i hope the book has some 'wow' moments.
Not just going over the same ground.
Give me some insights into the studio and the stage.
Tell us how those songs and riffs came to be.

Could Keith's memoirs destroy the Stones: Jagger and Richards have been feuding for 59 years... and it's coming out into the open

By Alison Boshoff
Last updated at 2:12 AM on 6th July 2010

Theirs is not quite a rocky marriage, nor a case of sibling rivalry - although Mick once said that they were like brothers who had been born by chance to different parents.

No, the partnership of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards is all these things and yet far more - a complicated and 'completely dysfunctional' relationship; a 59-year association which can lay claim to being the greatest partnership in rock.

'With those two,' says a friend of the band, 'it's all about the niggle - there's always a niggle between them. They are like a couple of soap-opera queens.'

Now, Keith has completed his autobiography, entitled Life, which will be published in October by Little, Brown.


'It's all about the niggle': Call it creative tension or a downright feud,
Keith Richards and Mick Jagger have been at each other for decades

It contains a full account of his views on Mick Jagger, including hundreds of critical words devoted to Mick's womanising and drug taking.

Keith's opinion, I'm told, is that Mick 'has never been able to handle chicks', and he expounds this theory at some length throughout the book, criticising his old friend for destroying his marriage to Jerry Hall and for his cruelty to Marianne Faithfull.

There are also passages about Mick's use of cocaine and marijuana in the Seventies, which are said to be making the publisher's lawyers turn several different shades of green.

It sounds like rather more than a 'niggle', then - indeed, the question is, will it be enough to cause a permanent rift between them? Might this book finally split the Rolling Stones?

Only a month ago, all seemed well when the pair were together in New York, laughing as they finalised publicity for their Exile On Main Street album re-release.

But people who know the band say their bickering is virtually a way of life. Keith didn't go to Cannes last month to promote a film about Exile On Main Street because they were having one of their periodic 'moments'.

There are times when they are not even on speaking terms - Keith recently mischeviously suggested to reporters that Mick had a small manhood, which led to 'arctic' relations between them.

Keith, naturally, thought it was all a huge joke. Even now, they have separate managers and will travel to gigs separately. This has been the case, quietly, for decades. Neither, sources indicate, do they socialise at all outside of rehearsals and performances.

But Stones sources all agree that their yin and yang relationship is the very engine which drives the band.

'The bottom line is they take great pleasure in winding each other up,' says one who knows them well.

'Keith, in particular, can never resist a chance to have a pop at Mick - and, of course, it makes Mick completely bloody furious. When Keith does an interview, Mick is always asking: "What has he said about me?" '

The tension was there from the moment their friendship started in April 1951, when seven-year-old Keith joined Wentworth County Primary school, in Dartford, south London.

Legend has it that he glimpsed Mick showing off his chemistry kit to teachers and saying: 'When I grow up, I'm going to build an atom bomb.'

Keith remarked that he thought his fellow pupil was 'a weed'. It's an opinion he seems to hold to this day.

Ever since the seventies, Keith has also been in the habit of referring to Mick as the Queen Mother - an expression of contempt for Mick's social-climbing and faintly effeminate manner.

He also says he dislikes Jagger's onstage theatrics, once remarking: 'If her royal highness had her way, we'd be playing in f***ing Panto.'

'Excuse me while I laugh,' he once said. 'He's a bit vain, let's put it like that. We want a vain bloke up there, don't we? Meanwhile, the band can go to work.'

The issue of women was another area where their paths diverged. Keith is a one-woman man - in the sense that he sticks with whichever woman he is with at any given time.

In the late sixties, he fell in love with model Linda Keith, and then, after a drugged-out period with Anita Pallenberg, he fell for and married model Patti Hansen.

They have just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary.

The contrast with Mick's love life does not need to be laboured. Mick had a fling with Anita Pallenberg while Keith was dating her. Keith was said to have suspected that Mick had made his girlfriend pregnant.

Was this betrayal ever forgiven? Keith is proud not to be a lothario like his Stones partner, which makes one suspect not.

'I've never started a relationship just for the purpose of wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. Chicks are too precious for that,' Keith once said in an interview.

It was one of his deliberately tactless interventions, made at the time when Jagger's marriage to Jerry Hall foundered. 'No one ever divorced me,' he declared, pointedly. 'It boils down to the fact I've never just been interested in a lay.'

An outbreak of genuine hostility came in the Eighties, when Jagger made a solo album. Keith was furious and described what followed as World War III. He even tried to get The Who's Roger Daltrey to replace Mick in the band's line-up.

He was so furious that he came close to hitting his one-time best friend. 'But there's no joy in punching a wimp,' he said acidly.

Keith arrived for the recording sessions of the next Stones album, Dirty Work, with 27 songs, which went under titles such as Fight, Had It With You and Knock Your Teeth Out.

The recording of the album in Paris in 1985 was fraught: studio time was organised so that Mick and Keith wouldn't have to be in the same room at the same time.

To this day, Keith is irked when Jagger does solo work. Indeed, Mick's 2001 solo album Goddess In The Doorway was rechristened Dogs*** In The Doorway by Keith.

A truce was called only in 1987. Bandmate Ronnie Wood said in his autobiography: 'Eventually I got my chance to make things right. As Keith and I were talking on the phone one afternoon-the other line rang - it was Mick in New York, saying Keith wouldn't take his calls. After our conversation had finished, I told Keith: "Mick really wants to talk to you. He's going to ring you right now."

'Half an hour later Mick was on the line again and [told me] "We're talking again".'

That truce has held ever since, although Keith went 'berserk and bananas' when Mick accepted a knighthood in 2003, and threatened to pull out of a planned tour in protest. Even after he had been talked round, he was still fuming.

He told a magazine: 'I don't want to step out on stage with someone wearing a coronet and sporting the old ermine. I told Mick it's a paltry honour . . . it's not what the Stones is about, is it?

'They didn't offer it to me because they knew I'd turn it down. It's b******s. You have to kneel and I'm not going to kneel for anyone.

'Mick came to me and said: "Tony Blair insists I accept this." And I said: "Well, you can always turn it down." You know, Mick wanted one, so he got one.'

He added: 'He is a power freak and there's nothing we can do about it. I don't want to do anything about it. Let him b****r about. It doesn't make any difference to what we do.'

So has the anger always been a one-way street? A Stones source says that Mick has, at times, been as furious as Keith.

'There was a nuclear explosion when Keith shot a Louis Vuitton ad campaign in 2008 without telling anyone else in the band. The etiquette is that you let people know - and anyway, no one could believe that Keith of all people, who's always banging on about Mick selling out, had done this.'

The source added: 'The relationship is of two lifelong friends who enjoy being best of enemies. An underlying issue is that Keith is always jealous about Mick getting most of the attention and the money.'

Mick may earn lots of money - but, as he sees it, without him the Stones would not have lasted so long. And it is true that his canny business sense and professionalism have guided them over the decades.

Indeed, Mick has long disapproved of his bandmates' liking for a rock'n'roll lifestyle - most recently shown when Ronnie Wood descended into alcoholism again.

This has also caused tensions over the years with Keith, who had an almost insanely destructive taste for drugs. In 1975, he fell over on stage in the middle of a song, and was so wasted on heroin and alcohol that he could not get up again.

But there is a genuine fondness and affection between the two. Their fellow Stone Brian Jones once came back to the two-room dive where all three were staying and found Keith and Mick huddled in bed together for warmth. Quite genuinely, they are best friends.

There is also a mutual appreciation that their rucks make for publicity - and the Stones have always had a great eye for a headline.

When all's said and done, they are friends. When Keith needed brain surgery after falling out of a coconut tree four years ago, Mick was in constant contact. Keith sends Mick jokey faxes and drawings when they're apart.

Keith, who is planning to make a further Rolling Stones studio album with Jagger, possibly this year, said: 'If we hated each other, we wouldn't be doing this, would we? Of course, we've had fights. That's what happens in a family. But we've got through it.'

Marianne Faithfull went one better when asked to sum up their bond. 'Of all of Mick's relationships,' she mused, 'the only one that really means anything to him is with Keith.'

Will that still be the case when Sir Mick has read his school friend's book? We'll find out soon enough.

Daily Mail


Daltrey?

Riiiight...

left shoe shuffle wrote on Jul 5^th, 2010 at 9:35pm:


unmitigated bull shit of the highest order

In addition to that crap about Daltrey, Mick has never said we were brothers born to different mothers. He hardly ever says anything like that. That is pure Keith if it was even said. Even a cursory knowledge of the Stones will tell you that all the so called sources that are "friends" are probably bull.

The Wick wrote on Jul 6^th, 2010 at 1:57am:



sorry wick but  i belive that one is true - i have read it myself - a rolling stone interview circa some girls from memory

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f256/leftshoeshuffle/supportjagger.jpgt=127844...

Bitch wrote on Jul 6^th, 2010 at 11:13pm:



I honestly can't see Keith, at this point in their life when they should be taking stock of their history, slag Mick off in a book. I have problem with memoirs in the first place and I'd like to think Keith would show some class. If he doesn't and resorts to his bitching, it would, IMO, alter reputation as this cool, dignified musician who lives to rock and roll. It would make him seem petty, and that's what these books end being. I hope Keith doesn't dissapoint me.

stonedinaustralia wrote on Jul 5^th, 2010 at 9:46pm:



I certainly recall it being a tabloid story around 1987 or so. Whilst Keith wouldnt have had it within his power to 'replace' (ie 'fire') Mick, I suppose a slightly different scenario could have been available had Mick chosen to leave the band.

There was newspaper talk of a "Stones Mk II'" with three different possible names being touted as potential lead singers - Daltrey (The Who having split at the time), Bobby Womack (on account of him having recently worked with the Stones) and Terence Trent D'Arby (as he'd recently sang with a Wyman led band at the AIMS Benefit gig in London).

Almost certainly a simple case of idiotic journalists putting two and two together and letting their imagination run away with them, but its not as if this story is completely new.

I wish this tabloid bollocks were true, a new Wino's album would rock!

Rather than a memoir I wish Keith had put half the book energy into writing (or at least trying) one more great riff song. What was his last tune?...the 45 second Hurricane thing with Ronnie that they put together like the Live Aid fiasco?

I vividly recall the Daltrey story. It was never from anyone in the band. It was a total fabrication. I recall Keith laughing & saying no fucking way! He hated Roger's singing. I'm pretty sure even Bill chipped in saying never ever.

It was probably all a ruse to stir Jagger up. Who knows.

left shoe shuffle wrote on Jul 9^th, 2010 at 2:41pm:


So if the writer is waiting for judgment until the book comes out, why publish this rehash of a rehash story?

Libraries seeking 'satisfaction'

Starting with Facebook, Matthews Public Library officials hope to lure Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards to Fredericksburg.





Matthews Public Library director Sheila Redcay is asking Rolling Stones guitarist extraordinaire Keith Richards to have sympathy for America's public libraries.

Through a Facebook page she hopes could lead to some national media coverage, Redcay's goal is to invite Richards to Fredericksburg to bring awareness to the struggle that America's public libraries are facing due to budget cuts.

In Pennsylvania, funding to public libraries in 2009-10 was slashed by 21 percent and was further cut by 9 percent for the 2010-11 fiscal year, according to state statistics.

Richards will release an autobiography in October titled "Life" that reveals his desire to be a librarian.

According to dozens of national news articles, Richards writes that he's actually looked into "professional training" to organize the thousands of books at his homes in Sussex, England, and Connecticut. As a child in 1950s London, he found refuge in books before he discovered his love of music.

"In the book, he said he always loved books and libraries," Redcay said. "It made me believe that we might have some thoughts in common. I know he's British, but he lives in Connecticut. So I thought perhaps to come up with a campaign to simply attempt to get him to come visit."

Redcay started the Facebook page in July and is hoping reach at least 1,000 "friends." If that happens, she will then pitch the idea to NBC's Today show as a way to attract attention from Richards, whom she feels could bring awareness to the devastating state budget cuts libraries have faced in the last several years.

Because Richards will hold only one book signing in New York City at an undisclosed place and time, Redcay decided to invite him to a reception that could be held at the Matthews Public Library to coincide with the release of his new book.

Though it wasn't easy, Redcay managed to get in touch with Richards' manager, who told her "that sounds like a very good idea," leading her to believe that the possibility exists, however small.

Something similar worked for actress/comedian Betty White. In December, a Facebook page was created by fan David Mathews in an effort to get Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels to allow the 88-year-old White to host the popular skit show, something she never had the opportunity to do in her 70-year career. The phenomenon took off, and the page reached half a million friends.

White hosted the show in May.

"I put this in the Betty White category," Redcay said, laughing. "Let no library be exiled from Main Street!"

To help the Matthews Public Library reach at least 1,000 friends on their Facebook page visit "Keith Richards, Please Have Sympathy for America's Public Libraries!".

Once a thousand 'friends' are accumulated, director Sheila Redcay will pitch the idea of asking the Rolling Stone guitarist to a reception to the library in Fredericksburg in October to coincide with the release of his autobiography, "Life." Redcay's goal is to create awareness of struggling libraries across the country. She also created a YouTube video to bring attention to the cause.

Lebanon Daily News


Maybe this'll touch a nerve with bibliophile Keith. You never know.

And - according to that Facebook page, Jane Rose says he's ADAMANT about one book signing only...