Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, singer and record producer who is an original member, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-principal songwriter of the Rolling Stones. His songwriting partnership with the band's lead vocalist Mick Jagger is one of the most successful in history. His career spans over six decades, and his guitar playing style has been a trademark of the Rolling Stones throughout the band's career. Richards gained press notoriety for his romantic involvements and illicit drug use, and he was often portrayed as a countercultural figure. First professionally known as Keith Richard, in 1978 he fully asserted his family name.
Richards was born in and grew up in Dartford, Kent. He studied at the Dartford Technical School and Sidcup Art College. After graduating, Richards befriended Jagger, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Ian Stewart and Brian Jones and joined the Rolling Stones. As a member of the group, Richards also sings lead on some of their songs, typically at least one song per concert, including "Happy", "Before They Make Me Run", and "Connection". Outside of his career with the Rolling Stones, Richards has also played with his own side-project, The X-Pensive Winos. He also appeared in two Pirates of the Caribbean films as Captain Teague, father of Jack Sparrow, whose look and characterisation were inspired by Richards himself.
In 1989, Richards was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2004 into the UK Music Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him fourth on its list of 100 best guitarists in 2011. In 2023, Rolling Stone's ranking was 15th. The magazine listed fourteen songs that Richards wrote with Jagger on its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.
Early life
Richards was born on 18 December 1943 at Livingston Hospital, in Dartford, Kent, England. He is the only child of Doris Maud Lydia and Herbert William Richards. His father was a factory worker who was wounded in the Second World War during the Normandy invasion. Richards's paternal grandparents, Ernie and Eliza Richards, were socialists and civic leaders, whom he credited as "more or less creat the Walthamstow Labour Party", and both were mayors of the Municipal Borough of Walthamstow in Essex, with Eliza becoming mayor in 1941. His great-grandfather's family originated from Wales.His maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore "Gus" Dupree, who toured Britain with a jazz big band, Gus Dupree and His Boys, fostered Richards's interest in the guitar. Richards has said that it was Dupree who gave him his first guitar. His grandfather "teased" the young Richards with a guitar that was on a shelf that Richards couldn't reach at the time. Finally, Dupree told Richards that if Richards could reach the guitar, he could have it. Richards then devised all manner of ways of reaching the guitar, including putting books and cushions on a chair, until finally getting hold of the instrument, after which his grandfather taught him the rudiments of Richards's first tune, "Malagueña". He worked on the number "like mad", and then his grandfather let him keep the guitar, which he called "the prize of the century". Richards played at home, listening to recordings by Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and others. His father, on the other hand, disparaged his son's musical enthusiasm. One of Richards's first guitar heroes was Elvis's guitarist Scotty Moore.
Richards attended Wentworth Primary School with Mick Jagger and was his neighbour until 1954 when the Richards and Jagger families both moved. From 1955 to 1959, Richards attended Dartford Technical High School for Boys. He never sat the eleven-plus due to illness. Recruited by Dartford Tech's choirmaster, R. W. "Jake" Clare, he sang in a trio of boy sopranos at, among other occasions, Westminster Abbey for Queen Elizabeth II. In 1959, Richards was expelled from Dartford Tech for truancy and transferred to Sidcup Art College, where he met Dick Taylor. At Sidcup, he was diverted from his studies proper and devoted more time to playing guitar with other students in the boys' room. At this point, Richards had learned most of Chuck Berry's solos.
Richards met Jagger again by chance on a train platform when Jagger was heading for classes at the London School of Economics. The mail-order rhythm and blues albums from Chess Records by Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters that Jagger was carrying revealed a mutual interest and led to a renewal of their friendship. Along with mutual friend Dick Taylor, Jagger was singing in an amateur band, Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys, which Richards soon joined. The Blue Boys folded when Brian Jones, after sharing thoughts on their joint interest in the blues music, invited Mick and Keith to the Bricklayers Arms pub, where they then met Ian Stewart.
By mid-1962, Richards had left Sidcup Art College to devote himself to music, and moved into a London flat with Jagger and Jones. His parents divorced at about the same time, resulting in his staying close to his mother and remaining estranged from his father until 1982.
After the Rolling Stones signed to Decca Records in 1963, the band's manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, sought to rework their image. As part of his efforts, he advised Richards to drop the s from his surname, believing that Keith Richard, in his words, "looked more pop", and that it would echo the name of the British rock and roll singer Cliff Richard. The change was not official and was assumed only as a stage name. In 1978, Richards switched back to using his legal name in all public and private contexts.
Musicianship
Richards plays both lead and rhythm guitar parts, often in the same song; the Stones are generally known for their guitar interplay of rhythm and lead between him and the other guitarist in the band – Brian Jones, Mick Taylor, or Ronnie Wood. In the recording studio Richards sometimes plays all of the guitar parts, notably on the songs "Paint It Black", "Ruby Tuesday", "Sympathy for the Devil", and "Gimme Shelter". He is also a vocalist, singing backing vocals on many Rolling Stones songs as well as occasional lead vocals, such as on the Rolling Stones' 1972 single "Happy", as well as with his side project, the X-Pensive Winos.Bandleader
Since the mid-1960s, Richards and Mick Jagger have been the primary songwriters for the Stones, as well as the band's primary producers since the mid-1970s, often in collaboration with an outside producer. Former keyboardist Ian Stewart once said that Richards was the Rolling Stones' bandleader; Richards has said that his job is merely "oiling the machinery". Unlike many bands where the drummer sets the pace and acts as a timesetter for a song, Richards fills that role for the Rolling Stones. Both former bassist Bill Wyman and current guitarist Ronnie Wood have said that the Stones did not follow the band's long-time drummer, Charlie Watts, but rather followed Richards, as there was "no way of 'not' following" him.Guitarist
calls Richards's guitar playing "direct, incisive and unpretentious". Richards says he focuses on chords and rhythms, avoiding flamboyant and competitive virtuosity and trying not to be the "fastest gun in the west". Richards prefers teaming with at least one other guitarist and has almost never toured without one. Chuck Berry has been an inspiration for Richards, and, with Jagger, he introduced Berry's songs to the Rolling Stones' early repertoire. In the late 1960s Brian Jones's declining contributions led Richards to record all guitar parts on many tracks, including slide guitar. Jones's replacement, Mick Taylor, played guitar with the Rolling Stones from 1969 to 1974. Taylor's virtuosity on lead guitar led to a pronounced separation between lead and rhythm guitar roles, most notably onstage. In 1975 Taylor was replaced by Wood, whose arrival marked a return to a guitar interplay Richards called "the ancient art of weaving", which he and Jones had gleaned from Chicago blues.A break in touring during 1967–1968 allowed Richards to experiment with open tunings. He mainly used open tunings for fingered chording, developing a distinctive style of syncopated and ringing I–IV chording heard on "Street Fighting Man" and "Start Me Up". Richards's favouredbut not exclusively usedopen tuning is a five-string open G tuning: GDGBD. Richards often removes the lowest string from his guitar, playing with only five strings and letting the band's bass player pick up those notes, as the lower string just "gets in the way" of Richards's playing. Several of his Telecasters are tuned this way. This tuning is prominent on Rolling Stones recordings, including "Honky Tonk Women", "Brown Sugar", and "Start Me Up". Richards has stated that banjo tuning was the inspiration for this tuning.
Richards regards acoustic guitar as the basis for his playing, believing that the limitations of electric guitar would cause him to "lose that touch" if he stopped playing an acoustic. Richards plays acoustic guitar on many Rolling Stones tracks, including "Play with Fire", "Brown Sugar", and "Angie". All guitars on the studio versions of "Street Fighting Man" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" feature acoustic guitars overloaded to a cassette recorder, then re-amped through a loudspeaker in the studio.
Vocals
Richards sang in a school choirmost notably for Queen Elizabeth IIuntil adolescence's effect on his voice forced him out of it. He has sung backing vocals on every Rolling Stones album. Since Between the Buttons, he has sung lead or co-lead on at least one track of every Rolling Stones studio album except Their Satanic Majesties Request, Sticky Fingers, It's Only Rock 'n Roll, and Blue & Lonesome.He has sung lead on more than ten Rolling Stones songs, including "Happy", "You Got the Silver", and "Connection". During the Rolling Stones' 1972 tour, the Richards-sung "Happy" entered into their concert repertoire, and since then he has sung lead vocals on one or two songs each concert in order to give Jagger time to change his outfit. Keith usually starts with Max Miller routines such as "It's nice to be hereit's nice to be anywhere", in order to give the audience a moment to catch its proverbial breath. During the 2006 and 2007 Rolling Stones' tours, Richards sang "You Got the Silver" without playing any instrument.