The 1950s legend Keith Richards helped revive: “I was surprised”
Keith Richards usually needed a little bit more passion in his rock and roll to give it the green light.
Although Mick Jagger more often than not followed the trends that were coming out every other year when The Rolling Stones released a project, it wasn’t hard for Richards to find his way back to the same kinds of blues and rock and roll records that he grew up listening to as a kid. He wanted to pay tribute to his heroes in whatever way he could, but the silver lining to all of his classics was being able to revive the careers of the artists that didn’t get the spotlight nearly as often.
But Richards wasn’t in the business to hog the limelight every time he played. He fancied himself a member of the band before anything else, and even though Jagger could strut his way across the stage, Richards felt his goal was being able to proper him up and make sure that he didn’t make an ass out of himself. The sideman role was the best life for him, but he felt that there were also other band members who never got their due, even in the biggest rock and roll outfits.
There were already countless rock and roll fans who knew who Little Richard and Elvis Presley were, but was anyone bothering themselves with the names of their backing group? They should have in Richard’s case, since Jimi Hendrix was one of his backup musicians, but even when someone like Scotty Moore stood out alongside Presley’s other bandmates, Richards felt that Johnnie Johnson deserved just as much credit as Chuck Berry on a lot of those early rock and roll records.
As far as Richards was concerned, Johnson was the original ‘Johnny B Goode’, and when looking through their history, the pianist was always providing the perfect ear candy every single time they worked together. He had practically been MIA for years after Berry started his round robin of backup groups, but Richards remembered getting Berry to bring Johnson back into the group after years away.
He was an essential part of those early records, and Richards felt proud knowing that he brought one of the greatest musicians of his childhood back from the brink, saying, “I asked Chuck, ‘I hear Johnnie Johnson is still about?’ I had no idea what their relationship was, or whether that was touchy ground or not. Chuck said, ‘Yeah, he’s around, let’s give him a call.’ It was all very casual. I was surprised, but once I heard Johnnie, I’m so glad that, through that, he found a career again.”
And Richards wasn’t afraid to put his money where his mouth was, either. Even when inducting both Johnson and James Burton into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the 1990s, he was honoured to say that he bought every one of their records for the music they were making instead of the massive frontman that was pinned on top of the record on the sleeve.
Richards wasn’t exactly going to give Johnson a run for his money by any stretch, but the lessons he learned from him were more about how his instrument sat in the mix. The piano is the same kind of mid-range instrument as a guitar, so it’s better to know where everything fits within the right song rather than throwing away the rules and trying to grandstand every single time you make a record.
Richards might be one of the most decorated rock and roll stars of all time, but Johnson is the one teaching people like him the one thing most musicians forget: subtlety. No one really needs to go on massive musical spiels every time they sing, and it’s better to have music that sounds good instead of music that sounds like work every single time you make a new record.
