Keith Richards: Life

The Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2010

Right at the beginning of "Life," there's a hint of the glorious Spinal Tapestry that Keith Richards's autobiography might have been. Using words that are rather less decorous than a family newspaper can permit, Mr. Richards recalls how: "[1975] was the tour of the giant inflatable [phallus]. It came rising up from the stage as Mick sang 'Starf—er.' It was great was the [phallus], though we paid for it later in Mick's wanting props at every tour after that, to cover his insecurities. There was a huge business of getting elephants on stage in Memphis until they ended up crashing through ramps and [defecating] all over the stage in rehearsals and were abandoned." With such grandiloquent kitsch (and the author's implicit acceptance of its absurdity) and a cleverly freighted jeer thrown at a bandmate, we have the ingredients of a definitive rock star memoir. A child of the 1960s and 1970s, I read on expectantly.

 I should have known better. Judging by the hype and circumstance that has surrounded its release, "Life" is a tome meant to be taken very seriously: less a deliciously barbed and baroque romp than an attempt to amplify—up to 11 perhaps—the legend of the world's "most elegantly wasted man."

It will succeed. Apparently shocked, shocked by the guitarist's calm, if obsessive, depiction of his drug use (too much detail, Mr. Richards, way too much) and the suggestion that such pastimes can be managed (if not always, the author admits, by him), Walt Disney is reportedly considering writing our hero out of the next "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie. By contrast, the most outrageous substance abuse described in the book—a recipe for bangers and mash involving HP sauce—has attracted none of the condemnation it deserves.

Drugs have been a big part of Mr. Richards's life, but they are part of his shtick too, and the emphasis upon them in this book will buttress the Rolling Stoner as an icon of dilapidated cool. But cool is not what it was. For all the laconic detachment of Mr. Richards's frequently amusing prose, there is something sweaty about the way this former choirboy (yes, really) is so determined to establish his machismo. It's not the girls (though there are plenty—and why not) that give the game away but the hard-man anecdotes—"so, boom, I fired a shot through the floor"—the (possibly helpful) tips on knife-fighting, the brandished Jack Daniel's, the references to himself as an alpha male, the disparagement of Mick Jagger's "todger," even a competitive approach to narcotics:

"I don't think John [Lennon] ever left my house except horizontally." Mr. Richards claims to feel imprisoned by his image ("like a ball and chain"), but, ever the professional, he's willing to play along: "Folks out there created this folk hero. Bless their hearts. And I'll do the best I can to fulfill their needs."That was the first rock and roll I heard. It was a totally different way of delivering a song, a totally different sound, stripped down, burnt, no bulls---, no violins and ladies' choruses and schmaltz, totally different."

That's good of you, mate. But preserving the illusions that feed the Rolling Stones franchise has made "Life" so much less interesting than it could have been. That said, if you're after a first-person impression of the band, especially one in which Jagger, Brian Jones and Bill Wyman have been brutally cut down, this is the book for you. Ronnie Wood's "Ronnie" (2007) is a cheery enough collection of postcards, but he only formally joined the band in 1976. Bill Wyman's "Stone Alone" (1990) ends with the storied 1969 concert/wake for Brian Jones in Hyde Park. It's OK, and the author tries to settle a few scores ("the crucial riff for 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' was mine"), but it is ultimately dragged down by historical minutiae: "Finally we ended up in the Bali restaurant in Park Street, where we had a nice lunch of curried prawns and Cokes. It was the first real meal we'd had for twenty-four hours!"

Mr. Richards disdains (or perhaps has just forgotten) such details. "Life" is impressionistic, something reinforced by its being structured as an extended monologue—Dionysus reminiscing in the pub—a process helped along by a friendly collaborator, the accomplished journalist and writer James Fox. At least one of the two of them is capable of startlingly evocative language: Brian Jones's contributions to "Let It Bleed" were the "last flare from the shipwreck."

And "Life" covers a lot of ground. After opening his story with a smug account of a potentially disastrous arrest by Dixie's finest (it turns out more "Dukes of Hazzard" than "Cool Hand Luke"), Mr. Richards takes us back to a shockingly normal working-class childhood distinguished mainly by a musical fascination that turns into an obsession. Then comes art college saving him "from the dung heap," music, more music, Jagger, the coming together of the band, and a brief period of struggle followed, astoundingly quickly, by distaff Beatlemania. After that, we're in more familiar territory: Anita Pallenberg, Altamont, the pharmaceutical adventure tour that drags on for decades, and the usual tales of studios, tours, tax avoidance and excess. This culminates—let the moralists weep—not in a junkie's death but in a successful second marriage, creative contentment and an old man's bibliophile pleasures in a Connecticut library full of George MacDonald Fraser and Patrick O'Brian.

Naturally, there's plenty for gossips (the Mars bar was on the table), armchair psychiatrists, rock archaeologists and—to borrow one marvelous phrase—"lyric-watchers" to savor, as well as revealing glimpses of the inexhaustible self-regard of this new royalty: "A jury of my peers would be Jimmy Page, a conglomeration of musicians, guys that have been on the road and know what's what. My peers are not some lady doctor and a couple of plumbers."

For the musically inclined, there's a master class in the "simple secrets" needed to make a guitar sing the Richards way, even if the source for all those "crucial, wonderful riffs that just came" remains elusive. (Bill Wyman is probably not the explanation.)

A more reliable clue can be found in the way that Mr. Richards caresses the memory of the siren songs of his youth: Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Elvis and the others, soaring across the Atlantic to an island still not quite emerged from the drabness of a war concluded more than a decade before, and, of course, this: "The early days of the magic art of guitar weaving started then. You realize what you can do playing guitar with another guy, and what the two of you can do is to the power of ten."

And so it was. And so it still is, but, after this book, Mr. Richards may have to look for a new lead singer.