What follows over the next 13 pages, then, is a series of remarkable stories, spanning six decades, that reveal a complex, complicated – and frequently surprising – portrait of rock’s most miraculous survivor. As one long-term confidant reveals, “I don’t think, back then, you could have predicted the fullness of the person that he is now. You can live with the cliché of the pirate, but it seems to me that he’s self-defined. That’s admirable.”
But first a message from a former bandmate…
LOVE BILL
Before we hurtle back to the boys’ cloakroom at Sidcup Art School circa 1960, here’s a few words from RON WOOD…
KEITH and I used to bump into each other at record company Christmas parties in the ’60s. You’d hang out with The Kinks or The Beatles at one, then hop to another. We’d say hello and have a drink at Andrew Oldham’s Immediate parties. But our first real encounter was when I was making I’ve Got My Own A Album To Do. My first wife, Krissy, bumped into Keith in a club. “What’s Ronnie doing?” “Oh, he’s making an album – do you want to come back to the house and see him?” He came for the night and stayed for four months!
When we first played together, it was magic. We’d talk to each other through our guitars, through the music – weaving through riffs and musical signals that just seemed to come out of the air. Songs like “Beast Of Burden”. We can go months without seeing each other and then connect again. The first strokes of the guitar, the interplay is still there. It’s magic.
We’ve had hundreds of funny moments along the way – bashings and bangings and insults and injuries. I remember on stage in Frankfurt once, Keith slipped over on a frankfurter – a frankfurter in Frankfurt, you couldn’t make it up. Back in the mad old days, there was one guy who would not leave our floor in the hotel. So Keith used him like a battering ram. He took him to the elevator and started banging his head against the buttons. “I said Up…” – bang! – “… not Down!” Bang!
What’s the real Keith like? Without the drugs and alcohol, he is very caring and quiet; a beautiful, soft guy. We’ve gone through a lot together. We’ve had losses and celebrations, highs and lows – lots of different climate changes! We can take our camaraderie all over the world and it doesn’t matter where we are, we bounce off each other.
Things are different now. We used to hang out in each other’s rooms a lot more and work, or he’d come over my house or I’d go to his house. But as families grow, different plans take shape. He’s still pumping it out, though. He’s playing better than ever. Mick and Keith are both 80 now and I’m catching them up. It’s just a number, though – we’re more like 18 than 80.
Have a magnificent milestone birthday, Keith – you’re a living miracle. Just keep it going!
THE 1960S
FROM Sidcup Art School to Mapesbury Road, Olympic Studios and beyond. A shy boy but a snappy dresser, with a fondness for cowboys and an unexpected generosity come “Bob-a-Job week”.
“A unique sense of style”
DICK TAYLOR, Pretty Thing All the guitar players used to gather in the boys’ cloakroom at Sidcup Art School. Keith would usually sit right at the end by the window, with his little archtop guitar. He was fixated on Scotty Moore and one of his things he always used to play was “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone” and sometimes “That’s All Right Mama”. Keith and I clicked rather well, I liked him a lot. He had a very unique sense of style: skinny jeans, purple shirt, Wrangler jean jacket. I think he had a whole wardrobe of purple shirts. He knew I was in this band with Mick, but was a little reticent to ask if he could come along. Keith’s mum said that he was actually too shy to ask. I don’t think it was that, but he certainly wasn’t some big, expansive character. Then Keith and Mick met up and, when the conversation about rehearsals came up, Mick said, “Why doesn’t Keith come along?” That’s kind of how it happened. He was a natural guitar player. He didn’t have super technique, but it just seemed like Keith had a real flair for it.
“Jack the lad, man”
There should be a plaque outside that building on Mapesbury Road [where Oldham shared a flat with Jagger and Richards]. That’s where the songwriting partnership began. The reality behind that is me leaving to
