§§ This book is quite an easy read, although not as raunchy as you might expect from a founding member of The Rolling Stones, and is often preoccupied with Richards' fractious relationship with Mick Jagger.
It's similar to Andy Summers' One Train Later in this regard, where Summers' aching disappointment with Sting arcs through much of the action, and as such, is perhaps a recognizable guitarist-singer syndrome for rock and roll bands. Keith Richards certainly sees it as a syndrome, has a witty name for it, "LVS" (lead vocalist syndrome), although it could easily be designated PMS (Point Man Syndrome). Symptoms include being a control freak, working sneaky deals behind the band's back, screwing your old lady and secretly plotting a solo career. For those who have read a lot of rock and roll gossip in Rolling Stone and elsewhere over the years, none of this will be news, and at times might sound like a bit of a chick "relationships" moan... and indeed, this book might be aimed at women more than men. Despite the casual obscenity, it's soft.
Even though he packs an unregistered 38 and a knife, Keith's macho nature is soft macho, the fugitive criminality of the junky pirate. When you spend so much of your life either sleeping (narced out) or performing on stage, there has to be a lot of acting going down. In this story of a rocker's transit from childhood to old age, you always see the boy in the man.
Possibly the ghost writer James Fox (acknowledged) has something to do with this persona, but for sure the editor did. This is prime-time reading, Walmart discount table stuff, 30% off and no bad dreams. No clinical sex, no true confession. Yes, the women and the groupies are mentioned, although you are left with about five or six who really mattered. For the most part, off-stage is off-stage. If you want more blow-by-blow, read the Tony Sanchez dope dealer view in Up & Down With the Rolling Stones (1980).
Keith calls the Sanchez book tabloid but it's dramatic like a non-fiction novel, and is now a rock 'n' roll classic. These days Keith Richards has grandchildren, doesn't need that sort of notoriety, and probably isn't as interested in that old shit anyway. Other than dope, guitars and guitar playing is what he's all about, and there's plenty of that in Life... although, again, if you're a guitarist and have read the interviews over the years, you know this stuff already. In fact, you've read it in the official Stones coffee table book According To The Rolling Stones (2003), so you might be left thinking all the "co-writer" James Fox did was montage this existing material with a few updates by Keith on the tape recorder.
Linda Keith broke his heart, but you probably knew that. "That's the first time I felt the deep cut," says Keith, admitting that he stalked her a couple of times. Oddly, although Linda eventually became involved with Jimi Hendrix, she's still alive today. Then, of course, there's Ronnie Bennett, of the Ronettes, whom Keith met on a tour of England in the mid-sixties. Ronnie was the trophy girlfriend of the infamous American producer Phil Spector at the time, a man so jealous that when he and Ronnie were later married he had a gold coffin made for her, kept it in the basement "just in case".
Anita Pallenberg... you know about her. They had three children and would still have been together if she hadn't screwed up so badly under dope dereliction. In 1979 the toy-boy lover who shot himself playing Russian roulette was the last straw, probably, although she and Keith were no longer playing house. You might recall the particularly nasty description by some rock journalist back then that she was "now bloated beyond gender." Again, oddly, she survived this and is still alive today.
The others? You can read about them if you want. Keith likes models, especially German ones. There was Uschi Obermaier -- "The best bad girl I know" -- who reappeared unexpectedly in Cabo San Lucas when Keith spent a lost year there in 1982, and then vanished after her boyfriend was decapitated when he crashed his motor cycle outside of town.
This was just before he married Patti Hansen, an American model who is still his wife today. The Richards presence is still folkloric in Cabo, where many still point to a shack on the beach, say that's where he got married or got stoned, or claim to have drank Jack with him in Sammy Hagar's club Cabo Wabo.
Even by then, Keith Richards was a legend, the subject of a collective hallucination. Many of you aspired to be him, just as he says "Mick was aspiring to be Mick Jagger, chasing his own phantom."
Keith mentions his friendship with John Lennon a number times, says Lennon was no good with dope, threw up easily. He admired Lennon's approach to music, the world, and indeed he had to have been affected by Lennon's assassination, although he doesn't go into it. If ever a rocker needed a reason to carry a concealed weapon, Lennon's death provided the rationale. Lennon was an influence, no doubt about it, as he and McCartney provided the Stones with their first original song (I Wanna Be Your Man), which made it plain that Richards and Jagger should be writing their own material. And although Richards says he was introduced to "open tunings" on the guitar by Gram Parsons and Ry Cooder, it's possible that John Lennon may have shown the way as he started out using a banjo tuning under the tutelage of his aunt.
Whatever way Keith Richards came upon the 5 string G tuning, there is no disputing its influence on the signature Stones sound, especially after Honky Tonk Woman. Discussing another Stones classic of the period, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Richards says he's heard many bands try to play it but just can't quite get it because you have to use the five string open G tuning to to get that chime. Would Johnny Winter and Rick Derringer agree? After all, they did a stunning live version of Jumpin Jack Flash on the 1971 album Live Johnny Winter And ... although you never know with Johnny, of course, as he often goes open E for his slide.
