{"id":116559,"date":"2025-08-03T21:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T21:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/116559\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T21:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T21:28:14","slug":"keith-richards-and-elton-johns-feud-began-with-one-bad-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/116559\/","title":{"rendered":"Keith Richards and Elton John’s feud began with one bad show"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keith Richards is the king of putdowns. Bruce Springsteen<\/a>? \u201cTo me, it\u2019s pretentious,\u201d he told Rolling Stone in 1988. Prince<\/a>? \u201cTo me, it\u2019s kid stuff.\u201d Guns N\u2019 Roses? \u201cI admire their guts. But too much posing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But no fellow rocker has earned the Telecaster<\/a>-toting guitarist\u2019s ire as much as Elton John. It\u2019s bad enough that Richards has taken every opportunity to refer to John in interviews by his homely birth name, Reginald Dwight \u2014 he\u2019s also leveled some of his harshest snipes at the piano-playing rocker. In response, Elton \u2014 a musician every bit as bitchy as Keef \u2014 has given back in equal measure.<\/p>\n

To be fair, there\u2019s nothing unusual about feuds between rockers. They all have egos \u2014 and opinions. Even Carlos Santana, known for his beneficent and spiritual demeanor has a dark streak. Remember when he famously put down Kiss<\/a> in 2000, launching a years\u2019 long fight between the two men?<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

But Keith and Elton\u2019s spat has been among the longest running, and certainly most enjoyable to watch, over the years.<\/p>\n

Apparently it began at a 1975 Rolling Stones concert in Fort Collins, Colorado during the group\u2019s Tour of the Americas \u201975. It was the band\u2019s first road show with Ronnie Wood<\/a>, who replaced Mick Taylor<\/a> following his comparatively brief stint in the band. With no new album to announce \u2014 It\u2019s Only Rock \u2019N Roll had come out more than seven months earlier \u2014 the band was simply trying out its new lineup and giving fans more of what they wanted.<\/p>\n

\"British<\/p>\n

The Stones announced the 1975 tour on May 1 by performing “Brown Sugar” on the back of a flatbed truck rolling down New York City’s Fifth Avenue. <\/strong> (Image credit: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Unfortunately every one got a little too much at the July 20 show in Fort Collins at Hughes Stadium. Midway through the show, the Stones brought Elton onstage to play piano and sing along as they performed their hit \u201cHonky Tonk Women.\u201d Introduced by Mick Jagger as \u201cReg from Watford,\u201d Elton appeared onstage wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers windbreaker and a cowboy hat.<\/p>\n

He performed \u201cHonky Tonk Women,\u201d then played along on another 10 songs. The Stones\u2019 keyboardists, Billy Preston and Ian Stewart, were put off by his endless noodling. The band struggled to get him to leave, and even the audience began to boo.<\/p>\n

All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

\"Music<\/p>\n

Elton chats with music journalist Lisa Robinson backstage at the Fort Collins show. <\/strong> (Image credit: Christopher Simon Sykes\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

As John explained in his autobiography, Rocketman, his behavior was all down to the effects of cocaine, which was quickly becoming everyone\u2019s drug of choice in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u201cCocaine gave me too much confidence for my own good,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIf I hadn\u2019t been coked out of my head when the Rolling Stones turned up in Colorado and asked me to come onstage with them, I might have just performed \u2018Honky Tonk Women,\u2019 waved to the crowd and made my exit. Instead, I decided it was going so well, I\u2019d stay on and jam along to the rest of their set, without first taking the precaution of asking the Stones if they wanted an auxiliary keyboard player.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a while, I thought Keith Richards<\/a> kept staring at me because he was awestruck by the brilliance of my improvised contributions to their oeuvre. After a few songs, it finally penetrated my brain that the expression on his face wasn\u2019t really suggestive of profound musical appreciation. I quickly scuttled off, noting as I went that Keith was still staring at me in a manner that suggested we\u2019d be discussing this later, and decided it might be best if I didn\u2019t hang around for the after-show party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Years later, Richards was still fuming. Asked in that same Rolling Stones article above what he thought of Elton\u2019s then current top-10 single, \u201cI Don\u2019t Wanna Go On With You Like That,\u201d he replied, \u201cLovely bloke, but posing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elton took the sniping in stride. But it was Richards\u2019 next zinger that got under his skin.<\/p>\n

When Elton\u2019s friend Princess Diana died in 1997, he reframed his 1973 hit \u201cCandle in the Wind,\u201d an ode to Marilyn Monroe, as a tribute to the late member of the royal family.<\/p>\n

Keith stuck the knife in. \u201cSongs for Dead Blondes,\u201d he declared of the two tunes in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that October. \u201cI\u2019d find it difficult to ride on the back of something like that myself, but Reg is showbiz.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elton responded in kind in an interview with The Daily News that same month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad I\u2019ve given up drugs and alcohol,\u201d he griped. \u201cIt would be awful to be like Keith Richards. He\u2019s pathetic, poor thing. It\u2019s like a monkey with arthritis, trying to go onstage and look young.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have great respect for the Stones but they would have been better if they had thrown Keith out 15 years ago. \u2026 I just think he\u2019s an asshole and I have for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elton was apparently still seething in 2011 when he took aim at Richards\u2019 new autobiography, Life, in which the guitarist revealed some details about Mick Jagger\u2019s anatomy that would be better left unsaid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a bit put off by hearing about the bit about Mick Jagger\u2019s penis,\u201d Elton huffed. \u201cIf I said that [John\u2019s songwriting partner] Bernie Taupin was a miserable twat and had a small penis, he\u2019d probably never talk to me again. It\u2019s like, why do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

With no end in sight to the feud, Ronnie Wood intervened to get the two men to call a truce. When Keef and Elton showed up for the GQ Awards in London on September 8, 2015, relations were cordial enough for them to pose for a photo together.<\/p>\n

\"Keith<\/p>\n

Keef and Reg make up at the <\/strong>GQ<\/strong> Men of the Year Awards as Richards’ wife, Patti Hansen, looks on. <\/strong> (Image credit: David M. Benett\/Dave Benett\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Apparently all was forgiven on both sides when Elton joined the Stones for a guest appearance on the tracks \u201cGet Close\u201d and \u201cLive by the Sword\u201d from their 2023 album, Hackney Diamonds<\/a>. John was thrilled to finally become part of the Rolling Stones family, alongside guests that included Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n

But Keith couldn\u2019t help using the collaboration for a bit of self-aggrandizement, noting that it was Elton \u2014 not the Stones \u2014 who was basking in reflected glory.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s a fan of the Rolling Stones. Just like Paul, Elton was like, \u2018I just fucking played with the Rolling Stones.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keith Richards is the king of putdowns. Bruce Springsteen? \u201cTo me, it\u2019s pretentious,\u201d he told Rolling Stone in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":116560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,975,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-116559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114966960833805693","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}