Keithmas

The most important thing about today is that it is Keith Richards' birthday. 
He is eighty-one years old, same age as Mick Jagger. 

Now some of you remember when I became Keith obsessed. It happened because I read this book. 

Until that, I'd only thought of Keith in the vaguest of ways. One of the Rolling Stones, check. Guitar player, check. Junkie, check. Fated to die early, check. 

Although, by the time he wrote that book he was no young'un. 

I bought my copy of the book at Costco. Yes, Costco. And I never go to Costco without thinking about that. I'd heard he'd written a memoir which I had not gone out of my way to read but when I saw the book on the big book table thing, I picked it up and hefted it. It weighed a lot because there are many words contained in it. "Really?" I thought. Keith Richards has this much to say?" 
And then I turned the book over and that picture looked like this. 

What the hell, I thought? And I bought the book and by the end of the first chapter I was enchanted and charmed. I've read a lot of celebrity memoirs and they can definitely vary in quality and the amount of information that particular celebrity wants to give out. It was co-written by a writer named James Fox who is also listed as author right there with Keith on the Amazon page. That told me something about the man. He gives credit where it is due. 
And I tell you what- he proves that about forty thousand times in the book by naming every musician who taught him a lick or influenced him or whom he just respected. 
The whole book was fascinating to me. For people who have zero interest in the guitar, parts of it may get a little tedious because he writes about music, especially as to guitar, a lot. A whole lot. 
He is brutally honest in the book, or so it seems. He talks about his addictions, his arrests, the women he has loved and who have loved him, the incredibly hard parts of his life, the joys of his life, the times he has lived in, his kids, what being in the Rolling Stones has been like including his relationship with Mick Jagger, his various and final successful attempts to get off heroin, how he wrote songs alone and with Mick, and music, music, music which is what he seems to live and breathe. At the beginning of it all, there is music. And I'm sure at the end of it there will be too. He's said he wants to die on stage and I hope he does. 

So yeah, I  fell in love with the guy and after I read the book I listened to the audio version when that only came on CD's and he narrated some of it and I fell in love with THAT and at this point, I have no idea how many times I've read that book with my eyes and with my ears. 

As Hank says, Keith Richards is my spirit totem animal and he is right. I also love Hank's assessment of the book which he read too: "It's so British, so dirty and so sweet."

And you know, that's all I really want to talk about tonight. I'm working through an issue right now and it'll be all right, no doubt about that but in the meantime, I'd rather talk about Keith Richards than about me. 

I have no idea how many times I've posted this video but I'm going to do it again. 

It's only 18 seconds long. And in that 18 seconds everything that needs to be said about Keith Richards and Mick Jagger's relationship is pretty much said. 
Also, Keith's devotion to the music. 

Happy birthday, Keith! And as I always must do, I wish Keith and his beautiful wife of forty-one years, Patti Hansen, happy anniversary. 

I expect the old boys will be going on tour again next summer. I surely hope so. The world is a better place for me when I know that Keith Richards is still on a stage, playing one of his gazillion guitars and enjoying the hell out of it because he knows that's what he was put on this earth to do. 

Amen and hallelujah. 

Love...Ms. Moon