The Rolling Stones are the most
long-lived top rock band in the world. In
the U.S.
the Dead, the Band and Springsteen give them a run for their
money. The Beatles flared and died too
quickly, as did many other monster groups.
Dylan, and perhaps Neil Young are still the kings of the singer-songwriters, but their groups are not a “band” per se, as Young does not always play with Crazy Horse. It
is to be seen if any of the current crop of blues-rock groups like the
Black Keys, the Alabama Shakes, Jack White’s various bands, Drive-By Truckers, Kings of Leon or even bands like My Morning Jacket or the Decembrists can reach the same
level. It is doubtful.
Richards was and is key to the Stone's artistic
success. He provided the classic riffs
to many Stones songs like "Sympathy for the
Devil" and “Honky Tonk Women." And came up with some of the key lyric choruses like “I
Can’t Get No – Sa-tis-fact-ion” and "Wild horses - couldn't drag me away," though Jagger was the word-wizard for most
Stones songs. The Stones, if you
remember, were the ‘bad boy’ alternative to the Beatle choir boys – at least
initially. This book details many of
those problems – drug busts, tax issues, court appearances, many incredibly
close scrapes with the law and the cops, rowdy shows, destructive hotel stays, odd
hangers-on, groupies, contentious relationships, guns, knives, dealers and
drugs. Lots of drugs. Keith was a heroin addict for 10 years,
kicking it finally in the early 80s. He’s
not proud of it – too much – but he does manage to point out how he could
‘handle it.’ Careful use, good quality, cold
turkey, etc. He claims while recording it enabled him to work and record and
not fall asleep and ignore all the chaos surrounding the band.
You grow to like Richards in this book as a
person – in spite of his clichéd public persona. He explicitly says he was living the ‘outlaw’
life – though its not sure how much of a role the fans played in that. But it seems Keith – or “Keef” – in
reality IS that non-lethal outlaw. Clothing
was castoffs from his girlfriends sometimes, which grew into his gypsy wardrobe,
unlike Charlie Watts, the ex-jazz drummer, who wore Savile Row suits . Richards tried to live the life of a music pirate,
and somehow succeeded in his own estimation, all because of music.
Richards was surrounded by lumpen artists, wealthy patrons, druggies,
people who dabbled in criminality and he had perhaps more money than he knew
what to do with. Richards grew to hate the police, of course. He bought or rented
houses in Jamaica, Switzerland, France, Turks & Caicos and the U.S. Anyone else
would have spent much more time in jail, but his connections, status and
lawyers always kept him out of totally serious trouble.
What is really key to this book is the
music – always, for Keith, it was the music.
Richards grew up in a hardscrabble town on the southeast edge of London, along the Thames. Both he and Jagger came at it as record
collectors first. They studied Muddy
Waters, Jimmy Reed, Robert Johnson, Chuck Berry, JL Hooker – all the American
greats. They bought records directly
from Chess in Chicago. They lived in squalor and only thought about
music. If you are a music ‘junkie’ than
this book will keep you high.
They picked up cheap instruments,
running them all through one amp, doing covers of American blues, R&B and some
country. Keith liked to record on
cassettes, simple 8-track studios, basic equipment using a few mikes in simple rooms
even after that initial period. They only wanted to be
a cover band, the best blues band in the UK, until Andrew Loog Oldham locked
them up and made them write a song. “As Tears Go By” was the product of that
first lockup, but it was so un-bluesy they were embarrassed. They let Marianne Faithful record it first instead.
The enduring mystery is why did some
working class British boys become so attracted to U.S. blues music that they dragged
it out of the racist prison it was locked into in the States? This was 1962! Many British bands - Savoy Brown, Fleetwood Mac, the Moody Blues, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Ten Years After - all started out trained on the blues. Even today, European visitors to the
Mississippi Delta museums and sites equal or outnumber American visitors. WTF?
(See review of “In Search of the Blues,” below.) As a kid, our group listened to obscure Delta
and Chicago blues in our little house in the southern prairie of Minnesota in
the mid to late 60s Little did we know
it was being done in many other places. One of our compadres named himself
“Blind Northfield Slim” – even though he could see well enough and was white as the sun.
Richards describes his ‘come to Jesus’
moment when he discovers ‘open tuning’ using 5 strings on the Telecaster
guitar, removing the bottom sixth. I’m
not a guitar player, but this tuning allowed him to get a jangle that helped
the massive Stone’s riffs sound like they did.
He says he first learned this open tuning on the guitar from Ry Cooder, but just for slide guitar and expanded it to rock guitar. Later he taught the tuning to Ike Turner, of all people. The pupil teaching the master, as Richards would put it.
There are great nuggets in this book. The band name came from Muddy Waters, not Bob
Dylan. These guys worked constantly for years – either touring, recording or
preparing to do both. They had very
little time off. Jagger and Richards
were on the same wavelength and could write songs quickly, starting with bits
and pieces of melodies, riffs or lyrics that just grew like weeds. On an early
tour they went straight to Chess’ 2120
South Michigan Avenue to record in Muddy’s
studio. “Street Fighting Man” was
written about the May 1968 revolution in France. When the Stones recorded “Exile on Main
Street” in the chateau Nellecote basement in France, Richards worked constantly,
many times all night, with a top crew. Bobby
Keys, who’d played on many U.S. R&B records with Delaney & Bonnie and
Derek & the Dominoes; Mick Taylor had joined; Jimmy Miller and Andy Johns
were doing the producing and recording. They used a mobile studio, one of the first
ever. They later wrote and recorded the great songs “Wild Horses”
and “Brown Sugar” at the legendary Muscle Shoals Alabama studio on the fly. Richards lays the fuckup at
Altamont primarily at the doors of the San Francisco City Council, who refused
the use of Golden Gate park, and then the
Hells Angels.
There is the required gossip about Mick
Jagger and the constant strife over Jagger’s overweening attitude. Richards describes Jagger as a brother, but
not a friend. He goes through his side-work
with various Jamaican bands, a film he did with and about Chuck Berry; his solo
project, the “X-Pensive Winos,” the odd upbringing of his son Marlon; his
romance with Anita Pallenberg and eventual marriage to Patti Hansen;
relationships with Brian Jones, Mick Taylor and Ron Wood, his troubled
relationship with is father etc. There
is a lot of name-dropping of prominent cultural figures in the 60s, 70s and
later, not just in music. Although it’s
not really name-dropping when you are a ‘name’ yourself. Richards comes off as the loyal ‘band’ member who
wanted to keep it together, a true friend and honest partner, in spite of all
his fucked-up drug or emotional tantrums – which he does not dwell on, as he
can barely remember them, or chooses not to.
Richards said the Stones didn’t make money
until the tours starting in the early 80s.
Like many rock acts, they were being ripped off by various promoters,
managers, etc. He claims record
royalties only paid the overhead. And so
those giant stadium tours took off.
As the Kinks sang about in one song, they
got out of the ‘factory’ and into music, only to enter another factory, the
music industry. Richards made that
factory his own, which is rare. While
this is not a political book, the Stones were key in undermining bourgeois
culture for awhile, and even the frozen culture of the Soviet bloc, as his
comments on Vaclav Havel and a recent book have noted. (The book is "How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin: The Untold Story of a Noisy Revolution") Rock has always had working-class roots and
this book certainly shows that. Long
Live Rock & Roll!
And I bought it as a discount out of Mayday
Book’s music section.
Red Frog
July 1, 2013
"Summertime ... and the livin' is easy..."
No comments:
Post a Comment