‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’: Keith Richards’ ultimate riff for The Rolling Stones
As the dawn of the 1970s rose, the landscape of music was as open as it had ever been. The Beatles had disbanded, leaving a vast expanse of experimental possibilities in their wake and lying in waiting was a future led by an unbridled rock and roll attitude. Sexual freedom and liberal drug use were celebrated, and a raucous soundtrack for those heady days was required. Step forward, The Rolling Stones.
Their 1971 album Sticky Fingers epitomised the jagged edge rock and roll that would go on to define the era, blending blues sensibilities with essences of soul that had Keith Richards’ masterful guitar playing at the very forefront of it. While the record’s opener ‘Brown Sugar’ largely makes way for it’s most iconic riff, it’s on the fourth track where Richards’ new found confidence as the band’s guitar-playing leader flourishes.
‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ is a full-frontal seven-minute epic that puts Richards’ guitar at the very heart of it’s success. While Mick Jagger’s vocals straddle the fine line between rasping rock and soothing soul, it’s merely a passenger in the voyage led by Richards.
It’s a performance of two distinct parts: the opening verse welcomes you in with it’s funky, and bluesy open G tuning-based rhythm, before giving way to one of rock and roll’s most iconic jam sessions in the second half.
In the final four minutes of the song, Richards converses with fellow guitar player Mick Taylor as they dance between patterns, fluctuating from the ethereal to the raucous, building momentum as they do it for a perfect combination of blues, rock and a sprinkling of jazz.
Taylor explained that the four-minute jam “just happened by accident; that was never planned”. He continued “Towards the end of the song I just felt like carrying on playing. Everybody was putting their instruments down, but the tape was still rolling and it sounded good, so everybody quickly picked up their instruments again and carried on playing. It just happened, and it was a one-take thing. A lot of people seem to really like that part.”
From the minute Keith starts the song to ten seconds later, when Jagger yells out a fervent ‘yeah!’ the track oozes a natural sense of groove. So it’s no surprise that a 1971 Richards who was somewhere between drug-addled nonsense and experimental genius somewhat stumbled upon this now iconic riff:
“‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ came out flying – I just found the tuning and the riff and started to swing it and Charlie picked up on it just like that, and we’re thinking, hey, this is some groove” Richards said of the song. “So it was smiles all around. For a guitar player, it’s no big deal to play, the chopping, staccato bursts of chords, very direct and sparse”.
While the record marked a new dawn for the band, this song and riff in particular, earmarked the start of a more sonically streamlined chapter for the band. The somewhat predictable blues-rock had given way for a more sparse experimentalism and prowling disposition of a now venomous and powerful rock and roll animal.
