the problem with Keith Richards memoir "Life", over and above its slow start and slow finish, is, being the lead guitarist with the Rolling Stones is such a high profile gig, there isn't too much we don't know already.So all Richards' can do is name some names, settle some scores, let to rest some gossip, and slag off Mick Jagger. Get past the blah blah blahs about Jagger not releasing the reins of the Stones business after Keith kicked heroin, and the case against his lead singer boils down to this: When Mick renegotiated the Stones deal with Atlantic Records, he made a side deal as a solo artist without telling the rest of the band. then when the Stones were ready to tour, Jagger refused and went out as a solo act. Everything else Richard's has to tell us a little whatever.
So what do you get instead?
Written with British journalist James Fox, "Life" sounds like Richards might sound some of the time, and the rest, the nitty grit of names and places, it sounds like it is ghosted. Unlike, say, Chuck Berry's memoir which always sounded like him. It tells his story from several directions though linearly, and Richards comes across as a nice fellow, but dumb as a plank about most things except music. About music, he is an idiot savant and reading him on, say, the Don Was produced Bridges To Babylon is a revelation. Always a minor work, Richards explains how fights with Jagger made Bridges To Babylon a half Jagger, half Richard album, and how Richards desire to take lead on three songs instead of his usual two almost destroyed the band. I went back and listened to Richards' "How Can I Stop", the cause of the fight, and while I don't rank it as highly as, say, even "Happy", it is an excellent ballad, and the ending solo by Wayne Shorter lives up to Richards estimate.richards writing about songwriting aren't quite illuminating, there isn't much you can say about it, really. At least he tries to explain the process which amounts to sitting at a guitar and making up rhymes while somebodoy collates em.
OK, so the first Richards story goes like this:
1. raised in the aftermath of Britain's disastrous win of WW2, Keith is a working class kid born into a musical family.
2. Meets Jagger and forms the Stones.
3. Stones break big
4. Richards gets addicted to heroin and kicks it.
5. Unable to make money off album sales, signs up for Stadium tours and becomes richer than God.
Here is the second story:
1. Falls in love with the blues, and Mick
2. Falls in love with Anita, steals her from Brian Jones.
3. Falls in love with Patti.
Or:
1962 – 1972 -plays guitar for the greatest rock and roll band in the world
1973 – 2011 – plays guitar for not the greatest rock and roll band in the world.
So anyway, Keith is true to all these various stories, and he can till a story. Plus? Even Keith wants to be someone else. Keith wants to be a hardman, a danger. A violent guy you don't wanna cross…
Plus, he is a serial monogamist, a woman lover.
Some of this is just a drag to read. Some of it creepy and self-serving. Especially when he takes his son Marlon on tour. And some of it, recording the Some Girls album for instance, of historic proportions. Some Girls was the Stones last great album and it ranks as a masterpiece, a greatest album of all time stuff. And what got the band so hot?
1. Keith had quit heroin.
2. Jagger had discovered disco.
3. The Stones felt under pressure to respond to punk. I always thought that had something to do with it. I mean, "No Elvis, Beatles and the Rolling Stones"? Kinda demanded a response right? And Keith trashes, not the Clash, but the Johnny Rotten. Of course, he is completely wrong, But the result was worth it!
Richards in the end is just another musician who both
a) was a genius at writing riffs
and
b) a somewhat limited individual.
Like so many musicians, they all have the same problem, they can't see past their fret bar. -it is musician as myopia.
The only real value system Richards has is sales and musical prowess. Especially the latter by his peers. Indeed, Keith is rightfully proud of taking Chuck Berry's pianist Johnny Johnson (Richards claims Johnny essentially wrote the music for Berry's msic and Berry had prcisely one hit after That) away from a job driving a bus and back in front of piano for the last years of his life.
Equally, Keith hated punks because he considered them crappy, they spit, they couldn't play their instruments. The very things I loved about it (except for the gobbing). Richards writes about how proud is he of Hoagy Carmichael contacting him. Agreed., that is some tribute BUT this is what musicians are, it is like a breed of animal and it's a boys own club and Richards unlike Jagger is the King Of the All Boys club. There is something a little blah about it, a little limited even with the best of them.
"Life" is pretty good and also pretty boring. Just like the lead guitarist with the greatest rock band ever.