Keith Richards: Satisfaction, Guaranteed.

By Gary Geyer

Answer: Keith Richards and Cockroaches.

Question: Name 2 things that would survive a nuclear war.
It’s an old joke but hey, Keith Richards is a survivor. He is known as the man with 5 strings and 9 lives. Keith has been arrested at least 10 times; his reputation is that of a chain-smoker, hard drinker, drug using rock superstar. He’s been a Rolling Stone for 40 years. The man takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

Early Keith

Keith Richards was born in Dartford, Kent on December 18, 1943.
He grew up in the London suburbs.

You might say he was a rock and roller from practically the beginning. (I say practically because believe it or not, he started singing as a choir boy and had an “angelic voice”.) Elvis, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry were his heroes during his teen years. He was also a fan of American Blues singing, especially Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon.
He got his first guitar when he was 15 and he says at that moment it became the most important thing in his life. He teamed up with an old mate from his sandbox years “a kid named Mick Jagger” and played small clubs and pubs around London. They found a few other guys and formed a band. One of them, Brian Jones, suggested they call themselves The Rolling Stones (after an old Muddy Waters song, Rolling Stones Blues).

The rest is history

At first they did covers of songs others wrote. When they found they were good at writing songs themselves, they were on their way. Their lyrics were about sex and drugs and that soon made them the talk of London, to say the least. That, combined with Keith’s edgy guitar style, gave the band a sound like no one had heard before. They became the “bad boys” of rock and roll. They were considered “raunchy, crude and irreverent”. While parents were merely shocked by the Beatles, they were repulsed by the Rolling Stones. The Beatles, after all, only wanted to hold your hand. The “Stones” wanted to (God protect us) spend the night together.

To make things worse, their behavior off stage became as notorious as their on-stage performances. Mick and Keith became tabloid darlings. Keith, in particular, became the poster boy for the drug abuses of the 70’s and 80’s. Keith has been quoted as saying,”I never had a problem with drugs, only with cops.” Keith’s drug and alcohol abuse however, didn’t hurt his rock and roll image one bit.

Famous Keith stories
Keith’s reputation became bigger than life. Real stories and rumors spread like wildfire. (You don’t become a rock and roll legend for nothing.) It’s been said that half the stories about Keith aren’t true. The frightening part is half of them are.

Here’s but a sampling:

Dr. Dracula

Everyone “knew” someone who swore it was true. Keith, in order to cure his heroin drug addiction, traveled to Switzerland for a blood transfusion. He stayed at the chalet of a famous physician who had developed a method to replace all of the patient’s “addicted” blood with “good clean blood”.

Then there is what’s known as “the famous pissing incident.”

After being denied the use of a men’s room at a gas station, Keith, Mick and Bill Wyman proceeded to urinate on the wall, thus pissing off the owner, who filed charges. They were arrested for “insulting behavior”.

Who could ever forget “the fur rug” bust?

The police raided Keith’s house and found amphetamine tablet’s in Marianne Faithful’s coat. (Marianne was Mick’s girlfriend at the time) They also found resin and ash of (possibly) marijuana. The police said that Marianne was wearing “nothing but a fur rug.” The tabloids went wild. Keith was charged with “allowing on his premises” and given a one year sentence and fined 500 pounds. His conviction was appealed and overturned, the evidence being too circumstantial.

And of course, there was the “saved by the blind woman” story.

Keith was busted for heroin possession in Toronto. He would have gone to jail (most likely) had not for the pleas of a young blind woman who told the court how Keith had gotten her home safely after a Stones’ concert. A plea bargain was worked out that included a benefit show for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

The “Don’t do drugs, kids,” public service announcement got a few laughs.

Keith was asked to do a public service announcement urging the kids of the world to stay off drugs. The joke going around was that the kids of the world couldn’t do any more drugs because Keith had already done them all.

Probably the best story yet had to do with ‘Satisfaction.’

One night in 1965, Keith awoke some time in the night with a song in his head. He turned on his tape recorder, grabbed his guitar, and banged out the opening riff of (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, and went back to sleep. In the morning he listened to the tape. He said, “It was 2 minutes of ‘Satisfaction’ and 40 minutes of me snoring.” (Newsweek Magazine called the song’s 5 chord progression, “five notes that shook the world.”)

His Life.

Through everything, Keith has maintained a self-effacing, slightly bemused outlook.

“To me, the main thing about living on this planet is to know who the hell you are and to be real about it. That’s the reason I’m still alive. “I’ve lived my life my own way, and I’m here because I’ve taken the trouble to find out who I am.”

To his credit, Keith doesn’t recommend that anyone live life as he has. He says he owes his so-called indestructible quality to sturdy stock. “I come from very tough stock and things that would kill other people don’t kill me.”

That’s nice.