For legions of fans, Keith Richards is not only the heart and soul of the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band, he’s also the very avatar of rebellion: the desperado, the buccaneer, the poète maudit, the soul survivor and main offender, the torn and frayed outlaw, and the coolest dude on the planet, named both No. 1 on the rock stars most-likely-to-die list and the one life form (besides the cockroach) capable of surviving nuclear war.
- Keith Richards Personal Life
- Where Does Keith Richards Live
- Keith Richards Life Audiobook
- Keith Richards Biography
Halfway through his electrifying new memoir, “Life,” Keith Richards writes about the consequences of fame: the nearly complete loss of privacy and the weirdness of being mythologized by fans as a sort of folk-hero renegade.
Life With the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the songs that roused the world, and he lived the original rock and roll life. Now, at last, the man himself tells his story of life in the crossfire hurricane. Life is a memoir covering Keith Richards's life, starting with his childhood in Dartford, Kent, through to his success with the Rolling Stones and his current life in Connecticut. Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the riffs, the lyrics and the songs that roused the world, and over four decades he lived the original rock and roll life: taking the chances he wanted, speaking his mind, and making it all work in a way that no one before him had ever done.Now, at last, the man.
“I can’t untie the threads of how much I played up to the part that was written for me,” he says. “I mean the skull ring and the broken tooth and the kohl. Is it half and half? I think in a way your persona, your image, as it used to be known, is like a ball and chain. People think I’m still a goddamn junkie. It’s 30 years since I gave up the dope! Image is like a long shadow. Even when the sun goes down, you can see it.”
By turns earnest and wicked, sweet and sarcastic and unsparing, Mr. Richards, now 66, writes with uncommon candor and immediacy. He’s decided that he’s going to tell it as he remembers it, and helped along with notebooks, letters and a diary he once kept, he remembers almost everything. He gives us an indelible, time-capsule feel for the madness that was life on the road with the Stones in the years before and after Altamont; harrowing accounts of his many close shaves and narrow escapes (from the police, prison time, drug hell); and a heap of sharp-edged snapshots of friends and colleagues — most notably, his longtime musical partner and sometime bête noire, Mick Jagger.
But “Life” — which was written with the veteran journalist James Fox — is way more than a revealing showbiz memoir. It is also a high-def, high-velocity portrait of the era when rock ’n’ roll came of age, a raw report from deep inside the counterculture maelstrom of how that music swept like a tsunami over Britain and the United States. It’s an eye-opening all-nighter in the studio with a master craftsman disclosing the alchemical secrets of his art. And it’s the intimate and moving story of one man’s long strange trip over the decades, told in dead-on, visceral prose without any of the pretense, caution or self-consciousness that usually attend great artists sitting for their self-portraits.
Continue reading the main storyDie-hard Stones fans, of course, will pore over the detailed discussions of how songs like “Ruby Tuesday” and “Gimme Shelter” came to be written, the birthing process of some of Mr. Richards’s classic guitar riffs and the collaborative dynamic between him and Mr. Jagger. But the book will also dazzle the uninitiated, who thought they had only a casual interest in the Stones or who thought of Mr. Richards, vaguely, as a rock god who was mad, bad and dangerous to know. The book is that compelling and eloquently told.
Mr. Richards’s prose is like his guitar playing: intense, elemental, utterly distinctive and achingly, emotionally direct. Just as the Stones perfected a signature sound that could accommodate everything from ferocious Dionysian anthems to melancholy ballads about love and time and loss, so Mr. Richards has found a voice in these pages — a kind of rich, primal Keith-Speak — that enables him to dispense funny, streetwise observations, tender family reminiscences, casually profane yarns and wry literary allusions with both heart-felt sincerity and bad-boy charm.
Songwriting, Mr. Richards says, long ago turned him into an observer always on the lookout for “ammo,” and he does a highly tactile job here of conjuring the past, whether he’s describing his post-World War II childhood in the little town of Dartford (memorialized here with affectionate, Dickensian detail); the smoky blues clubs that he and his friends haunted in their early days in London; or the wretched excess of the Stones’ later tours, when they had “become a pirate nation,” booking entire floors in hotels and “moving on a huge scale under our own flag, with lawyers, clowns, attendants.”
In these pages we see Keith through the scrolling chapters of his life. There’s the choir boy and Boy Scout, who was bullied by schoolmates and kept a pet mouse named Gladys. The former art student, dedicating himself like a monk to mastering the blues:
“You were supposed to spend all your waking hours studying Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson. That was your gig. Every other moment taken away from it was a sin.”
And later, the rock star, known for his pirate swagger, who actually remains something of a shy romantic with women, worrying about finding “the right line, or one that hadn’t been used before.”
“I just never had that thing with women,” he writes. “I would do it silently. Very Charlie Chaplin. The scratch, the look, the body language. Get my drift? Now it’s up to you. ‘Hey, baby’ is just not my come-on.”
Keith Richards Personal Life
Mr. Richards communicates the boyish astonishment he felt when the Stones found their dream of being missionaries for the American music they loved suddenly giving way to pop fame of their own, and their hand-to-mouth existence in a London tenement (financed in part by redeeming empty beer bottles stolen from parties) metamorphosed into full-on stardom, complete with rioting teenagers and screaming girls. He conveys the exhausting rigors of life on the road, even as he captures the absurdities of what was rock star life back in the day: the pharmaceutical cocaine, the impulsive jaunts abroad (“let’s jump in the Bentley and go to Morocco”), the spectacle of the police perched in the trees outside his home.
Where Does Keith Richards Live
Of the years of living dangerously, when he was zonked out on heroin, Mr. Richards recalls that he slept with a gun under his pillow; turned his 7-year-old son, Marlon, into his minder on the road; and forced all his band mates to live on “Keith Time,” in which 2 p.m. recording sessions had a way of becoming 1 a.m. dates the following day. He writes candidly about how everything began to revolve around “organizing the next fix” — elaborate stratagems, which at one point included buying doctor and nurse play sets at FAO Schwarz — and the difficulties of getting and staying clean.
Why did he become an addict in the first place? “I never particularly liked being that famous,” Mr. Richards says. “I could face people easier on the stuff, but I could do that with booze too. It isn’t really the whole answer. I also felt I was doing it not to be a ‘pop star.’ There was something I didn’t really like about that end of what I was doing, the blah blah blah. That was very difficult to handle, and I could handle it better on smack. Mick chose flattery, which is very like junk — a departure from reality. I chose junk.”
During the worst of his years on heroin, Mr. Richards writes, Mr. Jagger stepped up and dealt with the day-to-day business of running the band but was reluctant to relinquish his increased control once Mr. Richards returned to action. He writes that Mr. Jagger had begun to treat the rest of the band as “basically hirelings,” and he describes the sense of hurt and betrayal he felt when he read in an English newspaper that Mr. Jagger, then intent on a solo career, had described the Stones as a “millstone” around his neck.
Mr. Richards also mocks Mr. Jagger (whom he jokingly began referring to as “Brenda” or “Her Majesty”) as a social climber and swollen head, and says that Mr. Jagger “started second-guessing his own talent” and chasing after musical trends. But while this book’s passages about Mr. Jagger have made lots of headlines, especially in England, they are not all that different from the volleys of accusations the two have exchanged over the years, and Mr. Richards adds that deep down he and Mr. Jagger remain brothers.
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It’s really less a case of “North and South Korea,” he says, than “East and West Berlin.”
Mr. Richards’s verbal photos of other colleagues and acquaintances are razor-sharp as well. He describes Hugh Hefner as “a nut” and “a pimp,” and Truman Capote as a “snooty” whiner. He writes that Chuck Berry was his “numero uno hero” (from whom Richards says he stole “every lick he ever played”) but “a big disappointment” when he met him in person. In another chapter he writes that success turned his former band mate Brian Jones “into this sort of freak, devouring celebs and fame and attention.”
In the course of “Life,” Mr. Richards discusses his clashes with the police and his much-chronicled court appearances, as well as all the other headlines generated by the tabloids over the years. But the most insistent melodic line in this volume has nothing to do with drugs or celebrity or scandal. It has to do with the spongelike love of music Mr. Richards inherited from his grandfather and his own sense of musical history, his reverence for the blues and R&B masters he has studied his entire life (“the tablets of stone”), and his determination to pass his own knowledge on down the line.
One of this galvanic book’s many achievements is that Mr. Richards has found a way to channel to the reader his own avidity, his own deep soul hunger for music and to make us feel the connections that bind one generation of musicians to another. Along the way he even manages to communicate something of that magic, electromagnetic experience of playing on stage with his mates, be it in a little club or a huge stadium.
“There’s a certain moment when you realize that you’ve actually just left the planet for a bit and that nobody can touch you,” Mr. Richards writes. “You’re elevated because you’re with a bunch of guys that want to do the same thing as you. And when it works, baby, you’ve got wings.” You are, he says, “flying without a license.”
LIFE
By Keith Richards with James Fox
Illustrated. 564 pages. Little, Brown & Company. $29.99.
(Redirected from Life (book))
Look up Life or life in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Life is the characteristic that distinguishes organisms from inorganic substances and dead objects.
Life or The Life may also refer to:
- 2Arts and media
- 2.3Music
- 2.4Print media
- 2.4.2Non-fiction books
Human life[edit]
- Human condition, the characteristics, events, and situations of human existence
- Biography, a written, filmed, etc. description of a person's life
- Autobiography, an account of ones own life
- Everyday life, what a person does and feels on an everyday basis
- Personal life, an individual's life
- Life imprisonment, a sentence of imprisonment
Arts and media[edit]
Films[edit]
- Life (1920 film), a lost 1920 American silent drama film
- Life (1928 film), a British silent drama film
- Life (1984 film), a Chinese film
- Life (1996 film), an Australian drama film
- Life (1999 film), an American comedy film
- Life (1999 short film), an animated short film
- The Life (2002 film), an American film
- The Life (2004 film), a Canadian made-for-TV drama film
- Whore (2004 film), a Spanish drama film also called The Life
- Life!, a 2005 Dutch film
- The Life (2012 film), a Ugandan film
- Life (2015 film), an American biopic
- Life (2017 film), an American science fiction horror film
Gaming[edit]
- The Game of Life, a board game
- Conway's Game of Life, a cellular automaton
- Life (gaming), a play-turn for a player-character
- Life, or Lee Seung-hyun (video gamer), a banned former professional StarCraft II player
Music[edit]
Albums[edit]
- Life (Sly and the Family Stone album), 1968
- Life (Thin Lizzy album), 1983
- Life (Is So Strange), a 1983 album by War
- Life (Neil Young & Crazy Horse album), 1987
- Life (Inspiral Carpets album), 1990
- Life (The Cardigans album), 1995
- Life (Simply Red album), 1995
- Life (Talisman album), 1995
- Life (soundtrack), the 1999 soundtrack to the 1999 film
- Life (Black Biscuits album), a 1999 album featuring Vivian Hsu
- Life, a 1999 album by Nelson
- Life (Dope album), 2001
- Life (ZOEgirl album), 2001
- The Life (album), a 2001 album by Ginuwine
- Life (Z-Ro album), 2002
- Life (Frukwan album), 2003
- Life (Yo Gotti album), 2003
- Life (Andy Hunter album), 2005
- Life (Ricky Martin album), 2005
- Life (KRS-One album), 2006
- Life (Marcia Hines album), 2007
- Life (David 'Fathead' Newman album), 2007
- Life (Angela Aki album), 2010
- Life (Cueshé album), 2010
- Life (Sage Francis album), 2010
- Life (Heo Young-saeng EP), a 2013 release by Heo Young-saeng
- Life (Sigma album), 2015
- Life (Adagio album), 2017
- Life, a 2018 album by Boy George & Culture Club
- Life (Conrad Sewell album), 2019
- L.I.F.E, a 2013 album by Burna Boy
- L.i.f.e, an album by Josh Osho
Songs[edit]
- 'Life' (Ana Johnsson song), 2004
- 'Life' (Des'ree song), 1998
- 'Life' (E-Type song), 2001
- 'Life' (Elvis Presley song), 1971
- 'The Life' (Fifth Harmony song), 2016
- 'Life' (Haddaway song), 1993
- 'Life' (K-Ci & JoJo song), 1999
- 'Life' (Mika Nakashima song), 2007
- 'Life' (Our Lady Peace song), 2000
- 'Life' (Ricky Nelson song), 1971
- 'Life' (Toše Proeski song), 2004
- 'Life' (Yui song), 2005
- 'Life (Diamonds in the Dark)', 2013 John Dahlbäck song
- 'Life (Me no Mae no Mukō e)', 2010 Kanjani8 song
- 'Life', by ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead from So Divided
- 'Life', by Ayumi Hamasaki from Mirrorcle World
- 'Life', by Collective Soul from See What You Started by Continuing
- 'Life', by Conrad Sewell from Life
- 'Life', by Devin Townsend from Ocean Machine: Biomech
- 'Life', by E-Type featuring Na Na from Euro IV Ever
- 'The Life', by Estelle from All of Me
- 'Life', by Flipper from Album – Generic Flipper
- 'The Life', by Gary Clark Jr. from Blak and Blu
- 'The Life', by Hinder from All American Nightmare
- 'The Life', by Mystic from Cuts for Luck and Scars for Freedom
- 'Life', by Royce da 5'9' featuring Amerie on Royce da 5'9' from Rock City
- 'Life', by Sonata Arctica from The Ninth Hour
- 'Life?', by Napalm Death from Scum
- 'L.I.F.E.', by Lil Mama from VYP (Voice of the Young People)
Other uses in music[edit]
- Life Records, a Malaysian record label
- Life Records, an imprint of Bellmark Records
- Life (rapper), British hip hop musician
- The Life (musical), a 1990 musical
Print media[edit]
Fiction[edit]
- A Life, the English title of the 1892 novel Una Vita by Italo Svevo
- A Life (play), a 1979 play by Hugh Leonard
- A Life, a 1986 work by Iain Crichton Smith
- Life (manga), a 2002 shōjo manga series
- Life, a 2004 novel by Gwyneth Jones
- The Life (novel), a 2011 novel by Malcolm Knox
- The Life, a 2012 novel by Martina Cole
Non-fiction books[edit]
- Life (David E. Sadava book), a 1983 biological science textbook, in its 11th edition as of 2016
- A Life, the 1988 autobiography of Elia Kazan
- Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth, a 1997 natural history by Richard Fortey
- A Life, a 2001 memoir of Gabriel Josipovici's mother
- Life (Keith Richards), a 2010 memoir by The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards
Non-fiction periodicals[edit]
- Life (magazine), an American magazine from 1883 to 1972 and from 1978 to 2000
- Life (newspapers), local papers from Lerner Newspapers
- Life (journal), a scientific journal published by MDPI
- IUBMB Life, a scientific journal published by the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Radio[edit]
![Keith Keith](/uploads/1/2/6/0/126067821/211968303.jpg)
- The Life, an Australian radio programme hosted by the comedy duo Roy and HG
- Life 103.1, the slogan for WLHC, an American radio station licensed to Robbins, North Carolina, United States
- Life FM (disambiguation), one of several radio stations
- GMA Life TV, an international Filipino television station
- Life TV Media, a British broadcasting company
- Life Network, rebranded as Slice in 2007, a former Canadian television specialty network
- Life Radio, a Philippine radio network
Keith Richards Life Audiobook
Television[edit]
- Life (U.S. TV series) (2007–2009), an American police drama first aired on NBC
- The Life (advertisement), a 2009 television and cinema advertisement for the Halo 3: ODST video game
- The Life (TV series) (early 2000s), an American documentary-style series first aired on ESPN
- Life (Japanese TV series) (2007), a Japanese television series, based on the manga series of the same name
- Life (UK TV series) (2009), a British nature documentary series first aired on the BBC
- 'Life' (Stargate: Universe), an episode of Stargate: Universe
- The Life Collection, David Attenborough's series of BBC natural history programmes from 1979–2005
- Life (2018 TV series) (2018), a South Korean television series
- Life TV (Philippines), a Philippine television channel
Other arts[edit]
![Keith Richards Life Pdf Keith Richards Life Pdf](https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/images/keith-richards-3.jpg)
Keith Richards Biography
- Life (sculpture), a 1968 sculpture in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Businesses and organizations[edit]
- Life (UK organisation), a British pro-life charity
- Life (news agency, Russia), Russian news agency and website
- Life Racing Engines, a former racing team
- Life Technologies (Thermo Fisher Scientific), a corporation acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2014
- Life University, a college in Marietta, Georgia, United States
- Life Belarus (Telecom), a Belarus mobile network operator formerly called life:)
- lifecell, a Ukraine mobile network operator, formerly called life:)
- Lambda Phi Epsilon, a North American Asian-interest fraternity nicknamed Life
- The LIFE Programme (French : L’Instrument Financier pour l’Environnement), the European Union's funding instrument for the environment and climate action.
- The second-highest attainable rank in the Boy Scouts of America
Technology[edit]
- Laser Inertial Fusion Energy, a laser inertial fusion power plant design
- Lunar Infrastructure for Exploration, a space telescope project
- Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment, Shuttle-LIFE and Phobos-LIFE
Other uses[edit]
- Life (cereal), a cereal distributed by the Quaker Oats Company
- Life, Tennessee, an unincorporated community in the United States
- Living Is For Everyone, a suicide prevention initiative of the Australian government's National Suicide Prevention Strategy
- LIFE Act, a United States immigration law
- LYF (pronounced life), or Reliance LYF, a 4G smartphone brand owned by Reliance Industries
See also[edit]
- Life skills, human abilities to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life
- Phenomenological life, life considered from a philosophical and rigorously phenomenological point of view
- Organism, a living entity
- Real life, a phrase used to distinguish between actual and fictional or idealized worlds
- London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE, pronounced life)
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