The blues legend Keith Richards regretted never seeing live: “I missed him just by a hare’s breath”
It’s any musician’s dream to see their heroes in person. Even if you have achieved the same kind of success as those who came before you, it only makes sense to see your influences in the flesh and to thank them for their inspiration throughout the years. Although Keith Richards was always a student of the glory years of rock and roll, he admitted that he missed out on seeing Big Bill Broonzy in the flesh.
Because if there’s one common thread that connects all types of rock and roll, it’s the blues. The idea of any great rock guitarist playing blistering leads all started from playing a simple I-IV-V chord progression in one’s bedroom, but for those that had been born out of Chicago, blues meant something much more than just a musical language.
It was an emotional translator for anyone who had struggled with different aspects of life, and even if the harmony wasn’t that complex, it was about the energy that was put into it. No one needed to have a graduate-level knowledge of music theory to play the basics of any BB King song, but when it came time to play it in front of a crowd, no one could have imagined playing it with as much soul as he could.
The attitude behind the music can’t really be taught. It’s something that’s already in any musician’s soul, to begin with, but Big Bill Broonzy was looking at the bigger picture. He wanted to foster that kind of talent in Chicago, and when he started writing his own masterpieces like ‘Key to the Highway,’ he had already begun laying the groundwork for what the London blues scene would sound like when Richards and Eric Clapton started picking up on his approach to the genre.
And while it’s easier to pick up on influences like Chuck Berry or Scotty Moore in Keef’s guitar tone, there’s a lot more influence from Broonzy than most people realise. Broonzy always looked at his guitar as an extension of himself, and whereas Clapton used many songs as a vehicle to solo, Richards was interested in making his guitar talk whenever he played, whether that was the busted guitar tone on ‘Street Fighting Man’ or the snarling bite of ‘Sympathy for the Devil’.
Right as Richards was first starting to form a group, though, Broonzy would be dead, passing away from throat cancer in 1958, having severed his vocal cords one year earlier while undergoing surgery. For the guitarist, all that was left now was any live footage, saying, “Broonzy. (I would have loved) to see him live. I missed him just by a hare’s breath. There’s a great film of him singing ‘When Did You Leave Heaven’ in a little club in Belgium. It was a classic video before its time.”
Even if Richards couldn’t see one of the idols of Chicago blues, he did pay his respects in other ways. Looking at some of the other blues acolytes The Rolling Stones collaborated with, hanging out with artists like Muddy Waters was probably the closest they would ever get to meeting one of their idols onstage.
But Richards doesn’t necessarily have to worry about seeing everyone live anymore. He may still bring his songs to life every time The Stones go out on tour, but his role is better suited to carrying on that bluesy tradition these days.
