Life
Richards was born in Dartford, a suburb of London, in 1943. He grew up an only son and fell in love with rock and roll after listening to Elvis Presley. He then began a life-long infatuation with the American blues, specifically those of Chicago. Along with a few other blokes who shared his passion, namely Mick Jagger and Brian Jones, they formed a blues band. They named themselves on the spot by looking at a Muddy Waters album cover. The rest changed the face of rock and roll and the world in general.
Along the way, Richards led his life with gusto, to put it mildly. The abuse of his body has been legendary, and he doesn't hold back discussing his use of various drugs, including heroin, cocaine and marijuana. The book kicks off with a bust in Arkansas in 1975, and there were many more. Somehow, through a combination of great lawyers and luck, he managed to elude major jail time.
But the book is much more than a string of the adventures of a drug addict. He says, "It was very like a drug. In fact a bigger drug than smack. I could kick smack; I couldn't kick music." Richards loves music and the guitar, and he frequently gets very technical, which makes this a must read for any aspiring rock guitarist. He discusses how he discovered 5-string open tuning, which he used for songs like "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Street Fighting Man" (both of them were done all acoustically, which never occurred to me before). He also talks about the writing process. Most people know he wrote the riff for "Satisfaction" in his sleep, and the world was lucky that he had a tape recorder going. He also wrote "Angie" for his daughter. Mostly, he says, the process was that he would give an idea to Jagger, who would complete the lyrics.
Of course there are many merry madcap adventures along the way. Richards writes in a conversational style (he probably dictated this to his co-writer, James Fox) and holds nothing back. Of Mick Jagger, whom he has had a long, difficult relationship: "Mick and I had a totally identical taste in music. We never needed to question or explain. It was all unsaid. We'd hear something, we'd both look at each other at once." But the relationship soured over time. "I've no doubt, in retrospect, that Mick has been very jealous of me having other male friends...I have the feeling that Mick thought I belonged to him. And I didn't feel like that at all. It's taken me years to even think about that idea. Because I love the man dearly; I'm still his mate. But he makes it very difficult to be his friend."
For a period in the 1980s if appeared the Rolling Stones were done. Richards writes about feeling immense betrayal when Jagger cut his solo records and then toured, singing Rolling Stones songs without the Rolling Stones. But they have made up--the world's longest existing rock band goes on.
The book is frequently funny, though there is some heartbreak along the way. Richards and his girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, lost a son to crib death. He and Pallenberg finally broke up, mostly because he kicked horse and she didn't. He then found love with Patti Hansen, to whom he's still married, living the life of a country squire in Connecticut, reading Patrick O'Brian novels. He describes his first meeting with her family, a Thanksgiving where he smashed his guitar on the dinner table. Somehow they forgave him.
But oh, the life of a rock star. The girls: "I don't think it had ever reached the extremes it got to around the Beatles and the Stones time, at least in England. It was like somebody had pulled a plug somewhere. The '50s chicks being brought up all very jolly hockey sticks, and then somewhere there seemed to be a moment when they just decided they wanted to let themselves go. The opportunity arose for them to do that, and who's going to stop them? It was all dripping with sexual lust, though they didn't know what to do about it. But suddenly you're on the end of it. It's a frenzy. Once it's let out, it's an incredible force. You stood as much chance in a fucking river full of piranhas...These chicks were coming out there, bleeding, clothes torn off, pissed panties, and you took that for granted every night...They didn't give a shit that I was trying to be a blues player."
There a lot of characters in the narrative, from fellow musicians to hangers-on. Richards bears the dubious distinction of turning John Phillips on to heroin and shared a lost three-day acid trip with John Lennon. There's lots of accolades for various musicians, from Jerry Lee Lewis (though Richards did get in his face once) to Tom Waits to Etta James. He's also frank about those he didn't care for. He doesn't have many kind words for Jones, who thought himself the leader of the band, even though he didn't write any songs. When he died, Richards is respectful, but doesn't seem to have grieved too much. He did grieve for Gram Parsons, whom he loved.
What is probably the best part of this book is that it both confirms and belies the public Richards. Yes, he lived a crazed life, but there's also a stability there, rooted in loyalty, family and love of music. But he's aware of the persona. He talks about the famous stories: falling out of a palm tree (and nearly dying of a cerebral hemorrhage), having his blood replaced (not true), and snorting his father's ashes (true). "I can't untie the threads of how much I played a part that was written for me. I mean the skull ring and the broken tooth and the kohl. Is it half and half? I think in a way your persona, your image, as it used to be known, is like a ball and chain. People think I'm still a goddamn junkie. It's thirty years since I gave up the dope! Image is like a long shadow. Even when the sun goes down, you can see it. I think some of it is that there is so much pressure to be that person that you become it, to a certain point that you can bear. It's impossible not to end up being a parody of what you thought you were."
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