What a book.
This has to be the best memoir written by a musician - with help from James Fox as a ghost writer - since the forties.
I am exactly the same age as Keith Richards and I know what he is talking about when he refers to life in that extraordinary era of the '60's.
So he went nuts and took to drink and drugs in a big way when he had fame and fortune thrust upon him at an early age.
Of course he did, so would any one of us around twenty years old in the mid sixties, who had made a few million; but we wouldn't have been able to come up with the spectacular guitar 'riffs' that made him so famous.
Even Tony Bennett who was being interviewed on the CBC on 'Q' this morning said how thankful he was that he had only really become famous when he was old enough to handle it; and he has just produced his first Number One record around the world in time for his 85th birthday! You don't have to be a fan of The Stones to understand and enjoy this wonderfully frank (Yes, language and all) memoir of life in that revolutionary age.
KR was a brilliant guitarist and one of the most famous members of The Stones.
Within these 500 plus pages you will read about his passion for the blues which started it all and his intense musicality which he so much enjoyed when playing either in a small club or a huge stadium; when they got it right, he described it as, "flying without a license.
" One of the intriguing parts of the book is the descriptions of how some of the most famous songs were composed, such as 'Gimme Shelter'.
It is this love of music which becomes so evident from this book, even though he chronicles his run-ins with the police, drug busts and his famous Toronto law case.
He describes very succinctly the realization when The Stones become pop idols, having been living in a shared tenement flat, living off the money from recycled beer bottles.
He talks about the craziness of screaming girls and drugs and the all-night, for several nights, parties.
He himself says that he was shy with girls even though they were flinging themselves at him; not so with Brian Jones who was lapping up the fame.
Of course, the main relationship that he goes into is his friendship with Mick Jagger; one minute absolute soul mates, then a long period of hate due to the way that Jagger treated him and the rest of the band.
From beginning to end of this book (quite literally), KR refers to his relationship with his parents Bert and Doris, as he relates loving family stories about their time in Dartford, with as much detail as he does the time when The Stones took over entire floors of hotels when on tour in America.
As he admits, he is lucky to still be alive, and I, for one, am very glad of that fact and that he, with the help of a collection of letters, diaries and notebooks, thought to write this fascinating and eloquently written memoir.
Read it and you just might be amazed, but you certainly won't be disappointed.
This has to be the best memoir written by a musician - with help from James Fox as a ghost writer - since the forties.
I am exactly the same age as Keith Richards and I know what he is talking about when he refers to life in that extraordinary era of the '60's.
So he went nuts and took to drink and drugs in a big way when he had fame and fortune thrust upon him at an early age.
Of course he did, so would any one of us around twenty years old in the mid sixties, who had made a few million; but we wouldn't have been able to come up with the spectacular guitar 'riffs' that made him so famous.
Even Tony Bennett who was being interviewed on the CBC on 'Q' this morning said how thankful he was that he had only really become famous when he was old enough to handle it; and he has just produced his first Number One record around the world in time for his 85th birthday! You don't have to be a fan of The Stones to understand and enjoy this wonderfully frank (Yes, language and all) memoir of life in that revolutionary age.
KR was a brilliant guitarist and one of the most famous members of The Stones.
Within these 500 plus pages you will read about his passion for the blues which started it all and his intense musicality which he so much enjoyed when playing either in a small club or a huge stadium; when they got it right, he described it as, "flying without a license.
" One of the intriguing parts of the book is the descriptions of how some of the most famous songs were composed, such as 'Gimme Shelter'.
It is this love of music which becomes so evident from this book, even though he chronicles his run-ins with the police, drug busts and his famous Toronto law case.
He describes very succinctly the realization when The Stones become pop idols, having been living in a shared tenement flat, living off the money from recycled beer bottles.
He talks about the craziness of screaming girls and drugs and the all-night, for several nights, parties.
He himself says that he was shy with girls even though they were flinging themselves at him; not so with Brian Jones who was lapping up the fame.
Of course, the main relationship that he goes into is his friendship with Mick Jagger; one minute absolute soul mates, then a long period of hate due to the way that Jagger treated him and the rest of the band.
From beginning to end of this book (quite literally), KR refers to his relationship with his parents Bert and Doris, as he relates loving family stories about their time in Dartford, with as much detail as he does the time when The Stones took over entire floors of hotels when on tour in America.
As he admits, he is lucky to still be alive, and I, for one, am very glad of that fact and that he, with the help of a collection of letters, diaries and notebooks, thought to write this fascinating and eloquently written memoir.
Read it and you just might be amazed, but you certainly won't be disappointed.
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