academic terms – Keith Richards is a tortured Dionysian poet gifted with the courage to explore the dark places – but what she really means is that Keith, unlike most of us, has been gifted with the bollocks and the wherewithal to do what we'd all like to do: to carry on responding to the world as we did as children, and get away with it. O tempora, o mores! Michael Jackson was not the late 20th century's Peter Pan; Keith Richards was. And guess what? Peter Pan in the real world is Captain Hook.

And we oblige Keith. We certainly enjoy suspecting that some deep, authenticating honesty lies coiled at the heart of that pirate fantasy. What was it that Bob Dylan wrote? "To live outside the law, you must be honest." That is where our fantasy of Keith meshes with his fantasy of himself. It's because of his perceived "honesty" that Keith gets away with it.

Let's be clear about this. Doris Richards's little boy is not a self-deluding twerp, pursuing the rock 'n' roll lifestyle as a career option. He is not a dimwit. He has charm and sophistication. And when he's not in a kingly bait, he has really rather nice manners. In fact, as cartoon pirates go, he has quite a balanced personality. This Byronic decadent's preferred meal is shepherd's pie. The louche transgressor has always, it is said as a matter of course, discouraged others from doing hard drugs, unless they're equipped to take the consequences. The drug-addled waster is a devoted father to his children. And he plays guitar just like ringing a bell.

So how does one go about being Keith Richards?

With great difficulty, my dear. Here, for those daft enough to want to try, is a basic user's guide.

[www.rocksbackpages.com]-

Okay, that's it. If you have trouble with any of the links, you can register at Rock's Backpages and access all the free content.

Enjoy...and Happy early Birthday, Keith!

...Good one, Latebloomer! Thx -
Will stroll through (all of) that later today.

Grz!

Go Keith Go

Quote
latebloomer
Keith Richard: The Ignored Stone

Louise Criscione, KRLA Beat, 28 May 1966

WHY IS IT Keith Richard is the Stone who receives the least amount of publicity or fanfare?

Of the three eligible Stones, Keith is the most romantically un­attached member of the group. Mick has been stead­ily dating Chrissie Shrimpton for ages, Brian seems to change girl friends quite often but always manages to have at least one steady all the time. So, you really would think Keith would be the main object of Stone fans' daydreams, wouldn't you? But for some totally unaccountable reason, it just doesn't work that way.

On stage, Mick's movements and Brian's blond hair share the spotlight while Keith's jet black hair and usually dark clothes occupy the extreme stage left. Sometimes he stands motionless with only his fingers flying up and down his guitar strings. Other times he grins from ear to ear as his feet jump wildly to avoid objects hurled in his direction.

Ignored

But motionless or moving, Keith is never the cen­ter of attention. On television, Keith comes across on the extreme right of your screen – if he is seen at all. For some reason television cameramen, caught up in attempting to beam the many faces of Jagger across to the audience, seem to completely ignore Keith.

When they do move from Mick, they tend to con­centrate on the gum-chewing face of Bill Wyman or the unchangeable face of Charlie Watts. But once off Jagger, they would really rather devote their attention to Brian Jones whose face lights up and whose lips spread into an enormous grin whenever he catches sight of himself on the television monitor.

Because Keith is so often in the background, people have come to believe that he is rather shy with a somewhat drab personality. But don't believe it. Keith's personality is anything but drab! He jokes and kids around as much, if not more, than the other Stones.

Big Ears

He's a reporter's delight because no matter what you ask him, Keith always manages to come out with a witty answer. Over and over the question of long hair will come up but instead of answering the monotonous question with a simple "because we want to" or "it's really none of your business," Keith thinks up a different reply each time. Probably his best was a straight-faced: "I wear mine long be­cause I have big ears!"

I particularly remember one Stones' press con­ference when an older reporter insisted upon dwell­ing on the subject of long hair and unsatisfied with Keith's answers, demanded to know if Keith would ever cut his hair – to which Keith replied, again straight-faced: "Well, not unless it falls out!"

Still unsatisfied, the reporter grudgingly admitted that it was probably all right for the Stones to wear their hair long as they were entertainers – but what about the ordinary kids?

Keith knew the reporter was pressing for some sort of an opinion on "ordinary kids" wearing their hair long and was not about to give up until he had cornered Keith into giving one. So, Keith obliged.

He got his opinion but he got it with a Richard twist to it when Keith answered: "If they like it, they should wear it – and anyway, we're ordinary kids."

As the room burst into laughter, the reporter con­sidered himself properly put down. He had lost in the battle of wits, lost to a long-haired ordinary kid named Keith Richard, so he quietly retreated to a chair in the back of the room and was not heard from again during the conference.

Keith will answer any question put to him. But the answer will depend on two things – the question itself and how it's asked. If it is a serious question, Keith will answer seriously and honestly. But if it's a question asked in a sarcastic tone of voice, Keith will shoot back an equally sarcastic answer but he'll do it in such a way that he comes out on top with whoever asked the question looking very much like the dope of the year.

Keith's a firm believer in "a stupid question de­serves a stupid answer." A perfect example oc­curred when a reporter asked out of the clear blue if the Stones had ever broken any bones – to which Keith deadpanned: "No, they don't break." An­other time a reporter suggested that the Stones had never travelled to any Communist countries because they were afraid. Keith, looking very offended, re­plied: "I'm not afraid of the Commies, sir."

The other Stones tease Keith incessantly about his love for the guitar. They say that if it was pos­sible for a person to marry his guitar, Keith would be the first in line! And it is true that Keith is par­ticularly attached to the guitar. Even during a break in a recording session, you'll see Keith head for the pizza or coffee machine with his guitar still strapped around his neck.

Paid Off

His attachment to the guitar has paid off for him, though. Many declare Keith one of the best, if not the best, guitarist on the scene today. He rarely makes audible mistakes. In fact, I can remember only one time when he did goof. It was at a recording session and he breezed through hours minus one mistake and then on about the fifth take of a song, Keith played the wrong chord. All Stones halted and Keith said simply: "Sorry," as he began the count again.

Keith is the most obviously nervous Stone. He unconsciously chews his fingernails and is seldom found without a cigarette in his hand. Perhaps he's the worrier of the group and while concentrating on whatever happens to be worrying him at the time will pick up any wad of paper which is lying around and stick it into his mouth.

One time he did that on a plane and when the man sitting next to him went to light a cigarette, Keith (without thinking) stuck the end of the paper up for a light. Not knowing what Keith was up to, the man obligingly lit the end of the paper and at the smell of something burning somewhere, Keith finally came back from his contemplation just in time to discover that the burning was coming from somewhere very near the end of his nose!

A witty, friendly, good-looking and highly intelli­gent young man is Keith Richard. I wonder why more people don't appreciate him?

© Louise Criscione, 1966

Little did they know...

Thanks for the articles/links latebloomer

Thanks, latebloomer, those are great!

Poor old Keith:

Ignored

Big Ears

Paid off

Too bad he never made it.

I think some of the links are gone, I'll try to post the full articles later.

Fun stuff, eh?