VINTAGE KEEF

When, in March 1987, Mick Jagger announced that he was putting the Rolling Stones on hold to tour his second solo album, co-legend and long-time band mate Keith Richards was, in his own words, "severely pissed off". In the press and in his 2010 memoir Life, Keef’s disdain was clear. "He could certainly strut around and have the star on his dressing room door and treat the band like hirelings. But you can’t get good music that way."

After some months of sniping, something shifted in Richards. "I decided, fuck it, I want a band. I was determined to make music in Mick’s absence". The outcome was a fruitful collaboration with Steve Jordan, an American musician, songwriter and producer who had served in highly regarded bands on the TV shows Letterman and Saturday Night Live. Jagger/Richards became Jordan/Richards and the resultant album was Talk Is Cheap (1988).

The band that Keith Richards assembled—reading his memoir the process sounds more like a monarch’s command: "You’re in my band!"—toured Talk Is Cheap, playing selected Stones songs and the new material. Inevitably there was a live album, 1991’s Keith Richards and the X-pensive Winos Live at the Hollywood Palladium.

Even after the Stones papered over their differences and reconvened as both a studio and touring band Richards stayed in touch with the X-pensive Winos, assembling the core musicians again for Main Offender (1992). This second solo effort was released between the Stones’ Steal Wheels and Voodoo Lounge albums.

As might be imagined, the Rolling Stones juggernaut was a totally dominating force in the lives of all its members, yet during the first decade of the twenty-first century Keith Richards found time to pen his memoir. Life is a rollicking good read that was accompanied, on release, by a compilation decanting songs from the  X-pensive Winos albums. Entitled Vintage Vinos, the double album features six songs from Main Offender, four live recordings from the Palladium concert and three from Main Offender. There’s also a short bonus cut, "Hurricane", a fund-raising effort for victims of Hurricane Katrina (2005).

Musically, the rich, ragged and totally individual Richards guitar sound dominates the songs and is a hugely enjoyable trip for Stones fans who cherish Keef’s down-to-earth style. Fascinatingly, stepping forward to shoulder all the vocals was a real learning experience for the grizzled road-warrior. "I was learning to sing," he writes. "Into the microphone rather than waving in and out (sic) while I played air guitar, which I used to do while I sang on stage." Of his singing skills, Richards is characteristically blunt. "Some people hate it, some people love it. It’s a voice with character. Pavarotti it ain’t."

Fair enough, but you can’t ignore the joyous ramshackle groove of Richards music, show-cased on this three-sided LP. (The fourth side is etched.) Pressed on coloured vinyl, claret with black blob, the 2023 RSD re-issue also includes three handsome lithographs and song lyrics printed inside the gatefold sleeve. It’s an x-pensive looking product that still manages to be cool and unpretentious. Rather like Keef.

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Quotes from Life (2010) by Keith Richards with James Fox. Weidenfeld & Nelson, Orion Publishing Group, London, UK.

© Bruce Jenkins—July 2023