“I’ve never tried”: Keith Richards on why he would never match George Benson
No one should get into the music industry trying to sound like someone else. It’s easy to have common influences that come and go throughout one’s life, but the most important aspect of anyone’s artistic identity is to keep working until you start sounding closer to yourself than any other person on the charts. And despite Mick Jagger and Keith Richards trying to leech off many different genres in the beginning, Richards had a keen ear for what he didn’t want to hear out of himself.
Then again, many moments throughout The Rolling Stones’ career seemed dictated by what The Beatles had been doing around the same time. There had been some original moments throughout The Glimmer Twins’ career, but listening back to albums like Between the Buttons and Their Satanic Majesties Request, it’s not hard to see where they were getting their ideas from, considering what the Fab Four put out a few months earlier.
For Richards, though, he would have gladly played the blues for the rest of his life and been perfectly happy. His musical calling came from hearing people like Chuck Berry, but the minute he heard people like Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson, he knew that he needed to find a way to bare his soul the same way his idols were doing.
At the same time, that didn’t always cater well to every genre of music the band played. There were still moments where they could cut loose, but some of the biggest names in music prior to The Stones’ success had all come from the world of jazz, and that wasn’t about to stop once rock and roll took ahold of the mainstream.
Even when the band put out records like Exile on Main St, the biggest names in fusion were starting to make the rounds, whether the world was getting schooled by Jaco Pastorius or hearing bands like Mahavishnu Orchestra giving every audience member an education as soon as they hopped onstage.
Most people could appreciate what those jazz cats were bringing to the table, but Richards was the first to admit that that approach wasn’t how his brain operated, saying, “It’s never been the technique thing with me. I’ll never be a George Benson or a John McLaughlin, and I’ve never tried to be. I’ve never been into just playing, as such. I’ve been more interested in creating sounds and something that has a real atmosphere and feel to it.”
Some might see that as a cop-out, but the most important thing Keef mentions is the sense of atmosphere. A lot of a rhythm guitarist’s role is about filling in the spaces between the lead playing, and while many people have tried to match the dexterity of their influences, Richards could set up a scene with only a few stabs of his signature Tele and a few half-decent microphones.
So while many people can try to solve the question of how to sound original, there’s a good chance that Richards already has his answer. He could have spent years finetuning and studying under the greatest in the world, but everyone was going to know who he was the minute that the chilling guitar line from ‘Gimme Shelter’ started.
