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Thu 20 August 2026 19:00, UK
Keith Richards wasn’t put on this Earth to make anything that was supposed to be neat and tidy by rock and roll standards.
Some of the biggest hits The Rolling Stones ever had were always about the sinister side of living, and even when they did show their sensitive side, there was always a chance that another song on one of their albums could have had a tune that was a bit more risqué than anything else on the radio. But that didn’t mean that Richards couldn’t appreciate the prettier side of pop music whenever he heard the right voice come over the radio.
Because as much as Richards liked to make down and dirty blues riffs every time he made a record, there was just as much beautiful music scattered throughout his record collection. He wasn’t the type to talk about how beautiful classical music was or anything like that, but there were some definite tunes that hinted that he was at least more savvy of what the masses wanted when helping Mick Jagger write ‘As Tears Go By’.
Those kinds of songs came from a tradition of immaculate melodies that had been around for centuries, and that’s before Richards even discovered his love for country music. Some of the biggest names in the country had the potential to break anyone’s heart if they had the right song, and there are more than a few tunes that Richards heard from the likes of George Jones and Gram Parsons that could leave him in shambles.
But when The Stones were making their first steps into music, rock and roll wasn’t the only genre in town or anything. It was certainly causing a stir once the British invasion got underway, but some of the biggest bands coming from America were more indebted to what was coming out of genres like R&B and almost anything that was coming out on Motown Records. If we’re talking rock and roll excellence, though, you can’t really ignore Phil Spector.
Believe me, every single one of us has tried to ignore based on the horrible habits he got into later in life, but Spector knew how to make the ‘Wall of Sound’ that everyone loved to hear whenever he made his miniature symphonies. But even through all of those overdubs on his records, Richards felt that no band was able to push that sound further than what Ronnie Spector and The Ronettes did on their tunes.
‘Be My Baby’ is a prime example of what the Phil Spector sound was supposed to be, but Richards felt that the voices mattered a lot more than anything else, saying, “[We were] on the road as usual, and I was talking down this corridor, and it’s damp and dark, and I hear these voices. As I go down the stairwell, I hear this beautiful chant, and I realise I’m listening to The Ronettes, and then that pure, pure voice singing ‘Be My Baby’. I realised, despite the arrangements, they could sing their way right through a Wall of Sound.”
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Granted, it’s not like Richards had unearthed some legendary singers when he first heard them or anything. Brian Wilson already considered that song to be one of the most special recordings in rock history, and the only thing that he could hope to do was make songs that he felt could hold their own next to them every single time he wrote one of his tracks with The Beach Boys.
That brand of pop-flavoured music tended to be outside of The Stones’ wheelhouse, but Richards was always comfortable with looking on from afar. Because even for all of the great music that he could make with his band, there was no reason to think that The Ronettes were ever going to be eclipsed when it came time for them to harmonise all over every single one of their tunes.
