How fair is it, then, that the other half of one of rock music’s most successful songwriting and live performance partnership is never going to have a No 1 song written about him? For Keith Richards, is it the lack of a distinctive surname enabling immediate identification, or might it be the fact that he has never set out to be a technical virtuoso guitarist?
Let’s step back into the sixties. Legend has it that the Rolling Stones were the London bad boys compared to the goody-goody moptop image of the early Beatles. And yet as time went by, and the Stones rolled on after the Beatles had taken the long and winding road to breakup, Mick Jagger developed into something of an establishment figure, his knighthood being the icing on the cake alongside his love of cricket and his fitness fanaticism.
When considering Keith Richards, on the other hand, it might be most unfair for this ultra maverick to spark off thoughts of copious ingestion of mind altering substances, or accidental falls from coconut palms, rather than for the riffs and solos on Satisfaction, Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Start Me Up. Or, indeed, thoughts of how his most notable moves would probably only comprise the deft extraction of the burning fag from the top of his guitar neck when a suitable break in a stage show permitted.
But that’s life. And would this great survivor of the modern rock era care? Hardly.
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