Quote of the Day (Keith Richards, on Why Rock ‘n’ Roll’s ‘Nothing But Jazz With a Hard Backbeat’)

“There's something beautifully friendly and elevating about a bunch of guys playing music together. This wonderful little world that is unassailable. It's really teamwork, one guy supporting the others, and it's all for one purpose, and there's no flies in the ointment, for a while. And nobody conducting, it's all up to you. It's really jazz__that's the big secret. Rock and roll ain't nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.”— Keith Richards with James Fox, Life (2010)

In 2004, I read predictions of the life expectancy of prominent musicians/singers by American gerentologist David Demko. In one case, he was, sadly, not far wrong (e.g., Whitney Houston did not live past middle age), while he was considerably off in another (the guess for Michael Jackson—75—missed by a quarter century). 

But I burst out laughing when Demko gauged the prospects for Keith Richards: “He should have passed away at 52. I'm not sure how he does it, but he defies all conventional wisdom.”

But then again, the guitarist and co-songwriter of The Rolling Stones has been defying “all conventional wisdom” his entire adult life.

It is impossible to imagine that Richards was born 75 years ago today in Dartford, England. Yes, for many of us growing up in the late Sixties and early Seventies, it doesn’t seem so long ago that he was in the vanguard of a group of musicians who epitomized rebellious youth. 

But these days, as Rich Cohen recalled in an April 2016 article for Vanity Fair, “There’s reassurance in talking to Keith. He stands for survival. There’s nothing you’ve done he’s not overdone—nothing you’ve suffered he’s not survived. Here is Methuselah, perhaps not infinitely wise but infinitely experienced. He can teach you how to remain dignified in a fallen age.”

There was a time, growing up, when Richards represented those aspects of rock ‘n’ roll I wanted to wish away—the dissipation, the aimlessness, the (literally) wasted opportunities for greatness. 

But over time, not only did the legacy of the Rolling Stones come to seem more durable, but my appreciation for Richards as a musician increased tenfold. That wasn’t merely a matter of watching the group’s electrifying concert clips, but reading Richards’ memoir Life, which gives the most vivid idea of a musician’s abiding passion—his instrument—of any account I've read in the growing literature about rock ‘n’ roll.

I now feel that, though bandmate and songwriting collaborator Mick Jagger might supply The Stones’ flash, it is Richards who brings the fire.