Keith Richards at 80
Josh Marshall:
Richards often makes lists of the greatest guitar players of all time. But at a technical level he’s no particular standout. One-time Stones guitarist Mick Taylor was and is certainly superior by that measure. Even a casual rock fan could easily list a dozen guitarists who top him by that measure. Richards’ genius isn’t technical proficiency but knowing what to play, what not to play — both in the sense of the genius of composition but the role of silence in constructing an unshakeable riff. In interviews he has often spoken of silence as the composer’s canvass. For a man notorious for excess, his music is built on economy and restraint. His obsession with finding just the right sound, just the tonal palette he needs, leads him to start using a so-called “open G” tuning, a way to tune a guitar descended from banjo tuning. It literally involved removing one of the six strings. Most of the Stones’ most distinctive and indelible songs come after that switch. You can’t quite play most Stones songs on a conventionally tuned guitar. Very close. Almost the same, but not quite.
Richards was on The Tonight Show a few months ago, and played through a few songs on an acoustic guitar with Jimmy Fallon standing in for Mick Jagger. (He does a great Jagger.) It’s just amazing to me how he can get that Keith Richards sound out of seemingly any guitar. I think of it as a distinctly electric-guitar sound, but it’s not.
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Josh Marshall:
Richards often makes lists of the greatest guitar players of all time. But at a technical level he’s no particular standout. One-time Stones guitarist Mick Taylor was and is certainly superior by that measure. Even a casual rock fan could easily list a dozen guitarists who top him by that measure. Richards’ genius isn’t technical proficiency but knowing what to play, what not to play — both in the sense of the genius of composition but the role of silence in constructing an unshakeable riff. In interviews he has often spoken of silence as the composer’s canvass. For a man notorious for excess, his music is built on economy and restraint. His obsession with finding just the right sound, just the tonal palette he needs, leads him to start using a so-called “open G” tuning, a way to tune a guitar descended from banjo tuning. It literally involved removing one of the six strings. Most of the Stones’ most distinctive and indelible songs come after that switch. You can’t quite play most Stones songs on a conventionally tuned guitar. Very close. Almost the same, but not quite.
Richards was on The Tonight Show a few months ago, and played through a few songs on an acoustic guitar with Jimmy Fallon standing in for Mick Jagger. (He does a great Jagger.) It’s just amazing to me how he can get that Keith Richards sound out of seemingly any guitar. I think of it as a distinctly electric-guitar sound, but it’s not.