The Keith Richards Connection

December 20, 2024 11:57 AM

Today, Keith Richards turns 81. It’s a hopeless cliche to talk about all the stuff that Richards has survived, so I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to say that Keith Richards is now 81 years old. He is one year younger than Joe Biden and three years older than Donald Trump. To celebrate Richards’ big day, Susanna Hoffs and Elvis Costello have gotten together to cover “Connection,” a song from the Rolling Stones’ 1967 album Between The Buttons.
posted by chavenet (24 comments total)

Always liked his solo song ”Eileen”.
posted by Lemkin at 12:06 PM on December 20, 2024 [1 favorite]

I've always loved the silly fact that I share a birthday with Keith - on December 18.

The usual suspects (imdb etc) seem to confirm December 18 (1943 for Keith). Brad Pitt also shares our very special day (1963) as does the late Ray Liotta (1954).

I love your post!
posted by Jody Tresidder at 12:20 PM on December 20, 2024 [1 favorite]

It is mildly ironic that I remember pop culture making jokes about Keith Richards being some kind of ancient undead necromancer back in the early '90s when he was just in his late 40s/early 50s, and now most of the grunge-era artists I grew up listening to are a bit older than that, while Keith still looks more or less the same, just with whiter hair.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:31 PM on December 20, 2024 [5 favorites]

Keith still looks more or less the same, just with whiter hair

I believe that Bono said “when he puts on his guitar, lines disappear from his face”.
posted by Lemkin at 12:35 PM on December 20, 2024 [3 favorites]

His day of birth is closer to the US Civil War than it is to today.
posted by biffa at 1:23 PM on December 20, 2024 [12 favorites]

I once saw a Rolling Stones bootleg album with a haggard picture of Keith on the cover. It was called "Don't Fuck With Me Or I'll Breathe On You And You Will Die."
posted by Catblack at 3:05 PM on December 20, 2024 [6 favorites]

He doesn't look a day over 135.
posted by y2karl at 3:27 PM on December 20, 2024 [1 favorite]

Jagger's actually a few months older than Keith. And Willie Nelson is ten years older than either of them.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:48 PM on December 20, 2024 [2 favorites]

"Don't Fuck With Me Or I'll Breathe On You And You Will Die."

I suspect the bootleggers based that title on Lemmy's remark about Motorhead: "If we moved in next door to you, your lawn would die."
posted by Paul Slade at 3:50 PM on December 20, 2024 [1 favorite]

Many Happy Returns of the Day Keith!
posted by Rash at 5:35 PM on December 20, 2024 [2 favorites]

One helluva an artist and one helluva life. I've had friends who have shuffled off a lot younger than him who did a lot fewer drugs/less sex/general outta control rioting. I guess if you can survive that kind of life when you're young, getting older holds no terrors.

I was PG with my third when his daughter to SIDS in 1976. He was on tour and went out on stage that night. Said "it was the only way he could cope."

Or, maybe, you could have got on a fucking plane to be home with your wife and other kids?
posted by BlueHorse at 5:37 PM on December 20, 2024 [3 favorites]

Not a huge fan.

But surviving, given his abuses, is pretty cool...

Have you lost a child BlueHorse?

Everyone who has responds differently...
posted by Windopaene at 7:22 PM on December 20, 2024 [2 favorites]

Bridges to Babylon, exile on Main St.
Out of our heads, let it bleed
Someday we'll find it, the Keith Richards connection
between Jagger, immortals, and me
posted by otherchaz at 8:05 PM on December 20, 2024 [2 favorites]

My grandmother told me that every cigarette I smoke takes five minutes off the end of my life and gives it to Keith Richards.
posted by The Potate at 9:43 PM on December 20, 2024 [10 favorites]

So God creates Adam and Eve, and they look across Eden and see this old fella sitting on a rock and smoking.

'Who's that' Adam asks God.

'Oh that's just Keith Richards,' he replies. 'He was here when I got here.'
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 1:36 AM on December 21, 2024 [6 favorites]

Jagger's actually a few months older than Keith.

The funny thing is, if you compare pics of them today with pics of them back in the day, it’s super easy to match old Mick with young Mick. But, you really have to squint hard and do some imagination to draw a line between young Keith and old Keith. I’ve watched a couple of bits from the band’s Rock and Roll Circus show, and, man, the difference is kinda startling.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:43 AM on December 21, 2024 [1 favorite]

And he learned to play tennis while on heroin in the south of France!
posted by DJZouke at 5:06 AM on December 21, 2024 [2 favorites]

While not generally a huge reader of memoirs/autobiographies, I do devote several shelves of a floor-to-ceiling wall full to those by/about musicians (and critics and genres) of all stripes, from Hoagy Carmichael to Woody Guthrie to Bill Monroe to Miles Davis to Patti Smith, Randy Newman, John Lee Hooker, Levon Helm, Dylan, Neil, Jorma, Bangs/Marcus/Marsh, etc, etc. Among them all, Richards Life is among a handful I'd highly recommend to about anyone, just a rollicking, inspiring and unsparing glimpse into a remarkable life on the razor's edge of a cultural revolution.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 6:16 AM on December 21, 2024 [3 favorites]

I enjoyed LIFE, but if it's a proper history of the Rolling Stones you're after (ie: just not one guy's angle), Old Gods Almost Dead felt far stronger. Among other things, you get a proper feel for what it must've been like to be in an ongoing enterprise with a guy who was on a fucking heroin nod way too much of the time.

Worth noting. Author Steve Davis also gave us the Led Zeppelin bio Hammer of the Gods, which I didn't like near as much. Way more prone to sensationalizing stuff, digging up the dirt, as opposed to telling the story of how some fabulous music came to be.
posted by philip-random at 1:17 PM on December 21, 2024 [2 favorites]

The Rolling Stones were the very first live band I ever saw, on November 21, 1965. I was 11 years old and Keith was 22. He was really cute then. I had a crush.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 4:53 PM on December 21, 2024 [4 favorites]

Keef Telecasting a nut-case, assaulting Mick. Gotta love how he just straps back on and continues playing. Mick hardly even missed a beat.

He bailed out the guy after he sent him to Cloud Cuckoo Land
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 10:17 PM on December 21, 2024

ie: just not one guy's angle

I mean, why on earth would anyone even pick up Keith Richards' autobiography if not for the desire to hear "one guy's angle"?
posted by thecincinnatikid at 5:20 AM on December 22, 2024

I don't know. But I've met a few people who've read LIFE and now they seem to think they're experts on all things Stones.
posted by philip-random at 10:46 AM on December 22, 2024

if it's a proper history of the Rolling Stones you're after

I bought Old Gods Almost Dead on the recommendation above thinking I'd just read the chapters covering 1969-72 or so, then surprised myself by devouring the whole 600 pages in the course of Christmas week. It's far from my first Stones biography, but Davis does offer a lot of material I've seen nowhere else and keeps things moving with a brisk, chatty prose style. I liked it a lot.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:46 AM on December 29, 2024