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Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943 in Dartford , Kent , England ), is an English Guitarist and Songwriter , best known for his work with The Rolling Stones . Richards also has worked as a session guitarist with artists like Max Romeo , Hubert Sumlin , Les Paul , Tom Waits , Bono and The Edge of U2 , Nona Hendryx , John Phillips and Aretha Franklin . He also is credited as Keith Richard. Andrew Loog Oldham , the first manager of the Stones, removed the "s" to resemble the name of popstar Cliff Richard ; Richards later restored the "s" to his surname. "The Human Riff" and "Keef Riffhard" are lasting epithets. EARLY LIFE Keith Richards was born in Dartford, Kent, England at the Livingstone Hospital on December 18th 1943. During the Second World War , and lived through German V-weapon attacks on the city. An only child, he was reportedly conceived so his mother Doris Richards could escape working on a wartime factory production line. Richards' father Bert was a factory laborer, who was slightly injured during World War II. Richards' paternal grandparents were Socialists and civic leaders, and his maternal grandfather(Augustus Theodore Dupree) toured Britain as a Jazz / Big Band musician. In interviews, Richards has often cited his maternal grandfather as a strong influence growing up. Roy Rogers , the singing American Western film star, impacted Richards' young life, the young boy dressing and playing a guitar to imitate him. As an adolescent, Richards took to dressing like a Teddy Boy . His parents divorced around the time Richards was expelled from Sidcup Art College . He had previously attended Wilmington Grammar School For Boys . The divorce led to a long period of estrangement from his father, Bert Richards, which continued until 1982 . MUSICAL CAREER Two constants have governed Richards' musical career: a strong preference for collaboration and a fierce loyalty to The Rolling Stones. With the Rolling Stones Richards derived much of his early style from Chuck Berry , whose guitar work remained a touchstone for Richards throughout his career. While The Rolling Stones were conceived as a Rhythm And Blues band, Richards was largely responsible for introducing the rock n' roll of Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry into the group's repertoire. With Stones founding member and guitarist Brian Jones , Richards developed a style of interwoven lead and rhythm part, and Richards has cited his insistence that this two-guitar sound is the sound of the Stones as one of his chief contributions to the group. Jones was replaced by the virtuoso guitarist Mick Taylor (1969-1974), who contributed to some of the group's most well-regarded records, but Taylor's addition also led to a pronounced separation in the duties of lead and rhythm guitar. Taylor's replacement in 1975 with the more rhythmically-oriented Ron Wood . Richards has stated his work with Wood has been his most musically satisfying in the Stones. Richards is often noted for his use of open tunings using syncopated I IV chord changes. This new style first appeared in 1968 on recordings such as " Jumpin' Jack Flash " and " Street Fighting Man ", when a break from four years of ceaseless touring allowed Richards time to experiment with new tunings. Richards is most often identified with a five-string variant of the Open G (GDGBD, with the low E string removed to allow for more concise rhythm). Some of the Stones' biggest hits, including " Honky Tonk Women ," " Brown Sugar ," and " Start Me Up ", prominently feature this tuning. Richards - who has over 1000 guitars, some of which he has not played but was simply given - is often associated with the Fender Telecaster , although lately his favorite guitar is a black Gibson ES-355 . On "Satisfaction Richards recorded the first hit featuring a guitar fuzz effect which has since become commonplace. Though in the 1970s and early 80s he used guitar effects frequently, since then he has rarely used them. Richards considers the acoustic guitar as the basis for all his playing and many Stones hits including "Jumping Jack Flash", "Street Fighting Man" "Satisfaction", and "Brown Sugar" feature acoustic guitar parts. Richards' has sung backing vocals are on every Stones album and, since '' Some Girls '', each Stones release has at least one Richards lead vocal. He has also contributed occasional bass, keyboard, and slide guitar. Richards has always been active in record production for the Stones and for himself, often in tandem with Jagger and another outside producer. Songwriting Following the example of the Beatles ' Lennon / McCartney - and spurred by manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who saw little future for a band that covered R&B tunes and who was mindful of lucrative songwriting royalties - Keith Richards and Mick Jagger started writing songs together in the early 1960s . The Stones had a number of hits with Jagger/Richards-penned songs in 1964 - 65 , but it was 1965's riff-driven " (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction " that established the band, reaching #1 around the globe. Throughout the 60s the Jagger/Richards partnership expanded beyond blues, R&B, and rock 'n roll, absorbing Soul , Folk , Pop , Country , Psychedelia , and the lyrical innovations of Bob Dylan over the course of the decade. Their work in The 70s and beyond has incorporated elements of Funk , Disco , Reggae , and Punk . Since 1980 with "All About You", Richards has specialized in slow, torchy ballads that reveal his fondness for Hoagy Carmichael . With scattered exceptions, all Rolling Stones albums from 1966 onwards have consisted of songs credited to Jagger/Richards. All the songs Jagger and Richards have written for The Rolling Stones credit them both regardless of the degree of collaboration. For his solo recordings, Richards always credits a songwriting partner, most often drummer and co-producer Steve Jordan . Solo recordings After Jagger vetoed a Stones tour to support their just-released album '' Dirty Work '', Richards formed Keith Richards and the X-pensive Winos in 1988 (first named Organized Crime). The Winos also included Steve Jordan who played drums on ''Dirty Work'', and '' Hail! Hail! Rock And Roll! '', a documentary of Chuck Berry's the 60th birthday concert in which Richards acted as host and musical director. The forming of the Winos was recognition that the Rolling Stones might not record or tour for sometime. Richards, who had released a solo single "Run Rudolph Run" and toured with The New Barbarians in 1979 , had resisted a sustained venture outside of the Stones, disloyal and detrimental to the Stones. His insistence on putting his work with the Stones first is a major reason his solo recordings have been fewer than those of Jagger, Charlie Watts , and even Ronnie Wood. Besides Jordan, the X-pensive Winos featured, Sarah Dash , Waddy Wachtel , Ivan Neville , and Bernie Worrell . Their first release '' Talk Is Cheap '' produced no Top 40 hits, though it went Gold and has remained a consistent seller. It spawned a brief U.S. tour - one of only two that Richards has done as a solo artist. The first tour is documented on the Virgin release '' Live At The Hollywood Palladium, December 15, 1988 ''. In 1992 ''Main Offender'' was released, and the Winos toured again through North and South America as well as Europe. Richards solo career required him to be a frontman for the first time and helped him better appreciate the role Jagger plays in the Stones. As his Hollywood Palladium concert video shows, his stage presence was more engaging than the Richards seen in the documentary of the Stones' 1969 American tour, '' Gimme Shelter ''. After Jagger and Richards set aside their differences, the subsequent Stones release 1989 '' Steel Wheels '' contained some material Richards had started with the Winos, such as "Almost Hear You Sigh". Richards has not released any solo albums since the Stones reactivated in 1994, and he has cited his commitments and those of other Winos as obstacles to a reformation. Recordings with other artists Richards appearances with other artists and groups became more frequent later in his career and were almost non-existent during the sixties. His contributions include the 2001 release of John Phillips ' solo recording ''Pay, Pack & Follow,'' recorded between 1973 through 1979 , which Richards's helped produce and played guitar on all tracks. Richards also dueted with country legend's George Jones on the ''Bradley Barn Sessions'' singing ("Say it's not You") as an homage to Gram Parsons, and on a Hank Williams tribute album ''Timeless'' ("You Win Again"). He has also appeared as a guest on veteran blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin 's ''About Them Shoes'' singing lead vocal on "Still A Fool". In the early 1990s Richards played with and produced a recording of Jamaica n Rasta farians, ''The Wingless Angels'', releasing the collaboration on his own label Mindless Records. Rare and unreleased recordings The Stones recently released ''Rarities 1971-2003'' ( 2006 ), which includes sixteen rare and limited released recordings. Richards has termed the released output of the Stones as the "tip of the iceberg." Many unreleased songs and studio jams including their BBC recordings from the early 60s are among the most widely bootleged recordings in Rock And Roll history. Many bootlegs feature Richards singing lead on Tammy Wynette 's "Apartment Number 9", and Sam Cooke 's "Let's Go Steady Again". Since unreleased recordings most often appear as post-career or as posthumous releases, a robust international trade exists for these records. PUBLIC IMAGE AND PRIVATE LIFE To the general public, Richards is better known for his drug-related outlaw image than for his songwriting contributions. Richards and the Stones cultivated a decadent and ''Rolling Stone'' Magazine interview, he discussed his drug use. Ten years later, in another ''Rolling Stone'' interview, he expressed little regret about the Heroin addiction that almost destroyed his life and music career. To this day, Richards wears a bracelet that resembles a pair of handcuffs as a reminder that he never wants to be arrested again. He also wears a Totenkopf ring portraying a human skull without a jaw, a gift from a friend and New York jeweller; he has said publicly that it represents the fact that "beauty is only skin deep." {Link without Title} Two famous arrests came ten years apart, the first in 1967 with Jagger and friends at Redlands, Richards' Sussex estate, which placed him in custody and trial before the court of public opinion and Her Majesty. '' The Times '' editorial '' Who Breaks A Butterfly On A Wheel? '' helped to get the conviction quashed after two days of imprisonment. The case also began a succession of drug arrests for Richards that continued until the late 70s. However, there was a more ominous, serious and life-changing arrest in ). Registered at the hotel under the pseudonym "Redlands", Richards was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (or Mounties ) for heroin and Cocaine possession (he had two ounces of each at the time of his arrest), and was charged with importing narcotics, an offence with a minimum sentence of seven years imprisonment according to the ''Criminal Code of Canada''. For the next three years, he lived under threat of criminal sanction as he sought medical treatment in the U.S. for heroin addiction. During this period, The Rolling Stones released their biggest-selling album (eight million copies) ''Some Girls'', which included their last North American number-one pop chart single, " Miss You ". After the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld Richards' original sentence — a benefit concert for the Canadian National Institute For The Blind , played over two nights at the Marijuana smoke filled Oshawa Civic Auditorium — Keith emerged healthy and in love with a young New York model. Patti Hansen was a top fashion model when they met at Studio 54 . In a 2000 ''Vogue'' magazine interview, Hansen, who later co-starred with Rick Springfield in the 1984 film ''Hard to Hold'', said she asked Richards for a bottle of Champagne. They have been together as couple since, and married on 18 December , 1983 , Richards's 40th birthday. They have two daughters, Theodora and Alexandra, who have followed their mother into modeling. Richards has never distanced himself from the mother of his first three children, Anita Pallenberg , and often refers to having two wives, in the traditional sense of Rastafarian Polygamy , although he never officially married Pallenberg; the former girlfriend of Brian Jones, and an actress in '' Performance '' and '' Barbarella ''. Together they have a son, Marlon Richards , and another daughter, Angela (nee Dandelion). Their third child, a boy named after Keith's close friend Tara Browne , died several weeks after being born in 1976. RECENT NEWS On April 29, 2006, Richards suffered a head injury and concussion after falling from a coconut tree at a resort in the Fiji Islands. After initial treatment in Suva (the capital of Fiji) he was airlifted to a private hospital in Auckland, New Zealand . He was discharged from the hospital on May 2, 2006. SOLO ALBUMS
Notable contributions
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