Life - By Keith Richards

If you're not a Rolling Stones fan, much like I wasn't, you don't think about Keith Richards in the world of gifted guitarists. Reading his autobiography changed my mind about him, and The Rolling Stones.

I love reading about people, it gives me a sense of who they are and what makes them tick. I wouldn't normally pick a book about Keith but for as long as I can remember his life has been a mystery. The mystery is his reputation and how in the heck can this guy still be alive after all the rumors, and if I was honest the guy has looked on his death bed for 20+ years. I was intrigued.

I ended up loving this book. He was so honest about his life validating when a rumor was true, and when it wasn't he elaborated on what really happened. Normally I would be suspicious about what someone's truth is but in this case the truth didn't make him look any better. For example, there was a news story (rumor) he had such a drug problem he snorted his dad's ashes to get high. The truth he told was he was transferring his dad's ashes so he could spread them and as a result some ended up on the table. He didn't want his dad to be put in the garbage or brushed on the floor, so he snorted them. So he didn't deny snorting his dad's ashes, but he set the story straight about why. There are many stores like that in the book along with the ladies in his life, his children, why he left the UK, what happened to Brian Jones, his explanation for why he survived all those drugs, all the busts, and his relationship with Mick.

I was drawn to the stories behind how the music was made. Keith does a great job explaining the history of the Stones music and them as individual musicians. I was amazed to learn what their goal was when starting out - spoiler alert - to be the best blues band in the UK. I didn't even realize they were a blues band until I read it then listened to their early albums. I was blown away. He walks through a good portion of their collection explaining the writing process, the playing styles, how it was recorded, and where it was recorded. Like most bands they experimented a lot for different sounds. Probably my favorite recording story is when they recorded 'Exile on Main Street' at the Villa Nelcotte in the South of France, a very large estate right on the ocean. The arrangement was extreme, I call it a very decentralized approach. It worked though.

This is a big book over 550 pages, and if you get the audio version it's 23 hours. I enjoyed every part of this book cover to cover and highly recommend it, whether your a Stones fan or not.