Life by Keith Richards, Hachette Australia, $49.99
Who knew the old rogue was so popular? I’d always thought of The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards as a minority taste – yet here’s his autobiography storming the bestseller lists. No small feat given it’s a $50 hardback, huge, and that’s one raunchy life he’s describing.
Even allowing for my own partiality (I interviewed him for 60 Minutes and needed anti-swoon pills) this is one of the great muso books: funny, honest and surprising. On sex: “I never put the make on a girl in my life. I just don’t know how to do it.” Drugs: “Mick [Jagger] chose flattery, I chose junk.”
As for rock ‘n’ roll, well, music is the life, and what Keith co-wrote and played was the soundtrack for many of ours, so it’s fascinating to hear where the stories and songs came from. The miracle is that he remembers. That he’s alive at all. Turns out he never did go to Switzerland to get his blood drained and replaced, but pretty much every other tall tale of excess you’ve heard – and then some – turns out to be true.
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