Why Keith Richards was more than just “a guitar player” to George Harrison
Although The Rolling Stones and The Beatles often sparred in the press, Keith Richards and George Harrison refrained from saying anything negative about one another. There was nothing but respect between the two guitarists, who admired one another greatly.
They first crossed paths at an early stage in The Rolling Stones’ career when they were still on the London pub circuit. Despite the group only being in their infancy, The Stones had a growing reputation. They even caught the attention of The Beatles, who turned up to a show at a pub in Richmond.
Harrison was blown away by the performance, and soon afterwards, he recommended The Rolling Stones to Decca Records. The label famously turned down signing the Fab Four and weren’t willing to miss out again on another bestselling group.
The Beatles guitarist later fondly remembered that evening, “We’d been at Teddington taping Thank Your Lucky Stars, miming to ‘From Me To You’, and we went to Richmond afterwards and met them. They were still on the club scene, stomping about, doing R&B tunes. The music they were playing was more like we’d been doing before we’d got out of our leather suits to try and get onto record labels and television. We’d calmed down by then.”
From that moment, the duo sparked a friendship, and Harrison believed only a few could compete with The Rolling Stones guitarist regarding the rhythm. While the Beatle felt Richards lacked the necessary tools to shine as a lead guitarist, he believed his opposite number’s strengths far outweighed his weaknesses.
“I think he’s a great rhythm guitar player, Keith,” Harrison once said about The Rolling Stone. He continued: “You know, really, I think he’s probably one of the best rock ‘n’ roll rhythm guitar players. I don’t think he’s very good at lead, but he’s played … this is the thing you see, what I feel about Keith and myself too, it’s not a comparison, but in some ways what we do is we make records, and the records have some good guitar parts on them, or have some good songs, or good lyrics or whatever, but basically you make records.”
Elaborating on Richards’ style, the Beatle added: “He’s not, to me, like a guitar player who that’s all he does is go out and play guitar. He writes songs, and he makes records and within that — you know, like, you can’t beat a riff to ‘Satisfaction,’ you know what I mean? It’s the simple little things like that, and I think he’s — you know, I like Keith enormously.”
Although Harrison and Richards had their stylistic differences, they both had a delicacy to their craft which may have flown under the radar but elevated their respective band immeasurably. While neither man was the one scoring the headlines, Harrison understood there was no Rolling Stones without Keith Richards.
