Original subtitles

- [Crew Member] Okay, this is Keith; take 1.

(clapper clacks)

("Can't You Hear Me Knocking" by The Rolling Stones)

- [Chrissie] Every guy I've ever met in my life

wants to be Keith Richards.

- [Brian] He is the epitome of a rock guitarist.

The original, the one and only, it's Keith Richards.

♪ Yeah, you got satin shoes ♪

- [Narrator] Keith Richards has led a life

wreathed in legend.

♪ Yeah, you got ♪

- [Narrator] His attitude and legacy

underpin the whole idea of the guitar hero.

♪ Y'all got ♪

- What job is it of mine to go around wondering

what other people's perceptions are?

I have enough dealing with my own.

♪ Yeah, you got speed freak jive ♪

- I can only imagine what delusions

other people labour under.

Hah. ♪ The window ♪

- [Narrator] More than just a musician,

he's a defiant hedonist

and a poster boy for sheer survival.

- [Lars] Rock and roll has to have an element of danger

and an element of unpredictability.

And when you look at Keith Richards,

he embodies every element that you want

in your rock and roll star.

- [Don] Keith is all about living your life

with no one telling you how to be.

It's following who you are, fearlessly.

- It's really the skin of the teeth

first off, that it happens to you,

then you've got to survive it

because you don't know what you're in for

when you start this thing.

I still don't.

It's only surprises.

(laughs)

(saxophone ululating) (crowd cheering)

(bluesy guitar strumming)

I could kid myself that I was obviously born

to play rock and roll and be an enormous star.

No, I dreamt of that, but that doesn't...

That's not the same thing as knowing, is it?

Do we call that destiny?

What do we call it?

I call it love.

(laughs)

- [Glyn] There isn't another guitar player

like Keith Richards.

There's nobody who comes anywhere close to him.

- [Tina] It was that sound of the guitar.

And the sound of that guitar

was the creation, I would say, of the Rolling Stones.

- [Slash] He is definitely the archetypal bad boy,

rock guitarist personified,

and he's the model that all of us

rebellious rock guitar players follow from.

- [Sheryl] Keith Richards wrote the dictionary version

of what rock and roll was.

A songwriter, a guitar slinger, a traveling troubadour.

- He's such an encyclopedia.

If you need any advice, just go to Keith.

No matter what state he's in, he'll boom,

go straight to the heart of something.

"Oh, okay, that's the answer."

Keith has the answer.

- [Tom] Keith is just something else.

He's emotionally very present,

as present as you can be

when you're really in the business of fantasy.

- [Don] Say, you're a rock and roll fan as a teenager,

you have five kids

and you have to go to work at the assembly line

for the Ford Motor Company,

well, if you go to a Stones show

and Keith is standing there looking badass,

you're visiting the part of you that you feel is missing.

- [Narrator] After 60 years, the Stones are still rolling,

playing sell-out shows in all four corners of the globe.

But at the musical heart of every gig is one key character.

- [Mick] I think everyone creates

a character for themselves, to a certain extent.

I don't know whether Keith's created a character of himself

which is real or not real.

Keith's got a reputation as a hell raiser,

so I think he was very worried, at one point,

if he was no longer gonna be a hell raiser,

he's not that character anymore, who are you then?

I don't think he cares about that anymore.

I don't blame him.

- [Interviewer] Are you comfortable

doing interviews like this?

I mean, you've been doing them for a long time.

Is it something you relish?

- It depends on the interviewer, old boy.

I don't mind, you know.

I mean, I must say, now and again, it's a grind,

answering the same questions.

At the same time, that's a challenge

because you think, "Can I come up with another answer

"that means the same thing in different words?"

so you just slip and slide.

- [Tom] If you have a persona,

it is like a ventriloquist act,

it's sitting on your lap but it's not you.

I guess you could call it convenient at times,

but there are also other times when it's very inconvenient.

- We are all hand-in-glove

in this dastardly scheme to sell our products.

But I consider it as part of the gig.

So there we go, story so far.

- [Reporter] Why are you coming to see the show?

Who are you going to see?

- [Concert-Goer] Keith Richards, Keith Richards.

- I like his hair.

- [Reporter] Just his hair?

- [Concert-Goer] I just like him.

- [Narrator] Life in the spotlight

hasn't always been easy for Keith.

- [Mick] He's terribly shy.

I mean, as I knew him when he was a child

and growing up to be a teenager,

I know what he's really, really like.

No one else knows him from that period

except for me, I think.

You can see from the interviews,

he's introverted, naturally.

- I don't know how to define shyness.

I don't know, when it comes to shyness,

I don't really know where to put it.

I mean, I sometimes I think I use it as a weapon

and say "I'm shy."

And I guess, in a way, you get shy of things,

crowds and stuff, because I can't go to a movie,

to a cinema anymore.

Sometimes when I have,

I've never felt more embarrassed in my life.

There's somebody going,

"It's Keith Richards, it's Keith Richards."

I've ruined the whole movie for everybody, right?

Then I go "Oh, excuse me," tripping over people.

"I'll leave now."

I get shy in that situation,

and that just comes with fame and all of that crap,

which throws another load of stuff at you.

- If you're an extrovert in show business,

I think you're in a good place.

If you're an introvert in show business,

it will cause you probably some anguish,

or discomfort perhaps, or anxiety.

- [Chrissie] Most people that are in bands, guitar players,

maybe they're a little introverted, they're a bit awkward,

they can't talk to girls.

Even Jimi Hendrix would just be

at the back of the class, mumbling,

but give him a guitar and the world lights up.

- [Tina] Keith didn't care, in the beginning,

about clothes or about his image.

He was just concerned with the sound.

This was his way of performing.

He was back there making the sound.

- [Narrator] Keith was born in 1943.

18 miles east of London in Dartford, Kent.

- I understand that you two

of all the five fellas,

you two have been friends longest, is that right?

You've known each other, went to school together?

- Yes. - We were little lads.

- Oh, when we were little boys.

- Little-bitty boys. - Yes.

- And you were raised around London, right?

- Yes. - Yes.

- [Reporter] Is it in London itself, or...

- No, just outside, about 20 miles.

- In the suburbs. - In the suburbs of London.

- [Reporter] What's the suburb called?

- Dartford.

- [Reporter] Dartford.

- You're right on the edge of the country,

so you've got you know, commuters, heavy industry

and you've got countryside, very beautiful,

still very beautiful.

The Dickensian sort of marshes

that go to the Thames Estuary

described in "Great Expectations" so fully.

- [Keith] Dartford, is that on the planet Krypton?

(engines droning)

You were growing up in the residue of a huge world war,

but you didn't know anything about it.

It was just the way things were.

Bombsite here.

"No, you can't have that,

"we don't have any ration tickets left."

I mean, it wasn't unusual, you didn't feel hard done by,

it was just the way it was.

- The exam, called the 11+, looms large,

sorting British kids into the different educational paths

which will determine their future.

- I remember the 11+, I didn't take it.

I went down with some kind of flu at the time

or whatever it was, and so I didn't actually get to take it,

which I was immense...

I think I had a psychosomatic disease.

I just, "Exams are the thing that will kill me," you know?

I mean it's...

Jesus.

You either became a professional, basically, of whatever,

or you dug the ditches and you do what working men do.

And of course, being kids like that, you don't realize

that you're being streamed into one aspect of society.

You're being dumped or you're being elevated.

You have no idea, right?

Anyway, I took the middle route and got expelled.

And which I recommend heartedly

to any red-blooded English schoolboy.

As far as I was concerned,

it only heaped humiliation on me

and I weren't going to take it anymore, you know?

You break it with one form of authority

and maybe after that you start to question

other forms of authority.

There was always something about being told what to do,

especially without any reason.

- [Narrator] If rebel Keith is born

of a healthy disregard for authority,

it's his grandfather, Gus Dupree, an amateur jazz musician,

who fosters an early enthusiasm for music.

(uptempo chiming music)

- [Keith] He was the father of seven daughters

who, as far as I'm concerned,

I seem to have been the only boy he didn't have.

So in fact, to me he was more like a dad

or a friend than a grandfather.

He'd take me into music shops,

but we'd always go in round the back,

we never went in the front door.

And there was always a little deal about

some guitar strings or some violin strings.

But then I would be in the back of these music stores

for like hours, watching people make guitars,

violins, repairing things.

It was like magical stuff going on.

He always had his violin and instruments all ready.

He never ever once pushed me or tried to interest me,

he would just play music, all kinds, jazz, classical.

And then we'd just live our life around the music

until one day he noticed that I was looking at the guitar

on top of the piano.

"Since you keep looking at that," he said.

"Do you want to have a go?"

And that's how, bom, he gave it to me.

He said "I'll show you a few chords here,

and you're on your own."

And that was it.

- [Interviewer] Can we just talk about your first guitar?

I think we've got it here.

I'd love to see you handle it.

- So would I!

- [Interviewer] That's all you need to do, okay.

- [Keith] What the fuck!

Oh, that's it.

Oh, man.

Yeah, the mice were at then,

the mice have been at it now.

This...

I believe, is the one that my grandfather gave me,

but I'm not sure about that really, but...

(strings twang out a melody)

Definitely my grandfather.

(laughs)

Wow, you see?

Lovely piece of wood!

(electric guitar twangs)

♪ Oh Maybellene ♪

♪ Why can't you be true ♪

♪ Oh Maybellene ♪

- [Narrator] As Keith starts out on his musical journey,

his attention is grabbed by an irresistible new sound:

Rock and roll.

♪ As I was motivatin' over the hill ♪

I saw Maybellene in a Coupe de Ville

♪ Cadillac rollin' on open road ♪

♪ Nothin' outrun my V8 Ford ♪

- I was getting an urge

for some country music and some blues.

I was starting to get interested.

Very little that you could get in England at the time.

I think when rock and roll came along,

it sort of fused the whole thing together for me.

Hah, you know, "Where have you been?"

♪ Cadillac pulled up at 104 ♪

- At that age, it was devastating.

♪ It done got cloudy and started to rain ♪

♪ I tooted my horn for the passin' lane ♪

♪ Rain water blowin' all under my hood ♪

- That's it, that's where you're wanna go, that's it.

"Book me a room!"

(chuckles)

It was an exciting time to be a musician at that age.

Yeah, it was great.

♪ Started back doin' the things you used to do ♪

(guitar twanging)

- [Glyn] It was so completely different

from anything we'd ever heard.

And it had an excitement

and a positivity about it, I suppose.

Rock and roll started whenever it was, '58.

It was Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly

and all that lot that turned our heads.

That introduced us more into folk, I suppose,

and then into blues,

and the blues artists of the day,

it was like collecting rare stamps,

finding good blues records.

(audience claps enthusiastically)

- The hits were released by major record companies.

So if it was a hit R&B track

or if it made the Hot 100,

these were easy to get.

Major labels released these records.

To buy the whole album of Muddy Waters

was much more difficult,

and you had to go to a jazz shop in Charing Cross Road

and pay a lot of money for it.

And we used to order them from America a bit cheaper.

And there was a sort of little network of people

that had record collections

and so you would go to their houses

and they would play you music,

and you would hear songs perhaps you'd never heard before.

- [Keith] I was going to Sidcup Art School

and Mick, at that time, was going to

the London School of Economics.

But I'd just get off at Sidcup, you know.

Meanwhile I'm sitting in the carriage

and suddenly who walks in, it's Mick,

who I hadn't seen in years, you know.

"Wow, man, what's that under your arm?"

And he pulls out "The Best of Muddy Waters"

and "Rocking at the Hops" by Chuck Berry.

And these are American pressings

and you can't get these records in England at the time.

Basically, that was the hook-up for the Stones

and for Mick and I,

was just that we had the same interest in music.

(electric guitar strumming)

(static crackling)

(blues harmonica wailing)

- [Taj] To know that these guys were dedicated enough

to send their money off into the oblivion

in the hopes that something would come back,

and then they would like obsess

and live off of that record,

I just think it's just phenomenal.

What was it about a cricket-playing,

football-playing bunch of characters

who drank tea at 4 o'clock, who loved this music?

- [Don] Music from other cultures

has a romantic flair and is kinda exotic.

So for the Rolling Stones, being teenagers in England,

getting their hands on authentic American blues records,

authentic American folk records, country records,

it carried with it this whole romantic gravitas.

- The thing about the blues

is it felt like it was coming from some other place.

And it's much more raucous, it's much more heart-felt,

it's much more vivacious,

it's not being filtered through all these things.

- That's what kind of made us jealous in England.

As I say, "Man, these cats have got,

"they've got a long stretch on us

"and there's a lot of catching-up to do."

- It was just a fascinating journey,

and as presumptuous 18 year old white kids would say,

"We're gonna be the best blues band in London."

(teens screaming)

- [Brian] Robert Plant said it to me best,

he said "You know, Brian, these white boys

"got a hold of American black music and gave it fist."

- The Rolling Stones! (cheers erupt)

♪ Say the joint was a-rockin' ♪

♪ Going round and round ♪

♪ Yeah, reelin' and rockin' ♪

♪ What a crazy sound ♪

♪ But they never stop rockin' ♪

- [Marshall] I saw that whole thing go down, man,

with the white blues.

The English were ahead of it.

They spread it.

♪ I rose out of my seat ♪

- [Don] There was something really different about it.

♪ Just had to dance ♪

- [Don] There was like this undulating rhythm happening

and it was sexually charged.

♪ Say the joint was a-rockin' ♪

♪ Going round and round ♪

♪ Yeah, reelin' and rockin' ♪

♪ What a crazy sound ♪

♪ And they never stopped rockin' ♪

♪ Till the Moon went down ♪

- [Keith] You're 18 and you're playing your blues,

and within a matter of months,

women are trying to tear your clothes off

and they're jumping off of balconies.

This is not quite what I had in mind.

It was mayhem.

(teens screaming)

- [Joe] They were really good.

My god!

As a band, they were really good.

♪ Yeah the place was packed ♪

♪ And when the police knocked ♪

- [Joe] They had this charisma.

They were so cool and really didn't give a fuck.

That was their attitude on stage.

♪ Reelin' and a-rockin' ♪

♪ What a crazy sound ♪

♪ But you never stopped rockin' ♪

♪ Till the Moon went down ♪

♪ Said the joint was a-rockin' ♪

♪ Going round and round ♪

♪ Yeah, reelin' and a-rockin' ♪

♪ What a crazy sound ♪

♪ But you never stopped rockin' ♪

♪ Till the Moon went down ♪

- [Bob] The Stones represented a danger,

a teenage danger that we hadn't really experienced before.

- [Don] They were definitely different

than, say, the Beatles.

The Beatles were there to entertain you.

These guys came for your daughters.

(chuckles)

- [Narrator] The Rolling Stones connect

with a post-war generation eager for new music.

But the key to their success is a reverence

for a blues sound steeped in history.

(bluesy guitar strumming)

- [Keith] We did it through researching,

getting really soaked up in the blues.

We wanted to find out where the funkiest,

swampiest damn stuff came from.

- [Don] Keith Richards' choice of listening music

is a great musicology course for anybody.

("Hobo Blues" by John Lee Hooker)

- [Bob] He had a sort of evangelical drive

to expose people to the blues.

♪ When I first thought to hobo'in, hobo'in, boy ♪

♪ I took a freight train to be my friend, oh Lord ♪

- [Lisa] We would have a lot of listening sessions

in Keith's room, with just all this great black music,

and I think the Rolling Stones

were actually tapping into that...

♪ You know I hobo'd, hobo'd, hobo'd ♪

- [Lisa] and expressing it in their way...

is the evolution of the music as it should be.

♪ Oh yeah ♪

- [T Bone] I think the whole wave of music

that came out of England in the mid-1960s

was a reflection of the best

of what we had cooked up over here over the last 50 years.

♪ Long time ago ♪

(blues guitar strumming)

- [T Bone] They embraced it in the most beautiful way.

They honored that music.

♪ I left home that mornin' ♪

♪ My mother followed me down to that ♪

- [Keith] Being in America to find out

that what we'd heard in England

was only the tip of an iceberg

and that you could burrow far deeper,

and that, for every guy that you knew about,

there were 10 others, easily as good.

- [Lisa] The music and the beat and the sounds

came from the motherland.

The black experience that is soulful,

that has a cry, that has a deep understanding,

that touches hearts, that communicates deeply.

(humming)

The Rolling Stones took it and ran and made it their own.

♪ Next time I start to hoboin' ♪

♪ I'm gonna have my baby by my side ♪

♪ And then you know my night ♪

♪ Ain't gonna be so alone ♪

- We were just a bunch of guys that loved our music,

were obsessed with our music,

but in our English fantasy of America in the '50s,

it just sort of pulled you and called you.

It was the place to be if you wanted to be a musician.

- Now, something for the youngsters.

Five singin' boys from England

who've sold a lot of albums,

they're called the Rolling Stones.

I've been rolled while I was stoned myself.

(audience laughs)

so I don't know what they're singing about, but

(audience laughs)

here they are!

(audience claps)

♪ I don't want you be no slave ♪

♪ I don't want you work all day ♪

♪ But I want you to be true ♪

♪ And I just wanna make love to you, baby ♪

♪ Love to you, baby ♪

♪ Sweet love to you, baby ♪

♪ Love to you, yeah I can ♪

♪ Tell by the way that you twitch and walk ♪

♪ I can see by the way that you baby talk ♪

- [T Bone] The Rolling Stones sang our music back to us

but they were singing with us.

I never felt that they were singing to us.

I felt like they wanted to be one of us.

I welcomed them.

I think we all welcomed them.

♪ I don't want you make my bed ♪

♪ I don't want you to be true ♪

♪ I just wanna make love to you, baby ♪

♪ Love to you, baby ♪

♪ Sweet love to you, baby ♪

♪ Love to you, baby ♪

♪ Love to you, baby ♪

♪ I wanna make love to you ♪

(mournful guitar twanging)

- [Taj] I was really excited

that somebody felt in love with this music

as much as I did, and would dedicate their lives

to playing it and exposing people to it.

Some people thought they might have been appropriating

or this, that, or the other thing.

"Well, excuse me, it's right here in your backyard

"and I don't see you doing anything about it."

- [Reporter] Because it's been said

that the Rolling Stones gave black music

back to the Americans.

How do you feel all these black musicians feel

about the Stones?

- I mean, I know people like Muddy Waters, et cetera,

are really grateful for...

Really, I mean, we did very little.

All we said was that we dug Muddy Waters

which happened to have a lot of an effect for him

in his own way.

It means more bread for him

because he got onto the white college circuit and things,

which wouldn't have happened and things like that.

But we weren't the only ones to do that.

Every English band in the '60s

that went to America, came there and said

"Well, we got our music from black records."

(guitar snarling) (fans screaming)

- [Keith] This is way beyond our dreams

of being the biggest R&B band in London.

Muddy Waters has suddenly got a hit record again.

John Lee Hooker is on the charts.

Slim Harpo, and all of these people

that were totally unknown two years before.

And we felt very proud of them.

I mean, Jesus, what a mantle we carried.

I still get a nice warm glow out of

turning everybody back onto their own stuff.

To find yourself on the bill with Muddy Waters,

"Whoo!

"Victory is ours!"

It was cool.

- [Narrator] A reworking of music that was already American

helps the Stones storm the States and the world.

In just a matter of months,

their sound and image are No.1

on both sides of the Atlantic.

(blues guitar twanging)

- [Keith] We felt that it was a gift, coming to America.

I mean, suddenly to be transplanted from some wannabe.

It was endlessly fascinating, America, after Dartford.

We grew into it and music grew into us.

And America changed rapidly in '64/'65.

White America, when we first came here,

was incredibly old fashioned to us.

Our idea of America was modernity.

And once you got out there in the sticks, whoa!

You realized the incredible gap there.

- [Bob] America was the Holy Grail, it really, really was.

And it was to do with not just wanting to be big in America,

it was more that their fame and notoriety

had given them an opportunity.

It was like a laminate, a pass into American culture.

And I think that was the thing with Keith.

He saw the Stones as this amazing laminate

into the fabric of what made American music what it was.

- [Keith] I think it's the call.

But the Americans were still playing folk songs

and folk music, basically through country music,

which always sounds like schmaltz

to a lot of people, I know,

but there's a lot of 'struth in country music.

("Wild Horses" by The Rolling Stones)

- [Don] I actually think that the Rolling Stones

are some of the first proponents

of what's now called Americana music.

It's ironic, but you listen to something like "Wild Horses",

that's a pretty eclectic blend

of authentic American music styles

that no one had really touched on before.

- [Sheryl] They've written some of the quintessential

country songs, as far as I'm concerned.

♪ Childhood living ♪

♪ Is easy to do ♪ - They're so much more

than an R&B band,

and they're also extremely brilliant pop song craftsmen.

♪ The things you wanted ♪ - I think they took

Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters

and George Jones and Merle Haggard

and brought it back to us with pop hooks.

I don't know that there is a band

that can write better hooks than the Rolling Stones.

- [Joe] I love that the Stones can do that,

that they can take stuff from their influences

and do it their way.

They translate it and do it their way.

That's another wonderful thing they've taught me,

is how to put a song together.

♪ Wild horses ♪

♪ Couldn't drag me away ♪

♪ Wild, wild horses ♪

♪ Couldn't drag me away ♪

- [T Bone] One of the things people don't talk about

or I don't hear talked about

is what a great songwriter Keith Richards is.

I think it's because he's so known as a guitarist,

and also because he's so known to be dissolute

or whatever that beautiful thing is that he is, you know,

that people I don't think have really recognized

the extraordinary contribution that he's made

through his song writing.

♪ The same ♪

- [Slash] I really remember a particular period

as a really little guy from "Beggars Banquet",

"Let It Bleed", "Sticky Fingers", "Exile on Main St.",

that was the period when the Stones

was the background music of my life.

- [Ronnie] It just kind of adds another thread

between this tapestry of this marvelous backlog

of material that the Stones have.

It's like, "Whoo! What a legacy!"

And lucky dip, take a song.

Pick it out.

- [Narrator] It soon becomes clear,

writing as well as performing smash hits

is the name of the game

if they want to be a new kind of musical superstar.

- We were working the clubs in London

and the Beatles just came out and had a hit, "Love Me Do",

and we said "Oh, man, what a great record."

- [Mick] The Beatles suddenly explode

and there you are going "Oh, yeah, but we're a blues band."

And the Beatles changed this whole thing.

- [Keith] And our job was to be

like the premiere rhythm and blues band in London

and we managed that.

(chuckles)

But we had no idea of progressing beyond that stage.

- Keith, he played the Beatles all the time.

It was driving me absolutely batty.

And why he was playing the Beatles

wasn't because he didn't want to listen to anything else.

Keith wanted to write these pop songs,

because we're undeniably the blues band,

but we knew we had to be a pop band.

- We were just envious too, man.

I mean, they're doing what we want, you know,

and they got it.

They can make records.

The Holy Grail was to make records,

to be able to get into a studio.

It was like diamonds.

You'd think it was a gold mine,

which, in a way, there was, you know what I mean?

But you'd think you were invading Fort Knox

just to make a record.

Without the Beatles, the Stones would never have been there.

The reason the Stones existed or made records

was because the record industry couldn't afford

to lose another Beatles.

We'd never got in a recording studio without them.

We would have sold our, and I probably did, sell my soul,

just to be on tape, just to get on record,

just to learn how records are made.

Recording is, and still is to me, a most mysterious art.

(blues guitar twanging)

- [Jane] I think he could live in a studio.

(chuckles)

He just loves music.

Music is always part of his life.

Music is always on.

Music is always the backdrop of his life

and the guitar is always there,

the piano is always there.

He always has it right handy, whenever he wants it.

But he loves the process.

I think he loves the process more than anything.

He loves developing a song.

He likes to write in a studio.

(blues piano music)

- [Keith] It's a kid's dream come true.

I mean, you are constantly living those moments of like,

"I've got a guitar strapped on, I'm in Studio 2,

"and we're cutting!"

And it is a surreal sensation, in a way.

- [Glyn] Keith would come to the studio

and he'd have maybe half an idea

and he'd sit and play it and play it

and play it and play it on his own,

and then when he'd got it almost into shape

Bill and Charlie would sit with him

and they'd play along with him

to help him develop the riff into a song.

- [Joe] The Stones have a great craft of song writing,

and that is how to present it,

how to record it so that it knocks your socks off

and you go, "Whoa!"

- [T Bone] What they've done is epic.

The way they were able to weave

these disparate elements together,

it's a magic trick.

- What you do is the job of a minstrel.

Songs evolve, music evolves.

- [Mick] Keith was not the purist of the band,

a blues purist.

Keith liked to write pop songs.

He wrote lots and lots of pop songs

"Ruby Tuesday", "As Tears Go By".

He also wrote "Angie".

I mean these are not blues songs as we know them.

These are pop songs

that emanate really from Keith, originally.

- [Narrator] Keith's talent drives the band's success.

♪ Ah yeah ♪

- [Narrator] But he's a reluctant star...

♪ I love just to tell ya ♪

- [Narrator] Struggling to handle the adoration

and fame that engulfs the band.

- [Keith] I'd have been quite happy

to make all these records totally anonymously.

But then, of course, that's not possible,

you know what I mean?

Hey, you've got to get out there and put yourself out,

and I learned how to do that,

and I quite enjoyed it.

But I guess my refuge was heroin,

was drugs,

and there I stayed as long as I could.

- [Mick] Keith Richards on guitar.

(bluesy guitar music) All right then, let's get on

♪ She drew out all her money out the Southern Trust ♪

♪ And put a little boy aboard a Greyhound bus ♪

♪ Leaving Louisiana for the Golden West ♪

- [Narrator] As his star rises,

keeping up with Keith in the 1970s becomes a deadly game,

and his addiction to heroin

ultimately threatens the future of the band.

♪ Bye bye, bye bye ♪

- [Chrissie] The thing is most people

are kind of shy and awkward

and they wouldn't have got on a stage

if they weren't loaded.

So it works in your favor in the initial years.

But when it starts working against you

and you get addicted to the drugs,

'cause they're addictive,

then you have a problem.

("Bye Bye Johnny" by The Rolling Stones)

♪ She finally got the letter she was dreamin' of ♪

(music distorts)

- [Keith] Everybody's got a different metabolism,

a different way of dealing with that amount of adoration.

I just felt that as long as I kept myself to myself

that there was no reason for them

to make any big fuss about it.

- [Narrator] Keith's transformation confirms him

as an international icon of rebellion

and a target for the authorities.

Late in the winter of '77,

Richards is in Toronto

where the Rolling Stones are set to perform.

- [Jane] We went to Toronto to do this concert.

I remember when the police were walking up the staircase

and wondering what that was all about.

- [Narrator] The day before,

Keith's girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg,

arrived at Toronto Airport,

and as the Canadian Police search her belongings,

they find her in possession of hashish.

An investigation begins that leads the police

all the way to Keith's hotel room.

- [Jane] Of course, he was found with drugs and heroin

and all that kinda stuff because he had a habit at the time,

and the history of the Rolling Stones changed on a dime.

- [Newsreader] The Rolling Stones

is one of the most famous rock groups in the world.

A week ago, lead guitarist Keith Richards

was charged with possession of heroin

for the purpose of trafficking.

- [Jane] It was actually terrifying,

'cause he realized he was up for,

it could be 20 years of prison.

- [Keith] I think the reason I was taking it

was how to deal with fame and pressure,

and it's one way to run away.

I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.

But there again, it's a person choice, I don't know.

And it's a rough old world

and sometimes you need something to blank it out.

And it probably ain't worth a ride.

It was the realization in Canada

that I was actually jeopardizing the band,

and if they were going to put me away,

I mean it was bye-bye, you know.

"If I get out of this

"and don't have to cold turkey in jail,

"I'm going to go and clean up."

- [Jane] He just made a commitment,

"I'm gonna get this together."

Because at that point, it was music or drugs,

and music was far more important than drugs.

- [Reporter] How do you think this conviction

is going to affect you and your music

and the Rolling Stones?

- Well, I don't know.

I just want to get on with it, now that it's over,

just get on with what I'm supposed to be doing,

instead of worrying about this.

- [Reporter] Do you think it will have any effect then?

- I don't know, might get a song out of it.

- [Man] House lights go, please, house lights go.

(crowd cheers) - Ladies and gentlemen!

The Rolling Stones! (crowd roars)

- [Narrator] It's not drugs, fashion or lifestyle choices

that will define Keith's story.

It's his talent,

that marks him out as one of the most important

and influential artists of our age.

- [Don] Keith is all about feel and instinct.

If he's writing a song, he may have two chords,

and he's perfectly happy to sit there

and play those two chords for two hours,

and he's just waiting for the next part of the song to come,

but he's not gonna force it.

He's gonna just keep playing this mantra

until something appears.

And it always does.

- [Keith] I really do like a striking intro to records,

especially a rock and roll record,

and I am talking about that particular format

that if an intro can grab you,

you're gonna be in for at least a few more minutes,

and if the riff behind that intro grabs you,

then you've pretty much got 'em.

("Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones)

- [Glyn] If you listen to the Rolling Stones records,

Keith wrote some unbelievable intros.

♪ Oooh oooh oooh ♪

- [Joe] Every guitar player in the world went

"Wow! How did he do that?"

Well, he took off one string.

- [Keith] There's five strings.

I take the bottom string goes off,

and then you tune the rest of the strings

to the chord of G.

- [Tom] That tuning of his,

there's something menacing about that,

just to weave that in the center of the groove.

- [Joe] That is a brilliant guitar sound.

It says so much with so little.

Holy smokes!

- There is something about the intonation

of the notes, the separation and the point,

and I would say almost mystical

that when hit in the right way in the right moment,

a cheap ride to heaven.

♪ My very life today ♪

♪ If I don't get some shelter ♪

♪ Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away ♪

♪ War, children ♪

- Silence is your canvas for a musician,

and it's how much you fill in the canvas

and how much light you let through,

which is something you really don't know yet,

it's almost intuitive.

You do it by feel, really, on instinct.

(guitar twanging)

♪ Ooh, see the fire is sweepin' ♪

- [Bonnie] There's a Keith Richards sound

and a Keith Richards approach to the guitar

that just is unlike anything

that I've ever heard from anyone else.

There's a certain type of way that he plays

in the middle of the neck and a certain hammering, slashing.

♪ War, children, it's just a shot away ♪

- I just love riffs.

I just love a great connection of notes

that can repeat themselves over and over

without being monotonous, without being boring.

And that's what a good riff is.

It's the same old thing but it keeps changing.

- [Brian] People will still be trying to play

what he plays 50 years from now.

There won't be another.

- [Don] It's tough to characterize

Keith Richards' guitar playing.

I believe it's a really organic extension

of who he is, of his soul.

It's no different than speaking,

it's no different than walking.

It's just a musical manifestation of who he is.

And not all musicians are like that.

- Keith's always known what he wants on the guitar.

The way he plays is he establishes the sound first

with Pierre, his guitar tech,

and various ways of achieving the desired effect.

♪ Mm, this flood is threat'ning ♪

- This is where he picks.

It's so worn out that some of the dots have come out.

He's lost a tooth here.

But this actually looks scalloped but it's not,

it's just for how worn out it is.

He's actually wearing out the finger-board here,

and that's typical of where he strums up in this region.

It's great when you see the person

that you've listened to so many years ago

still having a relationship with their instrument.

You've got 5 strings, there's only 3 notes

because there's two doubles, two sets of Ds,

two sets of Gs and a B.

So the way it rings, the way certain things ring,

you don't hear that on a normal guitar.

It's definitely not about filling it up.

If you're still thinking about what you can add

instead of what you need to take away,

you're still at the beginning stages.

- I didn't want to be a guitar player,

I wanted to make noise,

and if it took using a guitar to do it, I'd do it.

I became a pretty good one in some respects.

And I suppose really I'm saying

that I use the guitar really as a percussion instrument.

It's a rhythm thing for me.

I do love playing solos,

but I've always have said to myself,

"Look, solos come and go, a riff lasts forever."

(laughs)

- Cut, you know, it sort of rounds it off.

Doesn't sound wrong if it doesn't rhyme.

That was a quick one, Andrew.

- [Andrew] Really?

(indistinct)

♪ Ba ba ba, ba-ba, ba-ba ba ba ♪

♪ Won't you love ♪

- Mick and I, in those days, used to sit around

with guitars and we'd write.

That's what we did.

♪ I know you find it hard ♪

♪ To reason at me ♪

♪ But this time it's different, girl ♪

♪ Darlin', you'll see ♪

♪ You gotta tell me you're comin' back to me ♪

- Writing songs and making records,

it's like a jigsaw puzzle.

There's always that thing of not quite knowing

what's going to come up next.

When it all locks into position,

it is quite an incredible sensation,

and everybody that's involved

in doing that when it's happening,

knows that, for a moment,

you're in a special place, a special time

and you feel,

actually, in a way, you feel very privileged

to actually be there.

- [Sheryl] Every great song is born of conversation.

It really takes the two of them

to create that synergy and that energy.

I mean, they're the perfect Yin and Yang.

Mick is the guy that brings it,

Keith is the guy that holds it down.

That rhythm is undeniable.

I mean, he's the guy that took Chuck Berry

and took Johnnie Johnson's whole thing

and brought it to a rock guitar in an open tuning.

You can write great songs with people,

but when there is a dynamic there

that's bigger than the two of you,

that's where the great stuff lives.

- [Jon] It's the kind of a band

that was built on "we", not "me".

It took the chemistry of all of them to make it work.

- [Mick] You can't say, "Oh, if I wrote 'Angie',"

It's like, "Listen to this," and Keith would say

"That's a load of shit, I wanna write blues."

No, it's the other way round.

It's Keith saying "Listen to this melody."

And I'm going, I could say,

"That's not the blues,

"that's bordering saccharine ballads."

But I didn't say that, of course,

it's a very beautiful song.

So what I'm trying to say is

that the Rolling Stones were many, many things.

And one of the good things about the Rolling Stones

is that they embrace a lot of kinds of music.

Yes, they're a blues band.

Yes, they're a rock band.

Yes, they did things like "Paint It Black".

Yes, they did like classic rock.

Yes, they did dance songs.

You have to push innovation a bit sometimes

because people get older,

they just want to stick at one thing.

- [Bob] I think with Mick and Keith,

over the years, they have an acceptance

and a total respect for each other,

in terms of what they both bring to the band.

And I think it's valid, actually,

to think that Mick has always been

the one driving them forward,

it's always been Keith that's been aware

of a credibility of the music they're making,

to make sure it continues to be rooted.

Keith had said "Listen, we are still this blues band,

"irrespective of the pyrotechnics

"and 200,000 people in the audience,

"we're still that band that played the Marquee

"in 1962 to 100 people".

That is Keith looking back

and holding onto that rare musical depth

and Mick propelling the band

into whatever the future may bring for them.

("Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones)

(audience chanting ooh-ooh)

- [Keith] If it comes out of the Rolling Stones,

it's the Rolling Stones.

Now and again, Mick and I have come up with a song

and then looked at each other and said,

"No, not the Stones; no, no."

♪ Please allow me to introduce myself ♪

♪ I'm a man of wealth and taste ♪

- [Narrator] There are few song writing partnerships

to match Jagger and Richards,

and despite their fair share of disagreements,

their relationship has endured against all the odds.

♪ And I was 'round when Jesus Christ ♪

♪ Had his moment of doubt and pain ♪

- [Slash] You had this image of those two guys

being the first real example

of a lead singer/lead guitar player relationship.

♪ Pleased to meet you ♪

♪ Hope you guess my name ♪

♪ What's puzzling you is just the ♪

♪ Nature of my game ♪

♪ Stuck around St. Petersburg ♪

- [Marshall] Mick wanted to be the leader.

He's the leader of the pack.

Keith doesn't give a fuck about being the leader

but he thinks he really is.

- [Jane] They're completely different.

Mick wants to try new things,

he is very much part of whatever's going on.

Keith is technophobic.

That is one of the things

that still makes the edge between them.

They all have separate lives,

separate identities,

and musically they're Yin and Yang.

- [Chuck] They're joined at the hip.

Has there been times when the disagreements have flared up?

Of course there has.

But I think you take a deep breath,

you look at each other and say,

"Wait a minute, last time I checked,

"the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

- [Steve] Even at times when Mick and Keith

weren't at their best, relationship-wise,

I would dare you to get between them.

There's a bond there that can't be broken.

- [Keith] To do it for this long,

Mick and I both look at each other and say,

"We must be doing something right."

I don't know what it is.

The idea of turning people on for 60 years

is like whoa!

But the thing is relentless.

It's like being a juggernaut.

♪ Hope you guess my name ♪

♪ What's confusing you is just a ♪

- [Jane] You see them walk to the stage, these older guys,

and they climb the stairs.

Each stair, another piece of energy comes up,

and then they go out.

It's like a shot of lightning.

♪ As heads is tails ♪

♪ Call me Lucifer ♪

- [Jane] It's like going to Never-Never Land.

♪ 'Cause I'm in need of some restraint ♪

♪ So if you meet me ♪

♪ Have some courtesy ♪

♪ Sympathy, and some taste ♪

- [Joyce] The music comes first.

Writing, recording, performing music.

That's where they're at.

When they finally step off the stage for the last time,

we will all know that we shall never see

anything like that ever again.

♪ What's confusing y'all's just the ♪

♪ Nature of my game, yeah ♪

♪ Deliver ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪ ♪ Come on ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ♪

- [Keith] I mean, God knows what I'd have been like

if I didn't do this.

My wildest nightmare.

Really, all you wanted to do is play music,

trying to get it better,

trying to get the band tighter.

(crowd cheers)

- [Mick] Woo wooh!

- Not many people get a chance to do this

with thousands of people, as a job.

(crowd chanting and cheering)

When you're exchanging that much appreciation to each other,

it is profoundly touching.

Music is a resilient thing and sometimes I think,

"God, it's the only thing we've got

"that we can trust, you know?"

I gave up many years ago

trying to analyze this bunch

and why it works and how it works.

And I found the best remedy

is to put them altogether in a room and say,

"Hey, it goes like this.

"One, two, three, four!"

And all the problems go away.

(crowd chanting and cheering)