Keith Richards plays with five strings and the Stones follow him
Keith Richards often pulls the lowest string off his guitar and tunes the remaining five like a banjo, the trick behind the chiming chords of Brown Sugar and Start Me Up. Bandmates say the Rolling Stones never really kept time with their drummer; they followed Richards, because there was no way not to.
Born on 18 December 1943 in Dartford, Kent, he was the only child of a factory worker wounded in the Normandy invasion. His maternal grandfather Gus Dupree, a touring big-band musician, kept a guitar on a shelf the boy could not reach and promised it to him if he could get it down. Richards stacked books and cushions on a chair until he succeeded, learned Malaguena from him, and called the instrument the prize of the century.
He went to primary school with Mick Jagger, sang as a boy soprano for Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey, and was expelled from Dartford Tech in 1959 for skipping classes. At art college he spent more time playing Chuck Berry solos in the washroom than studying. A chance meeting with Jagger on a train platform, Jagger clutching imported Chess records by Berry and Muddy Waters, revived the friendship, and by mid-1962 the pair were sharing a London flat with Brian Jones.
Manager Andrew Loog Oldham pushed him to drop the s from his surname so it would look more pop and echo Cliff Richard; he returned to his real name in 1978. Oldham also nudged him and Jagger into writing songs together from 1963, a partnership that became one of the most successful in music. Richards avoids flashy speed, preferring chords and rhythm and an interplay with a second guitarist that he calls the ancient art of weaving. Open tunings came out of a touring break in 1967 and 1968.
Since the 1972 tour he has sung a song or two at each concert, partly so Jagger can change outfits. He also played Captain Teague, father of Jack Sparrow, a character whose look was modelled on Richards himself. Rolling Stone placed him fourth among guitarists in 2011.
Source: Keith Richards
