Keef On Keef: Legendary Stone Tells All

In case you missed it, a few weeks ago Rolling Stone featured excerpts from Keith Richards' comprehensive memoir, Life. The story was an awesome sneak preview, and much too short.

The moral of the story is, you need the book to get the whole story. It's an absolute must-read. The nascent Stones share a filthy one-room flat, spending their days copping and tweaking riffs from Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley; a decade later they’re swinging from chandeliers and firing shotguns into hotel ceilings. Richards spills on the open-chord geneses of classics like “Gimme Shelter” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and describes guiltlessly stealing the girlfriend of bandmate Brian Jones while Jones was hospitalized in France.

After all these years, Keef is surprisingly lucid, painting a portrait of rock's grungey days and a glimpse of rock and roll to come. Time is clearly on Keef's side.