And, just before that, another post on the song 'Keef' wished he had written.
“Chuck Berry, He gives me more headaches than Mick Jagger,” rasps Keith Richards at the end of this 1986 documentary.
Even for a musician who has written pages and pages of music history, there will always be a song that he would have liked to write. So even for legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards there is a song he wished he had written. The 79-year-old British musician himself revealed it by answering on his Twitter account one of the simplest questions a fan can ask: 'What is the song you wish you had written?'
#AskKeith 2023: What is a song you wish you wrote? pic.twitter.com/InzlXJzwkt
— Keith Richards (@officialKeef) January 21, 2023
Chuck Berry’s biggest fan explains how Berry set the template for rock guitar. "Chuck Berry once gave me a black eye, which I later called his greatest hit. We saw him play in New York somewhere, and afterward I was backstage in his dressing room, where his guitar was lying in its case. I wanted to look, out of professional interest, and as I’m just plucking the strings, Chuck walked in and gave me this wallop to the frickin’ left eye. But I realized I was in the wrong. If I walked into my dressing room and saw somebody fiddling with my ax, it would be perfectly all right to sock ’em, you know? I just got caught."
Richards, a lifelong Chuck Berry fan (Berry’s “Carol” was covered on the Rolling Stones’ 1964 debut), intended to pay tribute to his idol by staging a 60th birthday concert in Berry’s hometown of St. Louis, backing him with a great band (drummer Steve Jordan, keyboardist Chuck Leavell and perhaps most importantly original Berry pianist Johnnie Johnson) instead of the often ragtag local pickup musicians he has used for decades of touring. Richards also invited guests like Etta James, Eric Clapton (who burns up a stunning slow blues “Wee Wee Hours”), Linda Ronstadt and Robert Cray to join the festivities. Director Taylor Hackford was tapped to not only capture the performance but provide biographical details about Berry’s life.
Even if you’re a rock guitarist who wouldn’t name him as your main influence, your main influence is probably still influenced by Chuck Berry. He is rock & roll in its pure essence. The way he moved, especially in those early film clips; the exuberant ease when he laid down that rhythm was mystifying and something to behold. He used his whole arm to play. He used the shoulder and elbows. Most of us just use our wrists; I’m still working on the shoulder bit. Chuck was not one of those guitar players grimacing at every note he played, which is so common among us all. Chuck’s smiling as he’s playing that shit.
“Being a frontman was very unusual for me,” Richards admits. “I appreciated Mick (Jagger)'s job a lot more by the time I finished, I can tell you!”
Last year Paul McCartney said that even at his age he can still sing his lungs out because he doesn’t question himself. Is that also your philosophy? To just go for it and make music without a safety net?
I couldn’t put it any better than Paul. I’ve never questioned myself. And even today I never ask myself whether I’m too old or whether I should still expect so much of my body. That doesn’t get you anywhere. You just keep doing it.
It’s interesting you bring up Paul, of all people, in connection with transience. I mean, he and Ringo are the last two living Beatles. I knew John well, also George and Ringo, but over all the decades Paul and I never really came together, never sat down and talked. We’ve only made up for that recently. It’s strange that it’s taken so many years. And it was really more by accident that it happened at all. For a while Paul was visiting me every day at my house on Parrot Cay [an island in the West Indies], where he also lives part of the time. We talked about song writing, life, death… and what distinguished The Beatles from the Stones.
