However, despite their differences, both Richards and McCartney have each kept rocking for more than half a century. Emerging from the same swinging '60s music scene, the two figures have overlapped on numerous occasions.
Early in the 69's Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were riding in a taxi towards their recording studio when they saw John Lennon and Paul McCartney walking down the street. They invited the Beatles songwriters to jump in, and asked if they had any songs for them.
Richards has shared his respect for The Beatles as a group in numerous interviews, while he has also highlighted his friendships with both John Lennon and George Harrison as being particularly close. But as Richards explains in his bestselling 2010 memoir "Life," he and McCartney had never been good friends, mainly because they had never had the time to get to know one another.
Richards recalls that he was relaxing on the beach in Turks and Caicos Islands one day when, all of a sudden, McCartney appeared and began walking toward him. Though Richards was surprised to meet McCartney in so remote a location, the two veteran rockers cemented their friendship over the course of many days, Richards' companionship being a balm for McCartney after his split from his second wife, Heather Mills. According to Richards, he and McCartney even wrote a song together, the lyrics of which he kept pinned to his wall, though the collaboration was never completed.
Paul McCartney's meetings with Keith Richards on the Turks and Caicos Islands apparently continued for many days, with the former Beatle visiting the Stones guitarist after his children had been put to bed to talk about the old days, life in general, and to engage in the perennial pastime of generations of rock fans: to compare The Beatles and The Rolling Stones musically, according to Richards' "Life."
McCartney later recalled that one of the subjects they discussed was The Beatles' vocal ability throughout the group: "I talked to Keith Richards a couple of years ago, and his take on it was: 'Man, you were lucky, you guys, you had four lead singers,' whereas The Rolling Stones only had one" (via NME). McCartney recalls that The Stones had a nickname for The Beatles in the early days: "the "four-headed monster." (Grunge)
The weirdest idea from Paul McCartney and keith Richards
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards came up with an outlandish business idea while spending time together on vacation recently with Paul McCartney. They met most days while on the Turks and Caicos Islands, near the Bahamas.
“We were designing portable dog kennels that were inflatable,” McCartney said during an appearance on the WTF podcast. “It was a pretty good idea, we thought. … We got round to if you had one you could custom-make them for Dalmatians to be polka dot. It was a good idea, I thought.”
Sir Paul said he would meet Keith for lunch most days on private isle Parrot Cay, where they both own luxury villas.
Many people have often claimed that The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are rivals. They are two of the biggest bands in the world, how could they not be? Well, as it turns out, they are the complete opposite!
“We were really pleased to see each other,” says Keith, whose literary effort highlighted tensions with bandmate Sir Mick Jagger. “We fell straight in talking about the past, talking about songwriting. He told me because he was left-handed he and John Lennon could play the guitars like mirrors opposite each other, watching each other’s hands. So we started playing like that. We started composing a song together, a McCartney/Richards number whose lyrics were pinned to my wall for many weeks.”
They also joked about the fact that when a rock star dies, crowd of people demand if Keith is still alive.
"But whenever a big name leaves us for the great gig in the sky, people like to check up on everyone’s favourite libertine. Take the week when Tom Petty passed away for example.
The number of searches for me (Keith Richards) when Tom Petty died, all of a sudden there was a huge spike in searches for Keith Richards.
