[As published in all the editions of the national English daily DNA, India, on 7th August 2011]
Phew… just finished reading Keith Richards’ “Life”. To me, the best among all the rock’n’roll autobiographies [and even biographies] I’ve read. I was never a total Stones fan while a schoolboy, though I was wild about the 3 or 4 songs of theirs which we played in the beat group we had back then: Paint it Black, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Let’s Spend the Night Together, and of course Satisfaction, which is once again part of my repertoire today, albeit in a totally modified Indianized avataar. As a teenager, I was a Beatles fan through and through. The Rolling Stones sound was too rough and dirty for my taste. I found the early recordings and mixes unclear and muddy – but then I guess here in Goa and India we’d never been exposed to vintage black American music like blues and rock, which was the style and sound the Stones were playing and emulating. We grew up to squeaky clean pretty pop here, like Cliff and The Shadows. And our parents to Martin and Sinatra before that. I discovered the latter Stones while living in Paris in the 70s, through albums like “Sticky Fingers”, “Some Girls”, “Exile on Main St” and “Voodoo Lounge”. Richards’ autobiography now tells me that most of those songs were composed and written while recording in studio, and this fact blows my mind. It’s almost as good as raw jamming on tape machines. And this jamming produced immortal rock jewels and classics, not just jams.
I feel real lucky to have attended one Stones concert in my life. The Mumbai one. The concert promoters called and asked if I would write an article on what I felt about the Stones, as part of the promotion build-up to the concert. I said “Sure”, and then suddenly felt inspired to add “provided you give me two premium concert tickets, two business class air tickets, and a room in a 5-star hotel”. They said of course, and three days later I was watching the greatest, and certainly the longest lasting rock band in the world. They gave me tickets in the cordoned off VVIP section where people were sipping Don Perignon on high cushioned chairs, but that’s not my idea of rocking at a rock concert. I watched it from up front, grooving within reach-out-and-touch distance of Jagger.
Like in all autobiographies, Keith might have skirted some issues and glossed over others, though he’s been brutally honest about most people, specially himself. In any case, I can’t get enough of Richards at the moment. He comes across as a very loveable rogue. A rogue that you grew up with through this book, whom you could totally trust and rely upon to pull a knife to protect you. A heavy drug addict whom you worry and feel protective about. An indestructible cat-o’-nine-lives survivor of excesses, falls, punctured lungs, cracked skull, whose brain you think must be totally fried and pickled with all the substances injected and snorted and swallowed over decades, but who surprises as being extremely sharp, deeply analytical, and at times hilariously funny. The language is his own spoken one: say-it-like-it-is Richards. Which means an irresistible mix of school dropout lower middle class white trash Londoner, black American blues man, and avant-garde punk rocker rolled in one. Its been a long time since I’ve found myself reading a book and laughing my head off alone in public places such as airports and airplanes.
Now that the book’s over, there’s an emptiness. I’m Googling and YouTubing everything I can about the man: interviews, live performances, jams and recordings with musicians other than the Stones, out-takes from albums, even his wedding. Oh yes, what a Life…