“Nothing I wouldn’t proudly display”: The albums Keith Richards would display at his funeral
No one stays in the game as long as The Rolling Stones and doesn’t encounter a few bumps along the way. As much as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards could write beautiful music whenever they got together, there were times when some of their best work either got left on the cutting room floor or got royally screwed up when it came time to mix everything. There are still some pieces that stick out more than others, and for the guitar gunslinger, he felt that two albums could have easily said it all for his career.
As much as The Stones have a great track record for licks, though, Richards always seemed to get away clean on their more questionable material. Even though a record like Dirty Work is marred by being too many times and often hard to listen to, a song like ‘Had It With You’ is still one of Richards’s best moments on the record.
That’s probably because Richards never claimed to put any fancy window dressing around his music. He was always a rock and roller with a healthy fascination with blues and country, and no matter how many times Jagger tried to make them click with the times, Richards would always be far more interested in making something that spoke to people the same way those old Robert Johnson records spoke to him.
So it’s really no surprise that Richards needed some sort of outlet during the 1980s. Between Stones records, Richards’s wilderness period outside the band is still some of the most eye-opening moments of his career, like finding the time to work his magic with Tom Waits on the album Rain Dogs.
But if Jagger could have solo albums out, who’s to say that Richards couldn’t either? Not all of them had the same vocal delivery that his frontman could pull off, but listening to Talk is Cheap and Main Offender, Richards is much more at home playing off of Steve Jordan and Waddy Wachtel. He’s not hitting the same high notes as he did in his other band, but Richards was always someone that you listened to more for the tone of his voice rather than whether he was hitting every pitch correctly.
And despite being in The Stones for life, Richards said that his first two solo albums are worthy of saying it all for him a lot better than some records by his main outfit, saying, “There’s nothing on those two (solo) albums that I wouldn’t proudly display at my funeral.” But that’s probably because there’s not as much room he had to compromise on these records, either.
The Stones are still a democratic process, after all, and it was clear that Richards was going to have some more fun playing off of a bunch of friends than catering to the massive machine the band had turned into. Whether it’s playing some old blues standards like ‘Key to the Highway’ or kicking back with a leftover riff like ‘Take It So Hard’, there are even some pieces that wouldn’t have felt out of place on a Stones record had Jagger heard them first.
And considering where he went with Crosseyed Heart, Richards has managed to turn in some of the best country rock of his generation of players. His first few solo records may have been a way to get his songs out into the world, but considering how well a song like ‘Demon’ works, chances are Jagger is kicking himself for seeing that magic slip through his fingers.
