Whale of world rock (54 photos + 11 videos)

Keith Richards turns 80!





British guitarist and songwriter for The Rolling Stones Keith (sometimes spelled Keith) Richards was born on December 18, 1943 in Dartford (Kent, England, UK). Was the only child of Doris M.L. (born Dupre) and Herbert W. Richards. Father is a factory laborer. Her paternal grandparents, Ernie and Eliza Richards, were socialists and civic leaders, organizers of the Labor Party in Walthamstow (a suburb of London); Eliza even became mayor of the municipal district in 1941. His maternal grandfather, August Theodore “Gus” Dupree, toured the UK as part of the jazz big band Gus Dupree and his Boys and influenced little Keith’s musical tastes, getting him interested in playing the guitar. His mother introduced him to the music of Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington and bought him his first guitar, an acoustic Rosetti, for £7. My father didn’t really like this hobby.



In 1944, young Richards and his mother were evacuated during the June-September V-1 Doodlebugs bombing of London. Returning to their home, they discovered that some of their neighbors had been killed and the cot where baby Keith usually slept had been destroyed. He would later say, “Hitler threw one of his V-1s on my bed! He was after my butt!”





Richards went to the same Wentworth Primary School as Mick Jagger. And they knew each other since childhood, as they lived in the same area until the Richards family moved in 1954. From 1953 to 1959, Keith attended Dartford Technology College, where choir director Jack Clare noticed his singing voice and accepted him into the school choir. And at the age of 10, he was already singing in the choir at the coronation of Elizabeth II. But in 1959, Richards was expelled from school for truancy, and the school principal invited him to enter an art college in the neighboring town of Sidcup. But Keith continued to persistently skip classes at Sidkup, devoting more time to his own music than to studying art.



Keith's first musical idol was American guitarist Scotty Moore, best known as the guitarist for the “King of Rock and Roll” Elvis Presley.

On 17 October 1961, while traveling from Dartford to Sidcup, Richards boarded the same carriage as Jagger, who was then a student at the London School of Economics (LSE) at the University of London. Seeing a friend with whom they had not communicated for almost 7 years, Keith noticed in his hands several records with rhythm and blues records, which Mick had ordered by mail from the USA. They began to discuss them. Richards was surprised and impressed that Jagger not only shared his passion for Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters, but also that they had the same LPs, which were extremely rare in Britain at the time. In addition, it was discovered that Dick Taylor, Keith’s friend, was then singing with Jagger in the amateur group Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. Mick invited Keith to come to their rehearsal, and he soon joined the group. At rehearsals, they played many works by Chuck Berry, another of Richards' youth idols. True, the team soon disbanded.



And in April 1962, Jagger and Richards visited the Ealing club in London, where they saw a performance by Brian “Elmo Lewis” Jones, who played as a session musician on slide guitar in the Blues Incorporated group of one of the British blues promoters, Alexis Korner. Jones's performance impressed them, and after the concert, friends decided to meet him. Having become regulars at the club, Keith and Mick then met Korner himself, who was allowed to listen to amateur recordings of his group. And after some time, when Blues Incorporated also began performing at the Marquee Club, they began to periodically appear in their lineup - first Jagger as a vocalist, and then Richards on guitar.



Jones at this time decided to create his own rhythm and blues group and gave an ad to this effect in the Jazz News newspaper. The first to respond was pianist Ian Stewart, with whom Brian and the attackil to rehearsals. And in June of the same year, Mick and Keith attended one of the rehearsals of the newly formed group, after which it was decided to play together.



And on July 12, 1962, Blues Inc. received an invitation to speak on the BBC. But as the band were due to perform at the Marquee at the same time, Corner invited Brian, Mick, Keith, Ian and Dick to take the stage in their place. It was at this concert that the group first performed under the name The Rolling Stones, naming themselves after one of the 1950 songs by American bluesman Muddy Waters.



Thus was born a group that became an important part of the British Invasion, and is still considered one of the most influential and successful groups in the world history of rock. It’s just that RSs were more popular almost all the time overseas, where they were “hiding” from exorbitant British income taxes.



At this time, Keith's parents divorced (after which he maintained a good relationship with his mother, who was supportive of his musical activities, but he stopped communicating with his father, and resumed contacts only in 1982). And in mid-1962, for the sake of his musical career, he left college and moved to a rented apartment in London, where Jagger and Jones were already living.



In August 1962, Taylor left the group and was replaced by Bill Wyman (ex-The Cliftons), and Ivory (who later joined The Kinks) was replaced by drummer Tony Chapman, who soon gave way to Charlie Watts, who was working at an advertising agency at the time. .



By the beginning of 1963, the RS lineup had stabilized, and for 8 months the musicians “settled” in the Crawdaddy club, where they attracted the attention of producer Andrew Loog Oldham, who “bought out” the group from club manager Giorgio Gomelsky. He immediately decided to create a “dirty” image for his ward - in defiance of the “clean” The Beatles (according to one version, at his insistence, Stewart was forced out of the lineup - only because he outwardly contrasted with the rest of the participants with his “intelligent” appearance). And Richards, from 1963 to 1978, at the insistence of Oldham, used the stage name “Keith Richard”, since the manager considered this name more suitable for show business.



In June 1963, RS released their debut single "Come On" (composed by Charles Berry), which climbed the UK charts to number 21.



And the group reached the top of the British charts already in 1964 with a cover version of Bobby Womack's song “It's All Over Now”. That same year, they released their self-titled debut album and went on tour across the United States, recording their first American hit, “That Girl Belongsto Yesterday.”



This was followed by “I Wanna Be Your Man” (a Lennon-McCartney composition) and “Not Fade Away” (Buddy Holly, which reached No. 3 in Britain and entered the American Top 50). By this time, RS had become notorious in their homeland: Oldham’s bet on a “dirty” image worked. After the release of their debut album (in Britain it was called “The Rolling Stones”, and in the States - “England’s Newest Hit Makers The Rolling Stones”), the group conducted their first American tour, during which they recorded the mini-album “Five by Five” (1964 ). By the time the tour ended, RS already had their first British chart leader: “Little Red Rooster” - a composition by Howlin’ Wolf.



After the release of the band's debut album, the UK was overwhelmed by real hysteria, which every now and then turned into brawls at concerts. One of the most violent shows in the history of English rock and roll is still the RS concert at Winter Gardens Blackpool, during which fans began to destroy lamps, broke a Steinway grand piano and created a dump, which resulted in about 50 people ended up in the hospital.



In the early stages of their creativity, the group often performed cover versions of compositions by Berry and Bo Diddley at concerts. And the work of Jimmy RIda and Muddy Waters were another early inspiration and the basis for the style of combined lead and rhythm guitar that Richards and Jones developed. All 3 members of the band shared a love for American blues, and Richards was also inspired by American rock and roll.



But then Oldham began to insist that the group record exclusively their own compositions. And already in June 1964, the single “Tell Me” entered the American Top 40, marking the beginning of a series of Jagger-Richards hits.



The songwriting duo catapulted “I Can’t Get No/Satisfaction” (1965) to superstar status. The guitar riff itself (initially copying the sound of the brass section, and later recognized as a classic) indicated that RS had separated from the traditional blues and set out on their own path of development. The single stayed at the top of the American “lists” for 4 weeks. It was followed by “Get Off of My Cloud”, “19th Nervous Breakdown”, “As Tears Go By”, “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” in succession in the Top 10.



And by the beginning of 1968, the group parted ways with Oldham and invited Alain Klein to replace him, simultaneously returning from psychedelia to straightforward rock and roll. Richards began using open tuning, which gave the band a thicker, heavier sound, exemplified by the single "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (UK No. 3, May 1968).



But after the death of Jones on July 3, 1969 from an overdose (he became one of the first “members” of the notorious “Club 27”/ 27 Club), guitarist Mick Taylor (ex-John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers) joined the group, who then worked with RS from 1969-74, and his playing style led to a more pronounced division between the lead and rhythm guitar roles.



Brian Jones during the Rolling Stones' arrival in Finland in 1965

In December of the same year, Richards became a father for the first time: his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg gave birth to a son, Marlon. In 1972, the couple had another child, a daughter named Dandelion (translated from English as dandelion). Later the girl was renamed Angela. And Keith's 3rd child, a son named Tara, died a few weeks after his birth in 1976. Anita, by the way, was accused by many of Keith’s addiction to drugs, which he himself was not very opposed to...



Anita Pallenberg and Keith Richard

In 1975, with Taylor replaced by Ronnie Wood (ex-The Faces of Rod Stewart), the band returned to the original style of combining guitar parts. Richards said that the years playing with Wood were RS's best musical period.



The musician believes that the acoustic guitar is the basis of his entire playing:

“Every guitarist should play an acoustic guitar at home. No matter what you play, if you don't keep up your acoustic playing, you'll never be able to use the electric guitar to its full potential because you'll lose touch."



And Richards' acoustic guitar has been featured on various tracks throughout RS's career, including hits such as "Not Fade Away," "Brown Sugar," "Beast of Burden" and "Almost Hear You Sigh."

Keith himself, whose collection now includes about 3,000 guitars (he has never even played some of them, now he only plays a maximum of 10), is often associated with the Fender Telecaster guitar, especially with 2 copies of the 1950 release , equipped with a Gibson humbucker (magnetic pickup).



And by the end of the 1970s. The musician had already developed a serious heroin addiction. So in 1977 he was arrested with a large amount of hard drugs and cocaine in Toronto (Canada). Threatened with life imprisonment, Keith was offered to go to the States to undergo treatment for addiction. The preventive measure was then reduced, and Richards himself was able to return to music.

In 1983, in Mexico, the musician married an American supermodel of Norwegian origin, Patti Hansen. The couple had 2 daughters - Theodora and Alexandra (inThis musician has 4 children from 2 wives).





And RS in the mid-1980s. decided to take a break: Jagger focused on his solo career. Working independently, Keith released his first solo album, “TalkIs Cheap” (1988), which received positive reviews from music critics.

The release of the joint work between Richards and Jagger entitled “Steel Wheels” (1989) was regarded by fans as the return of the group.



In 1994, RS, with a new line-up (Wyman was replaced by Darryl Jones on bass) and with a new producer Don Was, recorded the album “Voodoo Lounge”, which brought the musicians their 1st Prize from the American National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Sciences (NARAS) Grammy Awards (Best Rock Album).



And in 1994-95. the group set an absolute record for the profitability of a tour - “Voodoo Lounge” became the most profitable tour of all time. The team performed 62 shows instead of the planned 28 and earned over $400 million!



On August 11, 1998, as part of the tour, the group’s first concert took place at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium (the opening act was the group “Splin”).



The next concert in the Russian Federation was already in 2007 as part of the “A Bigger Bang” world tour on Palace Square in St. Petersburg.

In 2010, a remastered re-release of the RS album “Exile On Main St” (2CD) was released, the 2nd disc of which collected the best songs of the group, recorded from the end of 1969 to 1972. and for various reasons put off on the “shelf”. And with the active participation of Jagger, a film about the life and work of the group in the early 1970s was filmed a little earlier. “The Rolling Stones: Let There Be Light”/ Shine a Light (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2008).



On March 25, 2016, RS gave a free concert for 500 thousand people in Havana (Cuba), where their music had previously been banned by the Castro regime. The concert followed President Barack Obama's historic visit to the "island of freedom" as part of efforts to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba. The show at the Ciudad Deportivo sports arena was the band's first concert on the island and part of the entire 2016 South American tour.

A little earlier, Keith visited Jamaica, where he was inspired by reggae music, and even recorded several tracks with local musician and producer Lee “Scratch” Perry (1936-2021), which then resulted in the joint tribute disc “Scratch’d” (2023).



In March 2020, RS's "No Filter Tour" was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. And band members Jagger, Richards, Watts and Wood, sitting in their own homes, became one of the main participants in the online concert as part of “Global Citizen's One World: Together at Home”, held on April 18, 2020 with the participation of dozens of artists, film actors, comedians and entertainers to support health workers and WHO.



On 11 September 2020, the 1973 album 'Goats Head Soup', containing previously unreleased tracks such as 'Criss Cross', re-released a week earlier, topped the UK Albums Chart, making RS the first act to top the chart in 6 different decades!



On September 6, 2023, at a presentation by TV presenter Jimmy Fallon, the lead single from the new album “Angry” and a video clip were released, in which American actress Sydney Sweeney played the leading role. The album "Hackney Diamonds" is the band's first studio album of original material in the last 18 years, including many guest stars (Elton John, Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Stevie Wonder), released on October 20, 2023. The album features the last 2 songs drummer Charlie Watts recorded with the band before his death on August 24, 2021.



In addition to RS, Richards' guitar parts can be heard on releases by Max Romeo, Hubert Sumlin, Les Paul, Tom Waits, Bonoand U2, Nona Hendrix, John Phillips and Aretha Franklin.

The musician is known for his extravagant behavior, and many funny incidents are associated with him.



Thus, in keeping with the image of wild rockers, like the rest of the band, he enjoyed a laid-back lifestyle. In this regard, on February 12, 1967, Richards' house was searched. Mick, his girlfriend Marianne Faithfull and several other people were at home with Keith at that time. During the search, police found illegal substances and other questionable devices in the house. In connection with this, both Jagger and Richards were sentenced to 3 months in prison for crimes related to the possession and use of drugs. Jagger was sentenced to 3 months in prison, Richards to 1 year. However, after an appeal, the verdict was rejected: Keith pleaded completely guilty, and therefore was sentenced only to a suspended sentence.



He was nearly electrocuted on stage in the mid-1960s: in Sacramento, California, during a performance of “The Last Time,” Richards walked up to the microphone to perform backing vocals and noticed that they were not directed in that direction. He hit it with the neck of the guitar, which turned out to be a dangerous maneuver: from the impact and the short circuit it provoked, Keith lost consciousness, and the strings of the guitar simply burned out. He later called the incident the "most spectacular" moment of his life, and attributed his "miraculous" escape to the brand new rubber-soled boots he was wearing that day.



And in 1971, in Nellcôte, a 16-room mansion built on the French Riviera during the so-called Belle Epoque, where Richards recorded Exile on Main St. and also had wild parties with Anita. During one of them, he fell asleep with a burning cigarette in his hand. The bed underneath them caught fire, and the couple miraculously managed to escape. Keith and Anita left the villa, and later the musician was completely banned from entering France for several years. And “Nellcôte” itself was acquired by a certain Russian oligarch in 2005 for almost $130 million.



In July 1972, RS's big planned concert was set to take place in Boston, Massachusetts, but a tiny problem arose: bosom friends Richards and Jagger were arrested for fighting with a photographer in Rhode Island. The musicians ended up behind bars, but they were lucky - the mayor of Boston, Kevin White, was a smart guy: he did what any good politician would do, namely, he released the bad guys into his custody so that the show could take place. And if this had not happened, it’s scary to imagine what riots would have been committed... He probably became the most beloved mayor in the history of the city!



In 1973, in Fordyce, Arkansas, Keith was driving his Impala (1967 Chevrolet) and was stopped for careless driving. The police thought they smelled something illegal and searched the car. And we finally found what we were looking for! But the find belonged to the passenger. Richards then passed a field sobriety test but was charged with carrying a hunting knife, which was considered an illegal weapon.



That same year, Keith started another fire - this time within the walls of the Redlands estate... The musician fell asleep again with a cigarette in his hands, which caused a fire (this is when, indeed, life teaches nothing...). Then Richards, Pallenberg and their two children had to run to safety. The musician later claimed that the fire was caused by mice that chewed through some wires, causing a short circuit.



And in 1989, he wanted to stab the billionaire and future 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump! RS then decided that they wanted to end their "Steel Wheels" tour with a big and profitable show. However, the only convenient place at that time was the Trump Plaza hotel-casino in Atlantic City (New Jersey). The group was not very happy about this fact, not wanting to be associated with its owner. But their tour manager, Michael Cole, said he would "personally supervise Donald" and the band agreed, signing a contract with the hotel. But this did not lead to anything good: before the show, the musicians wanted to give an interview, but when they arrived at the press center, they found Trump there! This meeting caused a flurry of emotions in them, and especially in Keith... Cole evenaccepted an attempt to send Donald away, but Richards beat him to it, taking his eternal knife from his pocket.

“Keith pulled out a knife and slammed it on the table and said, ‘What the hell is he doing here? There are only 2 options: either him or us!” But I said, “No. I will do it. Don’t worry”... The atmosphere was tense to the limit!” (M. Cole).



In 1998, in his home library, Keith fell out of his chair while taking out a book about Leonardo da Vinci's anatomy research. He slipped, fell, and heavy books “covered” him from above. The musician broke 3 ribs, as a result of which the next RS tour was even postponed.



And in April 2006, 62-year-old Richards suffered a concussion in a fall from a coconut tree in Fiji. Brain surgery was required to heal the injury. A few days later it was successfully held in New Zealand, and a few weeks later the musician fully recovered and resumed touring. Keith then said that after the operation he gave up drugs forever.

“I come from a strong family; What would kill someone else does not kill me. For me, the only criterion in any kind of game of life is to know yourself, to know your capabilities. The press has made a bogeyman out of me; they believe that I should consider myself responsible for those who foolishly imitate me. But this is nonsense. I never intended to be an example for other people, I don’t understand anything about it. I only know myself.

For most of the 70's I was #1 on the death list. People made bets on when I would die. And they lost a lot of money on it. I used a lot of things simply out of a feeling of contradiction: if you put pressure on me, I will be even worse. This is me: push me, I will become even more stubborn” (K. Richards, from the book “Aerostat” by B. Grebenshchikov, 2009).



When playing the role of Captain Jack Sparrow in the films of the Pirates of the Caribbean series (dir.: Gore Verbinski, Rob Marshall, Espen Sandberg, Joakim Rönning, 2003-17), Johnny Depp tried to imitate the gait and manner of speaking of Richards, who is one of his favorite performers. And in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (dir. G. Verbinski, 2007), at Depp's request, the musician played Jack Sparrow's father, Captain Teague. He also played Jack Richards' father in the 4th part of the franchise - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011).



In 2003, the authoritative American music magazine Rolling Stone placed Richards in 10th place on its list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. And the musician was included in the updated list of 2011 at No. 4.



In October 2010, Richards released his autobiography, Life. In it, the musician talks about the world of a rock star, his experiments with drugs, the women in his life and his relationship with Jagger. The book also showed that Keith loves to read and has an extensive collection of literature. The biography sold millions of copies and was sold out instantly.



Despite his advanced age, the musician maintains a personal page on Instagram, where he regularly posts photo reports from concerts. He also plans to open a museum of his guitars



Keith Richards' Telecaster at the FGF Museum



Discography of K. Richards (except Rolling Stones): “TalkIs Cheap” (1988), “Main Offender” (1992), “Vintage Vinos” (2010), “Crosseyed Heart” (2015).

"Scratch'd" (Lee "Scratch" Perry & Keith Richards, 2023).





Some interesting videos from the Internet:

Keith Richards - 999 (Official Lyric Video)