When an 18-year-old Keith Richards wrote a letter to his aunt describing his new friend Mick Jagger
Very few relationships can last 50 years… especially when one half of the partnership is publicly ridiculing the other for having a “tiny todger”.
Aside from jokey quips in salacious memoirs, when you consider that the partnership Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have shared has been under the constant spotlight and subjected to the tumultuous life of a rock star, it’s almost unbelievable that they’re still friends today, let alone releasing music together!
While they might not be unimpeachable rock icons, like any friendship, Richards and Jagger’s association needed to begin somewhere. That place was a chance happening as the ‘Glimmer Twins’ crossed paths in London. In the letter below, an 18-year-old Richards describes meeting Jagger for the first time. 250million record sales later, the record is a prized document in the lore of pop culture.
The letter captures the origin story of rock ‘n’ roll’s lewdest duo. Though not always equipped with the subtlety of some of their contemporaries, Jagger and Richards were a songwriting force to be reckoned with. What they lacked in perceived kudos from the intelligentsia, they made up for in foot-stomping, hip-swaying, party-starting rock ‘n’ roll.
The letter captures the rather more tender origins of that hellraising journey. In the letter, Richards is writing to his Aunt Patty, a correspondence which was detailed in the musician’s autobiography, Life. In the note, the guitarist regales Patty with how he met this new kid, Jagger. Or rather, fortuitously re-met.
It reads, “You know I was keen on Chuck Berry and I thought I was the only fan for miles but one mornin’ on Dartford Stn. (that’s so I don’t have to write a long word like station) I was holding one of Chuck’s records when a guy I knew at primary school 7-11 yrs y’know came up to me.” It was a seismic moment for pop culture that aptly reveals the roots music that has always undercut the Stones’ own output.
Richards continues, “He’s got every record Chuck Berry ever made and all his mates have too, they are all rhythm and blues fans, real R&B I mean (not this Dinah Shore, Brook Benton crap) Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Chuck, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker all the Chicago bluesmen real lowdown stuff, marvellous”.
All of these would feature as central influences and remain in their favourite albums lists forevermore. That might not be that surprising given that science has shown that music that you discover in your teens endures as a “musical home base” in your adulthood. Yet, few have clung so keenly to their source of inspiration. In fact, a cover of Willie Dixon’s classic ‘Little Red Rooster’ became their debut single and number one.
Richards goes a little further when detailing the chance meeting and offers up a vision of his future. He said, “Anyways the guy on the station, he is called Mick Jagger and all the chicks and the boys meet every Saturday morning in the ‘Carousel’ some juke-joint well one morning in Jan I was walking past and decided to look him up. Everybody’s all over me I get invited to about 10 parties”.
The budding guitarist also left one glowing endorsement, writing, “Beside that Mick is the greatest R&B singer this side of the Atlantic and I don’t mean maybe.” So, while he might have fired a few jibes over the years, it is clear that he admired his old mate right from the start.
Richards also describes travelling to a big “detached house” with Jagger and meeting a butler; after having a vodka lime brought to him he was smitten with the high life. “I really felt like a lord, nearly asked for my coronet when I left,” he said. It was a sign of things to come, and the band would be performing at the Marquee Club just a few weeks later.
As he would write years later, “If you’re going to get wasted, then get wasted elegantly.” With dirty finger nails and scraggly hair, the Stones have still just about done that. And therein lies their rugged, roaring, yet refined appeal. As Bob Dylan would put it, behind punk, metal, you name it, lingers a smattering of the swagger of two young lads who met at a train station.
Read the full transcript of Keith Richard’s letter describing meeting Mick Jagger for the very first time, below.
“Dear Pat,
So sorry not to have written before (I plead insane) in bluebottle voice. Exit right amid deafening applause.
I do hope you’re very well.
We have survived yet another glorious English Winter. I wonder which day Summer falls on this year?
Oh but my dear I have been soooo busy since Christmas beside working at school. You know I was keen on Chuck Berry and I thought I was the only fan for miles but one mornin’ on Dartford Stn. (that’s so I don’t have to write a long word like station) I was holding one of Chuck’s records when a guy I knew at primary school 7-11 yrs y’know came up to me. He’s got every record Chuck Berry ever made and all his mates have too, they are all rhythm and blues fans, real R&B I mean (not this Dinah Shore, Brook Benton crap) Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Chuck, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker all the Chicago bluesmen real lowdown stuff, marvelous. Bo Diddley he’s another great.
Anyways the guy on the station, he is called Mick Jagger and all the chicks and the boys meet every Saturday morning in the ‘Carousel’ some juke-joint well one morning in Jan I was walking past and decided to look him up. Everybody’s all over me I get invited to about 10 parties. Beside that Mick is the greatest R&B singer this side of the Atlantic and I don’t mean maybe. I play guitar (electric) Chuck style we got us a bass player and drummer and rhythm-guitar and we practice 2 or 3 nights a week. SWINGIN’.
Of course they’re all rolling in money and in massive detached houses, crazy, one’s even got a butler. I went round there with Mick (in the car of course Mick’s not mine of course) OH BOY ENGLISH IS IMPOSSIBLE.
“Can I get you anything, sir?”
“Vodka and lime, please”
“Certainly, sir”
I really felt like a lord, nearly asked for my coronet when I left.
Everything here is just fine.
I just can’t lay off Chuck Berry though, I recently got an LP of his straight from Chess Records Chicago cost me less than an English record.
Of course we’ve still got the old Lags here y’know Cliff Richard, Adam Faith and 2 new shockers Shane Fenton and Jora Leyton SUCH CRAP YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD. Except for that greaseball Sinatra ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Still I don’t get bored anymore. This Saturday I am going to an all night party.
“I looked at my watch
It was four-o-five
Man I didn’t know
If I was dead or alive”
Quote Chuck Berry
Reeling and a Rocking
12 galls of Beer Barrel of Cyder, 3 bottle Whiskey Wine. Her ma and pa gone away for the weekend I’ll twist myself till I drop (I’m glad to say).
The Saturday after Mick and I are taking 2 girls over to our favourite Rhythm & Blues club over in Ealing, Middlesex.
They got a guy on electric harmonica Cyril Davies fabulous always half drunk unshaven plays like a mad man, marvelous.
Well then I can’t think of anything else to bore you with, so I’ll sign off goodnight viewers
BIG GRIN
Luff
Keith xxxxx
Who else would write such bloody crap.”
