Was Keith Richards the only Rolling Stone with a decent 1980s?
The Rolling Stones spent the late 1960s and early 1970s as tax exiles from their own country. At the same time, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger’s band were also on the run from multiple police departments in different nations. So why did they never come closer to calling it quits than in the 1980s? The decade of hair, cocaine and shoulder pads was, commercially speaking, a banner year for them. It was the moment they slipped comfortably from rock ‘n’ roll band to rock ‘n’ roll brand, playing stadiums and showing the world that you could be rockstars after the age of 40.
Yet it was also the decade where the bond between Jagger and Richards—the same bond that had kept the band going since Brian Jones’ untimely death—came closest to disintegrating beyond repair. Both halves of the ‘Glimmer Twins‘ have said on numerous occasions that they weren’t exactly champagne-clinking bezza mates at the best of times, but they were, as their nickname suggests, brothers. However, that was not so in the 1980s.
Mick had his head properly turned by the success that Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins and Rod Stewart enjoyed after they left their respective bands. While he thought he’d have a slice of that pie, the rest of the band were left to A) despise their singer’s snake-hipped guts and B) pursue projects of their own. Keith Richards ended up having the most interesting 1980s out of anyone else in The Stones, principally because he wasn’t trying to make a solo career happen until much later in the decade.
Instead, he decided to support up-and-coming artists doing interesting things and collaborate with a few of his heroes. For the former, he contributed guitar to Tom Waits’ 1985 masterpiece Rain Dogs. For the latter, he assisted with the career rejuvenation of two of rock and roll’s leading lights, Chuck Berry and Aretha Franklin. For Berry, he served as musical director and guitarist for a major comeback concert and concert film of his, an experience that was only occasionally as painful as a root canal.
Much more agreeable was his work with the ‘Queen of Soul’. He teamed up with Aretha for the cover of The Stones’ ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ which played over the credits of the Whoopi Goldberg movie of the same name. After her (obviously ace) cover was a hit on the Billboard charts, ‘Keef’ was given the honour of inducting Franklin into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he, in his inimitably insouciant way, talked about her place in rock history.
Or at least he tried. Would you believe it, ‘Keef’ didn’t come prepared. Yet, there’s something poetically true in the way he sums up the sheer power of her voice by saying, “The dictionary’s been used up… there’s no superlatives left.” He then, clearly scrambling, tried to come up with something else on the fly and ended up settling on “us next?!”. That’s definitely a bold move when talking about Aretha Franklin.
The truth is, though, he’s got a point. What the hell else is there to say about arguably the greatest singing voice in the history of American popular music? Sure, he could have come up with something a little more eloquent, but this is Keith Richards we’re talking about. If there was ever a man to let the music do the talking, it’s him.
