Desert Island Discs Keith Richards
He owes a lot to Doris, does the old hell raiser.
Rolling Stone Keith Richard’s mum had her finger on the musical pulse.
He’s a rock n roll icon whose skeletons tumbled out, prim and proper, from their cupboard in this Desert Island Discs.
For Keith, famous for making music and trouble all his life, in a perpetual state of having a good time – according to the honeyed Desert Island Discs blurb – wasn’t always such a hell raiser.
He was a patrol leader in his scout group, he was a proper little choir boy – a soprano, no less.
And now this older man – more than ripe for the bus pass and the winter fuel allowance - laid back, laconic, whose voice rasps nicotine stained, harsh and smoky – like a coal bucket scraped across a scullery floor – remembered his mum, Doris.
It was her impeccable taste, he said.
“She had unerring aim on the dial.” She trained his ears with Django Reinhardt, Billy Halliday, Louis Armstrong.
His first guitar was his first love – he slept with it on his bed, he confessed.
And there were plenty of surprises on this Desert Island Discs, not least in his choices.
Old Hank Williams showed up, the father of modern country music.
“I couldn’t imagine living without a bit of Hank,” rasped Keith.
There was chat about him and Mick Jaggers and all those infamous clashes. Like brothers, he said: “Which brothers don’t fight occasionally?”
And when he said Mozart was his man, then the little old red rooster faltered mid strut and the world shifted on its axis.
Richards said he had read Mozart’s letters and found that the composer liked Vivaldi... so he had a bit of Nigel Kennedy and Vivaldi.
Intrigued? This listener was. Keith himself loves the old Keith. But he’s 71 and a granddad now.
“I’m growing up and evolving.”
This was husky heaven and a lesson in not viewing old rock star hell raisers in one-dimensional terms.
