Queen Of The Highway

‘Everybody’s got a different way of telling a story - and has different stories to tell.’ ― Keith Richards ❥

[mfgaudet]

The Rolling Stones - Out Of Control - Havana Moon.

[mfgaudet]

The Rolling Stones - Out Of Control - Havana Moon.

[mfgaudet]

#BlueAndLonesome, the new The Rolling Stones album, is out December 2! 

[mfgaudet]

Keith has actually [gasp] talked about retiring. The Internet may be crammed with jokey memes about Keith's immortality, but the man himself appears to have semi-seriously considered the prospect of calling it a day, at least career-wise. "Keith said something that was kind of shocking, and I asked him never to say that again," recounts Steve Jordan. "He was like, 'You know, maybe I should retire.' At which I completely freaked out!" Keith tries to play it off by growling, "I was talking in my sleep!" — but hey, it's somehow comforting to learn that a seventy-something rock star occasionally thinks about the same things that normal seventysomethings do.

By Dan Epstein Rolling Stone Magazine September 18, 2015 http://bit.do/coteZ

[mfgaudet]

Keith was estranged from his father for two decades. Keith's parents split up after he left home to pursue his rock and roll dreams; Bert Richards, his father, didn't speak to him for 20 years. When Keith finally arranged a meeting with Bert during the 1980s, he was so nervous about the prospect of seeing his dad again that he "took Ronnie Wood with me for protection — that's how scared I was!" Woody's intimidating presence ultimately proved unnecessary, however, as the reunion turned out to be a happy one. "We sorted it all out," Keith says, "and for the next 20 years, he became my best mate."

By Dan Epstein Rolling Stone Magazine September 18, 2015 http://bit.do/coteZ

[mfgaudet]

There are no electric guitars on "Street Fighting Man." Seriously — Keith's bass is actually the only electric instrument on the entire song. That aggressive guitar sound you hear on the 1968 track is actually Keith slamming an acoustic guitar at close range into the microphone of a portable tape recorder; the volume and proximity of the guitar caused the recorded signal to overload, producing a distorted, ringing sound. In Under the Influence, Keith demonstrates the technique using a 1967 Norelco tape recorder — a sequence that will probably cause the eBay value of 1960s portable tape decks to inflate considerably.

Keith once went to a party at one blues legend's house — and somehow woke up at the home of another one. While paying a visit with Neville to Muddy's decrepit old digs on the south side of Chicago, Keith recalls Willie Dixon taking him to a house party there many years ago. "It was rocking when I got here, I remember that," he says. "It's leaving I don't remember. I crashed out here, but I woke up at Howlin' Wolf's house… the party continued, and I went with it!"

By Dan Epstein Rolling Stone Magazine September 18, 2015 http://bit.do/coteZ

[mfgaudet]

The Stones made it acceptable for Chicago blues guitarists to crank up their amps in the recording studio. Blues legend Buddy Guy recalls how the Chess Studios engineers refused to record his guitar at a loud volume, claiming that no one would want to hear the distorted sounds that resulted. "But when it got back to Leonard [Chess] that the British are playing it, and it's getting over," he says, "I turned my amp up like these British guys."

Keith thinks he's probably a better bass player than a guitar player. Well, he might actually be joking about that — but there's no question that Keith loves the occasional four-string workout. Not only did he lay down the bass tracks on such classic Stones jams as "Jumping Jack Flash," "Street Fighting Man," "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Happy," but he also handles all the bass duties on Crosseyed Heart. "I love this shit!" he exults, after finishing a bass take for the new record.

By Dan Epstein Rolling Stone Magazine September 18, 2015 http://bit.do/coteZ

[mfgaudet]

The roots of the Rolling Stones can be traced back to two specific albums. In 1960, Keith and childhood chum Mick Jagger reunited when they ran into each other on a train. Mick was carrying two albums with him at the time — The Best of Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry's Rockin' at the Hops, both on Chess Records — and the two college students immediately bonded over their mutual love for the blues. "I thought I was the only guy in the southeast of England that knew anything about this stuff," Keith laughs. Out of that bond grew the Rolling Stones, who took their name from a song on the Muddy LP called "Rollin' Stone"; songs from both albums (including Muddy's "I Just Want to Make Love to You" and Chuck's "Let It Rock") would show up in the band's set lists for decades to come.

The Stones once got in trouble with the law for "topless bathing." Keith recounts how, during one of their early U.S. tours, someone called the cops on the band for swimming at a Georgia Holiday Inn without their shirts on. "Some freaked-out locals thought, because of the hair, there was a load of chicks jumping into the pool naked," he chuckles. Much to the bemusement (and disappointment) of the local constabulary, it just turned out to be a bunch of skinny English dudes.

By Dan Epstein Rolling Stone Magazine September 18, 2015 http://bit.do/coteZ

[mfgaudet]

Keith's main early musical influence was his mother. "My Mum was a beautiful music freak with incredible taste," he says. "She was a wizard of the dial — if there was anything worth listening to [on the radio], she would find it." Doris Richards turned her only son on to such jazz greats as Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Billy Eckstine, as well as "a little dash of Mozart here and there." She also instilled him with a lifelong love of country music. "We didn't hear a lot of it in England, but I was well aware of it,” he recalls. "My mother made sure of that."

His grandfather "teased” him into becoming a guitarist. Keith's granddad Gus kept an acoustic guitar on his wall, which was placed tantalizingly out of the youngster's reach. "When you can reach it, I'll let you play it," Gus told him; then, when Keith was big enough to reach it, Gus insisted that he learn the Spanish standard "Malagueña," because "it's got a lot of moves in it that make it great for the fingers."

By Dan Epstein

Rolling Stone Magazine September 18, 2015

http://bit.do/coteZ

[mfgaudet]

Keith's main early musical influence was his mother. "My Mum was a beautiful music freak with incredible taste," he says. "She was a wizard of the dial — if there was anything worth listening to [on the radio], she would find it." Doris Richards turned her only son on to such jazz greats as Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Billy Eckstine, as well as "a little dash of Mozart here and there." She also instilled him with a lifelong love of country music. "We didn't hear a lot of it in England, but I was well aware of it,” he recalls. "My mother made sure of that."

His grandfather "teased” him into becoming a guitarist. Keith's granddad Gus kept an acoustic guitar on his wall, which was placed tantalizingly out of the youngster's reach. "When you can reach it, I'll let you play it," Gus told him; then, when Keith was big enough to reach it, Gus insisted that he learn the Spanish standard "Malagueña," because "it's got a lot of moves in it that make it great for the fingers."

By Dan Epstein

Rolling Stone Magazine September 18, 2015

http://bit.do/coteZ

[mfgaudet]

“...I take the view that God, in his infinite wisdom, didn't bother to spring for two joints - heaven and hell. They're the same place, but heaven is when you get everything you want and you meet Mommy and Daddy and your best friends and you all have a hug and a kiss and play your harps. Hell is the same place - no fire and brimstone - but they just all pass by and don't see you. There's nothing, no recognition. You're waving, "It's me, your father," but you're invisible. You're on a cloud, you've got your harp, but you can't play with nobody because they don't see you. That's hell.”   ― Keith Richards. [Life Book.]

[mfgaudet]

“You're sitting with some guys, and you're playing and you go, "Ooh, yeah!" That feeling is worth more than anything. There's a certain moment when you realize that you've actually just left the planet for a bit and that nobody can touch you. You're elevated because you're with a bunch of guys that want to do the same thing as you. And when it works, baby, you've got wings. You know you've been somewhere most people will never get; you've been to a special place.”  ― Keith Richards. [Life Book.]

[mfgaudet]

“A gut-string classical Spanish guitar, a sweet, lovely little lady. The smell of it. Even now, to open a guitar case, when it's an old wooden guitar, I could crawl in and close the lid.”  ― Keith Richards. [Life Book.]

[mfgaudet]

Ronnie Wood & Keith Richards

[mfgaudet]

“Rock and roll ain’t nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.”

― Keith Richards.

[mfgaudet]

“Rock and roll ain’t nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.”

― Keith Richards. 

[mfgaudet]

“I can sustain the impetus over the long tours we do is by feeding off the energy that we get back from an audience. That's my fuel. All i've got is this burning energy, especially when i've got a guitar in my hands” 

  ―    Keith Richards. Life