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Keith Richards

Keith Richards

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Keith Richards: Talk Is Cheap

Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1997

KEITH RICHARDS says he’d never thought of making a solo album until Mick Jagger announced that he didn’t want to tour to promote the Rolling ...

Audio interviews

Keith Richards (and Anita Pallenberg) (1979)

Interview by Chris Welch, Rock's Backpages audio, January 1979

Holding court at London's Ritz Hotel – and with frequent interjections from Pallenberg – the Rolling Stones guitarist talks about the band's most recent tour; why he's back in London; being in tax exile; punk and the Pistols; Keith Moon's death; working with Peter Tosh, and reggae and Jamaica in general; the etymology of the terms "Blood Claat"; his Canadian drug bust and being a junkie; writing with Mick Jagger and the Stones' Some Girls; how he and Mick became known as "the Glimmer Twins"; Edith Grove flatmate Jimmy Phelge; Bill Wyman; his various house fires, and... enter son Marlon! (Read the resulting Melody Maker piece "An Outlaw at the Ritz")...

File format: mp3; file size: 82mb, interview length: 1h 25' 24" sound quality: ***

Keith Richards (1985)

Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages audio, Winter 1985

Starting with the Live Aid Dylan "fiasco", this interview moves swiftly through subjects such as guitar playing and Jeff Beck's Stones "audition", before degenerating into a row about production methods. Things get back on keel with talk of Exile and Keef's Desert Island Discs. Sound quality is, shall we say, funky.

File format: mp3; file size: 69.5mb, interview length: 1h 12' 23" sound quality: **

Keith Richards (1988)

Interview by Ira Robbins, Rock's Backpages audio, 19 September 1988

Keith opens by criticising Mick Jagger as a solo artist, then goes on to talk about being in the Rolling Stones; talks about the art of rhythm guitar; making the Chuck Berry movie; the great players on his first solo album Talk is Cheap; the Stones' future and how a band can grow old; the recent CD reissues of the group's catalogue; the "fragile monster" that was Brian Jones; their evolution as songwriters; the establishment's hounding of them; his drug use... and being in the public eye.

File format: mp3; file size: 89.3mb, interview length: 1h 33' 04" sound quality: ***½

Keith Richards (1997)

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, April 1997

The Human Riff talks about his solo excursion with the X-Pensive Winos and making Talk is Cheap: sorting out the crack band with Steve Jordan, working with Bootsy and Maceo, and on being a frontman.

File format: mp3; file size: 19.2mb, interview length: 21' sound quality: *

Keith Richards (1997)

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, November 1997

The Human Riff on Exile on Main Street, Gram Parsons, rastamen in the hills and his loathing of Oasis.

File format: mp3 File size: 27.7mb Interview length: 30 minutes 13 seconds Sound quality: ****

Keith Richards (2002)

Interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages audio, 14 August 2002

The Human Riff looks back on a life in rock'n'roll: the people — Allen Klein, Andrew Oldham, Jimmy Miller, Gram Parsons and, of course, his old mucker Mick; on the '60s music business; on starting to write, on riffs and tunings; and on his Toronto bust.

File format: mp3; file size: 106.2mb, interview length: 1h 50' 38" sound quality: ***

List of articles in the library

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Keith Richard: The Ignored Stone

Profile by Louise Criscione, KRLA Beat, 28 May 1966

WHY IS IT Keith Richard is the Stone who receives the least amount of publicity or fanfare? ...

Keith Richard on Mick, Beatles, Led, Faith, Tull, Gees

Interview by Ritchie Yorke, New Musical Express, 6 December 1969

THE NEWS that the Rolling Stones have resumed personal appearances must have gladdened the hearts of pop fans everywhere. The Stones always were the most ...

The Rolling Stone Interview: Keith Richards

Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 19 August 1971

KEITH PLAYS in a rock & roll band. Anita is a movie star queen. They currently reside in a large white marble house that everyone ...

The Sound of the Stones

Profile and Interview by James Fox, The Sunday Times Magazine, August 1973

ALL THROUGH THE night while they rehearsed for the European tour, Keith Richards stood there in a trance with himself, rocking slowly backwards and forwards, ...

Keith Richards: It's Only Rock 'N' Roll But I Like It

Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 15 June 1974

ROUTE 66 REVISITED By NICK KENT ...

They All Tried To Play Reggae

Overview by Idris Walters, Sounds, 31 May 1975

...but can white rock and rollers sing the palm tree? wonders IDRIS WALTERS ...

Keith Richard: Exile On The 32nd Floor

Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 2 April 1977

Take me to the airportAnd put me on a planeI've got no expectationsTo pass through here again ...

Keith Richards: Keith And The Cockroaches Rip This Joint

Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Creem, June 1977

Take me to the airportAnd put me on a planeI've got no expectationsTo pass through here again('No Expectations', Jagger/Richards) ...

Keith Richard Caught Live

Interview by Paul Nelson, Circus, 29 September 1977

A Long Look at the Rolling Stones, Love You Live, and the Journey Between Then and Now ...

Keith Richards: Heroin, old age, rhythm and blues

Interview by Victor Bockris, High Times, February 1978

KEITH RICHARD has been the Rolling Stones' lead guitarist for the last 15 years and one of rock's leading crusaders and criminals. His most recent ...

"I've Only Fallen Over Twice In Fifteen Gigs..." The Keith Richards Interview

Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 5 August 1978

  CONTRARY TO legend, out on the road the Rolling Stones attempt to lead as normal a life as one can expect when living out of ...

An Outlaw At The Ritz: Keith Richards

Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 13 January 1979

In which Keef holds up the price of Smirnoff shares, little Marlon holds up his Dad, Anita Pallenberg holds up the interview, and CHRIS WELCH ...

Keith Richards: An English Werewolf in London

Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 22 February 1986

WHAT BECOMES a legend most? So exactly how I'd imagined it was the scene that I wouldn't have dared make it up. Before we enter, ...

Keith Richards Shares His Songwriting Secrets

Interview by Bruce Pollock, Guitar, July 1986

LIKE A POLITICIAN ON THE PODIUM, whistle-stopping across the boondocks on a flatbed, Keith Richards has his share of timeless bromides, comfortable answers his tongue ...

Keith Richards (1988) [transcript]

Audio transcript of interview by Ira Robbins, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 19 September 1988

This is a transcript of Ira's audio interview with Keith. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...

Out Of The Cage: An interview with Keith Richards

Interview by Ira Robbins, unpublished, 19 September 1988

IR: You’ve done a lot of interviews lately. It’s hard to pick questions you haven’t been asked... ...

Keith Richards: Talk Is Cheap (Virgin Records) ***½

Review by Don Waller, Los Angeles Times, 2 October 1988

Keef Rolls Alone ...

Keith Richards: Talk Is Cheap (Virgin LP/Cassette/CD)

Review by Terry Staunton, New Musical Express, 8 October 1988

CHEAP AND NASTY ...

Keith Richards: Talk Is Cheap (Virgin V2554 LP/Cass/CD)

Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1988

The swaggering return of Sir Keith Richards. ...

Keith Richards: Talk Is Cheap (Virgin 1-90973)

Review by Gene Santoro, Downbeat, January 1989

IN A WEIRD but fulfilling way this is just about the record everyone — every diehard Stones freak, that is — hoped Keith Richards would ...

Keith Richards: Sealed with a disc

Interview by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 25 August 1989

Keith Richards bridles at the suggestion that rock is a young man's game. Spruced up, rifts with Mick Jagger all forgotten, he and the Stones ...

Keith Richards: Grin Reaper

Interview by Nick Coleman, Time Out, July 1990

YOU CAN look Keith Richards in the eye and ask him if he's spent all his adult life divorced from reality. He stops, inclines his ...

Wingless and Angelic: Keith Richards in Jamaica

Book Excerpt by Victor Bockris, Keith Richards: The Unauthorised Biography, 1992

An extract from Keith Richards: The Unauthorised Biography by Victor Bockris, first published in 1992. (Currently available as a paperback published by Omnibus Press, 426pp, ...

Keef: Exile just a shot away from Main Street

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, The European, 24 September 1992

IT HAS become something of a cliche to say that Keith Richards is the Rolling Stones. ...

The Blues Brothers: John Lee Hooker and Keith Richards – It's a Two-way Thing

Profile and Interview by Nick Coleman, Time Out, October 1992

BOOM BOOM boom boom – gonna shoot you right down… The blues is always the blues, even when it's advertising copy. Right off your feet. ...

Keith Richards

Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1992

IN THE MIDDLE of the night, all blocks in mid-Manhattan offer a blank facade. But behind one particular stout steel door lurks a true temple ...

Stone Wino rhythm guitar god Keith Richards can still rip it up

Interview by Ira Robbins, Pulse!, November 1992

Midnight at the oasis...Actually, it’s 2 a.m. at the Hit Factory, but the mood is still calm as a desert breeze. ...

Keith Richards & The X-Pensive Winos: Town and Country Club, London

Live Review by David Sinclair, Rolling Stone, 4 February 1993

ON THE EVE of his forty-ninth birthday, the eternally delinquent Keith Richards was back in his hometown, at an 1800-capacity club, doing what he loves ...

Keith Richards: The Q 100 interview

Interview by Bill Prince, Q, January 1995

How the devil are you?I'm fine, man. Very, very well. ...

That's Another Fine Messiah You've Got Me Into

Comment by Johnny Cigarettes, New Musical Express, 6 April 1996

John Lennon thought The Beatles were bigger than IT, some people think Elvis is/was IT and Michael Jackson seems to think he is IT. So ...

Keith Richards (1997) [transcript]

Audio transcript of interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages transcripts, November 1997

This is a transcript of Barney's audio interview with Keith. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...

Keith Richards: How Do You Stop?

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1997

"DON’T BE MISLED!" shouts the faded 8" x 8" flyer propped up on a baby grand piano in the mansion Keith Richards is renting in ...

Keith Richards

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, The Independent, June 1999

"Thirty years upon the stage/ I hear the people say, ‘Why won’t he go away?’" ...

Keith Richards: The Human Riff

Interview by Adam Sweeting, Uncut, December 2002

For 40 years, KEITH RICHARDS has been the soul of The Rolling Stones, a band he wouldn't let die even when he seemed to be ...

And Sitteth At The Right Hand Of God…

Retrospective by Jonh Ingham, Rock's Backpages, December 2003

Jonh Ingham recalls a night in the presence of Keith Richards, April 1976. ...

Keith Richards: "I don't live totally nocturnally"

Interview by Jon Wilde, Uncut, January 2004

"WHAT A DRAAAAAAAAAG it is growin' o-o-o-ld," Mick Jagger sang back in 1966. The rubber-lipped one became a sexagenarian earlier this year. Now it's Keef's ...

Keith Richards: What I've Learned

Interview by James Medd, Esquire, November 2005

All my stories are treated with a certain sense of suspicion, but they're all fucking true. The story of how I fell in my library ...

How to be Keef: A User's Guide

Guide by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, 9 July 2006

WHAT GOES through the mind of a rock colossus as he falls from a coconut tree? Depends on your rock colossus, of course. So let's ...

Keith Richards' Life or How To (Not) Review a Rock God

Comment by Jeff Slate, Examiner.com, 24 November 2010

I WAS LOOKING forward to the review of Keith Richards' new book Life in last Sunday's New York Times. ...

Anita Pallenberg: 1967 and all that

Interview by Paul Gorman, Paul Gorman Is, 27 January 2011

A COUPLE OF years back I interviewed Anita Pallenberg — who celebrated her birthday yesterday — for MOJO magazine. ...

Keith Richards: The Rake's Progress

Interview by Mark Ellen, The Word, June 2011

From the coal smoke of '40s Dartford to a one-million concert audience in the 21st Century, Keith Richards' rollicking memoir is the tale of an ...

Crossroads Guitar Festival: Madison Square Garden, New York

Live Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, April 2013

Two nights. Nine-and-a-half hours. Thirty-three guitar players (more or less). Ninety-one songs. ...

Keith Richards Interviewed

Interview by Jon Wilde, Sabotage Times, 20 June 2013

Long before Johnny Depp based Captain Jack on him, Keith Richards was just the pirate blues chief of the Rolling Stones. And not averse to ...

Keith Richards ready to roll back the years

Report and Interview by Graham Reid, The New Zealand Herald, 5 December 2013

As the Rolling Stones prepare to bring their 50th anniversary celebrations to Auckland, guitarist Keith Richards talks to Graham Reid. ...

The Time We Said Hello: The Day I Met Keith Richards

Book Excerpt by Robert Greenfield, 'Ain't It Time We Said Goodbye' (Da Capo), May 2014

Having been selected to conduct the Rolling Stone interview with Keith Richards in May 1971, the author embarks on a perilous journey to meet his ...

Keith Richards with James Fox: Life

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, June 2015

LIFE MAY BE a ghosted rock autobiography but it's much more than that. Credit to voracious reader Richards that in James Fox he hired no ...

Keith Richards: Crosseyed Heart

Review by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone, 14 September 2015

KEITH RICHARDS' first solo album since 1992 opens like a fever dream, with the 71-year-old rock god croaking acoustic blues like Robert Johnson after burning ...

Keith Richards: Crosseyed Heart

Review by Holly Gleason, Paste, 15 September 2015

AS ROCK'S ENDURING PIRATE, Keith Richards embodies swagger, sangfroid and a certain delicious naughtiness. More than the Stones themselves, the guitarist exudes a dirt 'n' ...

Black and Blue: Keith Richards interviewed

Interview by Julian Marszalek, The Quietus, 16 September 2015

Julian Marszalek meets the Rolling Stones guitarist and living legend to talk race, drugs and persistence. ...

"Chuck has his own way of showing appreciation": Concert documentary Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll offers a candid insight into Chuck Berry

Retrospective by Caryn Rose, salon.com, 20 March 2017

Keith Richards worked like a dog to get Chuck Berry's 60th-birthday concert right and Berry treated him like one ...

Keith turns 77: Morgan Neville's Keith Richards – Under The Influence

Film/DVD/TV Review by Gary Pig Gold, Roctober, 18 December 2020

I LOVE KEITH. You love Keith. We ALL love Keith Richards. In fact, very personally speaking, if it wasn't for my first encountering the hallowed ...

Playing Air Guitar With Keith Richards

Memoir by Wayne Robins, Critical Conditions, 4 January 2022

It was a pretty good afternoon, bourbon included. ...

see also New Barbarians

see also Rolling Stones, The

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