July 15th, 2024

Life by Keith Richards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In preparation for the Rolling Stones' "Hackney Diamonds" shows in Los Angeles, I spent most of June (and half of July) listening to the audiobook of Life by Keith Richards. Though I've had Keith's autobiography on my bookshelves for nearly a decade (thanks, Mom!), I didn't have a sense of urgency to plunge into the book... until this summer, when I had tickets to see the Stones in Los Angeles, for what might very well be their farewell tour.

While I've been a big Stones fan since high school, I had vast gaps in my knowledge of the band's history. As such, reading Life was an edifying experience (to say the least). Like Paul McCartney or Jerry Garcia, Keith Richards has led a staggering artistic existence that has revolutionized the music industry. This singular experience - the ultimate rock star of rock stars - places him in an echelon that's unfathomable to most readers. Keith's contribution to popular music (and rock music, in particular) cannot be stated enough: we would not have Nirvana or Metallica or blink-182 or the Ramones (or countless other bands) if the Stones had not set the stage for these musical descendants. In short, we would not have rock and roll if not for Keith Richards.

Over the course of 864 pages (or roughly 23 hours of audiobook narration), Richards details his life as the primary guitarist, co-songwriter, and occasional lead singer of the Rolling Stones. I toggled back and forth between the audiobook and the print book, reading Keith's conversational prose and listening to his stories. Bizarrely, the autobiography employs three (count 'em: THREE) audiobook narrators: Johnny Depp, Joe Hurley, and (least effectively) Richards himself. Over the course of nearly two dozen hours, the three narrators cover the highs and lows of Keef's life, from his early days as an art school student and the formation of the band to the group's interstellar success to dark days of drug addiction and in-fighting with bandmates. You want to know all the juicy gossip about the band and its dirty secrets? It's all in here.

Of course, there are plenty of surprises for the casual (and not-so-casual) fan. Amusingly, Richards was once -get this - a choir boy. Literally. In his early years, young Keith showed a proclivity for music, picking up classical guitar with his grandfather's encouragement and joining his school's award-winning boys' choir. Ultimately, though, Richards felt used and abused by the school, which didn't give him academic credit for the years he spent touring with their choir. Richards identifies this as the start of his antiauthoritarian views, which only amplified in the following decades as he butted up against the classism and prejudices of society. During the early portions of the book, I was also surprised by the depiction of Richards as a young art student who, even in his late teens and early twenties, saw the writing on the wall for corporate use and abuse of visual artists. Later in the book, Richards discusses losing a child to SIDS, a heartbreaking moment that serves as a sharp contrast to many of Keith's carefree, freewheeling escapades as a rock star. While it's easy to dismiss Richards as a cartoon or a caricature (including the classic SNL skit in which the duo of Mike Myers and Mick Jagger parody the Glimmer Twins), Keith is, ultimately, just another human being facing his own grief and pain. Not even world-famous rock stars are immune to the kind of suffering that defines the human condition.

In a similar vein, it's fascinating to hear about Keith's dabbling, use, and abuse of drugs - ranging from marijuana to narcotics and, ultimately, heroin. As some of Keith's friends and collaborators, like Gram Parsons and Bobby Keys, ultimately succumb to their addictions, Richards is forced to confront his medicinal demons and grapple with his own chemical dependencies. While Keith himself admits that he has consumed more drugs than almost any other human being on the planet, he simultaneously recognizes the toll that it's taken on his inner circle.

Although the book's title, Life, should have given me a clue, I was disappointed by Keith's limited discussions of songwriting, recording, and producing. Richards tends to rush through pivotal pieces of rock history, like the oft-told tale of composing the riff to "Satisfaction" in his sleep or his groundbreaking use of alternate guitar tunings. How many other guitarists out there only play with five strings, like a revved-up banjo? Rather than explore these remarkable moments of creativity, Richards instead dedicates countless pages to his love life, including his destructive long-term relationship with Anita Pallenberg, his illicit love affair with Ronnie Spector, and his happily-ever-after with Patti Hansen. While it's all titillating gossip for a rock tell-all, the focus on Keith's romantic endeavors over his musical accomplishments feels a bit too tawdry and hollow.

In the end, Life is a fascinating (if not bloated and rambling) examination of one of rock's most important, groundbreaking figures. Like a Fender Telecaster or Gibson Les Paul, Richards seems ubiquitous and timeless - as if he's always been a part of the musical landscape. While time is decidedly not on Keith's side as he continues into his 80s, readers of Life will ultimately have much more sympathy for this devil. After all, "it's only rock and roll" - but we like it. Yes, we do.

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