![\"Keith](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Keith-Richards-The-Rolling-Stones-London-2022-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Raph Pour-Hashemi)<\/p>\n
Sun 2 November 2025 16:30, UK <\/p>\n
One of the essential creative frissons in The Rolling Stones was guitarist Keith Richards<\/a>\u2019 anchorage to rock\u2019s early foundations.<\/p>\n Such a grip on Americana\u2019s sediments of blues and country always pulled one end of the Stones\u2019 tug of war between frontman Mick Jagger\u2019s ear to the ground for pop\u2019s evolving trends. <\/p>\n Following their rootsy golden age from Beggars Banquet to Exile on Main St, subsequent albums would chart a course that further thumbed the scales in favour of Jagger\u2019s soaking up of disco and punk by the 1970s\u2019 end. Into the next decade, internal fractures and battling egos resulted in the pair\u2019s solo ventures, Jagger playing the MTV contender with 1985\u2019s She\u2019s the Boss, and Richards dropping his vintage old-school jam LP Talk is Cheap three years later.<\/p>\n Not that Jagger didn\u2019t love the blues too. To former bassist Bill Wyman\u2019s scoffing dismissal\u2014rightly pointing out that the Stones was actually founded and captained in London by Cheltenham boy Brian Jones\u2014but Dartford railway station\u2019s platform two boasts a blue plaque proudly marking the moment the young local teen Richards spotted old Wentworth Primary School mate Jagger waiting for the train with rare Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters<\/a> imports tucked under his arm. The Stones didn\u2019t form there and then, as Dartford Borough Council erroneously states, but rock history certainly was forged.<\/p>\n Through countercultural stature, future stardom, and the lofty dwell at the peaks of popular music\u2019s Everest heights into the Stones\u2019 six decades on, it\u2019s easy to imagine Richards would have been just as happy rolling out his beloved blues the entire time on much smaller stages as playing the whole rock star schtick.<\/p>\n Like Eric Clapton, when discussing his formative heroes, Richards will sooner reel off the elder blues maestros than much of the contemporary scene with which he found fame. Howlin\u2019 Wolf, John Lee Hooker, and Robert Johnson all loom large in Richards\u2019 hall of fame, but one lesser-known blues pioneer arguably towered over the rest in the \u2018human riff\u2019s estimation.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of those blues players of the mid-50s, Albert King and BB King, were single-note players,\u201d Richards once stated. \u201cT-Bone Walker was one of the first to use the double-string thing, and Chuck [Berry] got a lot out of T-Bone. Musically impossible, but it works\u201d.<\/p>\n It\u2019s quite a legacy to leave when even Berry labels you as one of his main influences, and King credits \u2018Stormy Monday\u2019 for picking up the electric guitar, stating in his autobiography that he had become Walker\u2019s \u201cdisciple\u201d there and then. Pushing the electric guitar to the fore in a way few bluesmen had before him, his influence extended well into rock and roll and the next decade\u2019s countercultural explosion with his on-stage animated performances, influencing a young Jimi Hendrix with his novel teeth-on-the-strings trick.<\/p>\n Richards viewed the blues tradition as an almost mystical energy that flowed through each generation, but he knew where it all started. \u201cI listened to every lick he [Berry] played and picked it up,\u201d he confessed. \u201cChuck got it from T-Bone Walker, and I got it from Chuck, Muddy Waters, Elmore James<\/a>, and BB King. We\u2019re all part of this family that goes back thousands of years. Really, we\u2019re all passing it on\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Raph Pour-Hashemi) Sun 2 November 2025 16:30, UK One of the essential creative frissons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[13877,77,31828,269,9942,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-544645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-blues","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-keith-richards","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-the-rolling-stones","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115481421248474427","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}