Life by Keith Richards and James Fox

read by Joe Hurley, Keith Richards, and Johnny Depp

If you’re above a certain age, it may surprise you to learn that Keith Richards and Mick Jagger aren’t baby boomers. They’re members of the Silent Generation, by two or three years. But the band they formed, along with Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and Ian Stewart is such an intrinsic part of the baby boom generation that I think we’ve got to give them honorary membership. To this day, if you want a lively debate among Boomers (not to mention a significant portion of Genexers), all you’ve got to say is three words: “Beatles or Stones?”

And Keith Richards’ autobiography is necessarily a biography of the Rolling Stones—from his point of view, of course. And it turns out that he is disarmingly charming. James Fox captured his voice, first over hundreds of hours of interviews, then in writing—and he did a fantastic job. If you listen to the audiobook, Johnny Depp does some of the narration (mostly in the first few chapters and then again for a bit near the end) but Keith does quite a lot of it himself, and it’s wonderful to hear his stories.

For me the most fascinating part was how the band got together, and then their early days—both before they became famous and then after they really caught on. There was a certain early-to-mid-career part, where the sex and drugs were very present but not yet all-consuming, where Keith was fascinated with learning and perfecting his five-string open tuning, and when the relationship with Anita Pallenberg was first occurring and then was at its best, that feels to me like a golden age—if not in Keith’s life, then in the course of the book. 

But his recounting of how heroin took over his life, and heroin and paranoia took over Anita’s, and all the difficulties with parenting and with the deterioration of the friendship between Keith and Mick, is also deeply interesting. All of that went into making Keith the person he is at the end of the book, too—that, and the various deaths in his circle of family and friends and co-famous-people, and new relationships we don’t get to hear so much about anymore.

It’s not possible for me to listen to the Rolling Stones with new ears. I’m too familiar with their canon up to about Tattoo You, and I don’t care enough about anything they produced after that. But after listening to this book, and stopping frequently to listen to the song being discussed, I can say I have listened to their work with, at least, new appreciation. For the history of each track, of course, but also for the artistry that went into so much deceptive simplicity. And there was definitely artistry—technique and concept both. Keith geeks out about all this in several places, and I found it oddly charming.

In the end I can say that Keith Richards is a man of depth and complexity who follows all of his passions well beyond the dictates of common sense—which is the reason for his genius as well as numerous brushes with the law and with death. In short, he lives up to his reputation. 

Which is not to say that all of the rumors are true; according to him, at least, some are and some aren’t. And the truth behind at least one major one will remain forever a mystery if he has his say. No, I won’t tell you which is which. Read the book! Go on, I dare you.