Life

From Barnes & Noble

The publisher's bio of the author reads, "Keith Richards was born in England in 1943 and founded the Rolling Stones with Mick Jagger in 1962. He lives in Connecticut." In the tersely-titled Life, Keith himself fills in all the tantalizing gaps in that précis. That this long-discussed autobiography has been wildly anticipated should surprise no serious rock watcher: Over the decades, Richards' life, lifestyle, and relationships with other band members have spawned proliferating rumors. The archetypal exile on Main Street finally speaks his mind. Sometimes you can get what you want. A Barnes & Noble Bestseller now in a paperback and NOOKbook.

Michiko Kakutani

By turns earnest and wicked, sweet and sarcastic and unsparing, Mr. Richards…writes with uncommon candor and immediacy…Life…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.
—The New York Times

Liz Phair

The most impressive part of Life is the wealth of knowledge Keith shares, whether he's telling you how to layer an acoustic guitar until it sounds electric…or how to win a knife fight. He delivers recipe after recipe for everything rock 'n' roll, and let me say it's quite an education…James Fox, Keith's co-author, deserves a lot of credit for editing, organizing and elegantly stepping out of the way of Keith's remembrances. Reading Life is like getting to corner Keith Richards in a room and ask him every­thing you ever wanted to know about the Rolling Stones, and have him be completely honest with you.
—The New York Times Book Review

Lou Bayard

After half a century on the road, Richards has the face he deserves—but not, it appears, the brain. Against all pharmaceutical odds, he has held on to a substantial portion of his own history and has turned it into the most scabrously honest and essential rock memoir in a long time…In some cases, Richards's memories are supplemented by others; on every page, they are shaped by co-writer James Fox. But the voice that emerges is unmistakably the dark lord's: growly and profane and black with comedy. And, for all that, surprisingly charming…
—The Washington Post

The Huffington Post

Why does Keith want to undercut his legend? Because he has much better stories to tell. And in Life, the 547-page memoir he wrote with James Fox, he serves them up like his guitar riffs—in your face, nasty, confrontational, rich, smart, and, in the end, unforgettable....His story slows as it approaches the present, and you start to wonder if this Peter Pan life can get to its end without real pain. And you think, well, there's another side to this -- if Mick started writing tonight, he could have his book out before he's 70. But mostly, you wish you could go back to the beginning of Life and start again.

Publishers Weekly

Johnny Depp and Joe Hurley capture Richards's rock 'n' roll spirit in a wise, charming, and textured narration of the famed guitarist's memoir. Tracing Richards's trajectory from boyhood in England through the formation of the Stones to the band's rise to world domination, this audiobook is chock-full of frank revelations and enlightening stories behind the music. The three readers do superb turns—but the seemingly arbitrary switches between them can be jarring and confusing. Depp's narration is steady, well-paced, clear, and grounded. He produces a delicious range of voices for dialogue (most notably a drunk judge in Arkansas), and Richards himself sounds a bit like an elderly, bluesy Jack Sparrow. Hurley captures the voice of Richards throughout, narrating in a gritty, growl that is spot-on. And sections read by Richards are a real treat; his raspy voice is unmistakable and haunting. A Little, Brown hardcover. (Oct.)

Rolling Stone

[Life is] one of the greatest rock memoirs ever

Library Journal

This reviewer came of age wondering if Richards was even born innocent. Soon after cracking the spine of his deservedly lauded memoirs, there is an answer (yes!), and although the Rolling Stones guitarist made great haste toward his iconic junkiedom, he lived much life to the marrow before and after. Readers need not read so much as listen—Richards recounts the choicest milestones in a voice that is so evocative of his many sides, you will hear every sigh, howl, growl, and snicker. Prepare as well to be surprised: the tales of excess do not include groupie collecting. Richards was and is a one-woman man, and when he's plunging us into the darkest years of his addiction, revolt will surface in tidal waves but also understanding. Richards explains better than any rock star of his generation that the drug taking was not for escaping pain but relishing every rarefied moment of his artistic prime. He and soul mates like Gram Parsons were committed to breathing and recording music with the force of giants, come hell or Mexican shoe scrapings.Verdict Against all odds, Richards survived his own vitality and rebelliousness, and he knows it. Lovers of music, travel, autobiography, and fiction will eat the lessons of this natural-born pirate with a knife, fork, and spoon. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/10.]—Heather McCormack, Library Journal

The Chicago Tribune

[A] fast-paced, pull-no-punches autobiography... Richards is at his best when digging into the reasons he plays music, and how he creates it.

San Francisco Chronicle

Fiercely entertaining and candid.

Library Journal

This memoir by Rolling Stones guitarist/songwriter/cofounder Richards is one of the most entertaining rock autobiographies in recent years. A candid and foul-mouthed "Keef" reveals how he fell in love with Chicago blues music, shares intimate details of 50 years in "the world's greatest rock'n'roll band," and reflects on his infamously contentious relationships with Mick Jagger and the late Brian Jones, giving fans long-awaited insights into both his volatile band and his personal life. Musician Joe Hurley and actor Johnny Depp share narration duties, each convincingly producing a range of voices and channeling Richards's cool and cocky charm. Richards himself opens and closes the story. Highly recommended for adult listeners interested in Richards's experiences with fame and fortune and in the Stones' genesis, early years, inner workings, and creative growth. [Includes a bonus PDF of photos; the No. 1 LJ and New York Times best-selling Little, Brown hc also received a starred review, LJ Xpress Reviews, 12/17/10.—Ed.]—Douglas King, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia

Kirkus Reviews

The dread pirate Richards, scourge of straight society and rock icon, bares all—including a fang or two.

The Rolling Stones rhythm guitarist—and, we learn, principal songwriter—Richards has already set tongues wagging, giant red ones or otherwise, with leaked bits and pieces of his memoir, most notably the extensive, extremely bitchy complaints about Mick Jagger. "I used to love to hang with Mick," he writes, "but I haven't gone to his dressing room in, I don't think, twenty years. Sometimes I miss my friend. Where the hell did he go?" His fellow Glimmer Twin may not miss him so much upon learning Richards's assessment of his soul (and genitalia). He also tears down another Mick, this one Mick Taylor, former Stones guitarist, who left the band without Keith's permission: "You can leave in a coffin or with dispensations for long service, but otherwise you can't." Others receive gentler treatment, among them Gram Parsons, Rolling Stones heart and soul Ian Stewart and keyboard wizard Billy Preston (who, we learn, "was gay at a time when nobody could be openly gay"). Surveying the living and the dead, Richards admits the improbability of his own survival, though, he notes, most of his excessive behavior is now many decades past. He is much calmer now, particularly after having undergone brain surgery a few years ago. Which does not mean he's surrendering—part of the joy of this altogether enjoyable, if sometimes mean-spirited, book is the damn-the-torpedoes take on things. Indeed, when he's not slagging or praising, Richards provides useful life pointers, from how to keep several packs of dogs in different places to the virtues of open guitar tunings. He even turns in a creditable recipe for bangers and mash, complete with a pointed tale that speaks to why you would not want to make off with his spring onions while he's in the middle of cooking.

"A jury of my peers would be Jimmy Page, a conglomeration of musicians, guys that have been on the road and know what's what," Richards growls. Let no mere mortal judge him, then, but merely admire both his well-written pages and his stamina.

The Barnes & Noble Review

Weighing in at 547 pages, the autobiography of Keith Richards, the world's most worshipped rhythm guitarist, is called Life, a title that evokes a high school biology textbook more than the ultimate sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll tell-all. "Life" itself seems like something that just happened, as opposed to a destiny fulfilled. One might have thought some song titles would have been more to the point: Torn and Frayed? Shine a Light? Tumbling Dice? And those are just from Exile on Main Street. How about just Keef? And yet, after concluding this tome, I had to rethink my wishful alternatives, since the book does teach a kind of Life Science, or perhaps Life Lessons or Life Studies, although the aim is hardly pedagogical. "Don't try this at home, kids," is the subtext of the voluminous riffs on how to shoot smack (only the purest pharmaceutical grade, which ain't on the streets anymore), fall out of a tree (not, according to legend, reaching for a coconut but merely settling on a branch), or snort your dad's ashes (which he did, but as an afterthought, in a Big Lebowski moment).

What he does want to teach, though, is how to write songs, play guitar, and create grand, 3-minute operas for the voice, body, words, and diva persona of Mick Jagger, and this is a master class of the highest order. Each chapter begins with a David Copperfield-like synopsis, and whether or not our Keef becomes the hero of his own life, these pages will show. For half a century -- with all the bitching and carping included in this book and familiar to those who have kept up with the squabbling parents who nevertheless hold it together -- the Glimmer Twins still sparkle, still performing a tightly choreographed spectacle against the logic of age. Their 2006 Bigger Bang tour grossed over $588 million, the most lucrative rock & roll gig ever, even though it has been 30 years since Mick and Keith wrote a song that most people even know. Between 1965 and 1981, though, despite a few valleys (Goat's Head Soup, Black and Blue, Emotional Rescue) among the peaks (just about everything else), they were hard to beat. Even if they were less mellifluous than The Beatles or less poetic than Bob Dylan, no rock band this side of Muddy Waters explored with more splendor or seductive danger the power of three chords and the truth. Richards literally wrote the riff for "Satisfaction" in his sleep, and was only slightly more conscious for the rest of his finest musical foundations. His riffs, borrowing musical logic from Chuck Berry and open tunings from Bo Diddley, carry, in their most sublime moments, the weight of the world, and his book is equal parts demystification and mythification. How did this bloke from Dartford, Kent become a seemingly accidental genius?

He certainly couldn't have done it alone. His legacy is really fragments of songs, all knitted together by Sir Mick, who himself wouldn't have been worth his title -- not even worth his shimmy -- without Keith. We get the story of a guy who doesn't just want to randomly bang some birds and score a bump, but wants it to be soulful, even affectionate. If you get too sucked in, you could almost become a Keith apologist, glossing over the moment he pulled a knife on organist Billy Preston for playing too loud (unopened, but still!), and breaking the chivalric code by stealing model-actress-junkie Anita Pallenberg from founding Stones guitarist Brian Jones (although he goes to great lengths to portray Jones, 5 foot 6 and fey, as physically abusive to women and increasingly useless to The Stones). Anyway, to hear Keith tell it, Pallenberg ended up in the sack with Mick around the time he turned down a three-way proposition from Marlon Brando (which didn't stop Keith from naming his eldest son after him) and before he became an even more deeply hooked junkie than he had been, that last corroborated by Marlon Richards himself. Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday.

Whether or not you buy Keith's image of himself as a knight in shining armor (having, he says, shirts ruined by the tears of Bianca, Jerry, and other martyred babes of Mick), Life's most privileged moments find Keith becoming so enthralled with a three chord creation, he could stay up days and days (nine was the record) just hammering it out until he struck gold. "Jumping Jack Flash" was the turning point in Keith's use of open tunings, a guitar player's mysterious alchemy that can produce the deepest results. "Those crucial, wonderful riffs just came, I don't know where from," he writes, still giddy. "I'm blessed with them and can never get to the bottom of them." This is why we care about Keith, who kicked heroin three decades ago (perhaps after recording Tattoo You, the last good Stones album), and kicked coke and even booze more recently. Now, he has never looked more battered, but has never sounded more lucid. This is a fascinating book by a flawed man still settling his scores, but his pages on those riffs are a must for anyone who wants to dig into the mystery of "Street Fighting Man," "Brown Sugar," "Gimme Shelter," and those other songs that seem impervious to decay. They are as big as Life and still too large for Richards to fully comprehend: "It's like a recall of something and I don't even know where it came from!"

--David Yaffe

David Yaffe, a professor of English at Syracuse, is the author of Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing (Princeton). His next book, Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown, will be published by Yale University Press in May 2011.