Keith Richards: two records on platform two at Dartford | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

KEITH RICHARDS and Mick Jagger, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) had known each other as kids, then lost touch. On 17 October 1961 they met again on platform two at Dartford station.

Jagger, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) had records under his arm: Chuck Berry’s, Who’s Who number 36 Rockin’ at the Hops and The Best of Muddy Waters. “He was carrying two albums with him,” Richards remembers. That was enough to start a conversation, and the conversation became the Jagger and Richards songwriting team behind Satisfaction, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Brown Sugar and Gimme Shelter.

Early life

Richards was born in Dartford, Kent, on 18 December 1943. His mother was Doris and his father Bert, a factory worker. He went to Sidcup Art School.

Career chapters

1. 1961Meets Mick Jagger, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) again at Dartford station
2. 1962The Rolling Stones’ first gig, the Marquee Club, London
3. 1988First solo album, Talk Is Cheap
4. 1989Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the Stones
5. 2006Skull fracture after a fall in Fiji
6. 2010Memoir, Life
7. 2015Crosseyed Heart, his first solo album in 23 years
8. 2023Hackney Diamonds, a UK number 1
9. 2026Foreign Tongues, the Stones’ 15th UK number 1 album

The Rolling Stones 1962 onwards

The Stones played their first gig at the Marquee Club in London on 12 July 1962. Jagger, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) and Richards became the band’s writers, and the list grew to include Ruby Tuesday, Wild Horses, Start Me Up, Miss You and Happy.

In 1989 the Stones went into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Pete Townshend, Who’s Who number 8 inducted them. Townshend, Who’s Who number 8 has also said his famous windmill strum started with watching Richards.

Solo records and a film for Chuck Berry 1986 to 1992

Richards produced the soundtrack and was musical director of Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll, the film about Chuck Berry, Who’s Who number 36. The Rock Hall quotes him on Berry, Who’s Who number 36: “I lifted every lick he ever had played.”

His first solo album, Talk Is Cheap, came out in 1988 and reached number 37 in the UK. Main Offender followed in 1992.

Fiji, pirates and a memoir 2006 to 2012

In late April 2006 he was on holiday on a private island off Fiji with Ronnie Wood, Who’s Who number 19 when he fell from a low tree branch. He fractured his skull and was flown to New Zealand for surgery. The story got told as a fall from a coconut palm, but he described a low, almost flat branch.

He played Captain Teague, the father of Johnny Depp’s, Who’s Who number 9 in · Ultimate Gangster Reunion (story coming soon) Jack Sparrow, in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) and On Stranger Tides (2011).

His memoir, Life, came out in 2010. Parts of it hurt Jagger, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon), and in March 2012 Richards said so publicly: “I regret that.”

Late albums 2015 to 2026

Crosseyed Heart came out on 18 September 2015, his first solo album in 23 years, and reached number 7 in the UK.

Charlie Watts, Who’s Who number 22 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) died in August 2021, aged 80. The Stones went back on the road the next month, opening in St Louis on 26 September.

Hackney Diamonds came out on 20 October 2023. It spent two weeks at number 1 in the UK and won Best Rock Album at the 67th Grammys. Foreign Tongues followed on 10 July 2026 and went to number 1 in the UK as well, the band’s 15th.

In May 2026 he told the AP there’d be no Stones tour that year. “Not this year anyway,” he said.

Craft, sound and style

The early guitars

His mother gave him a Rosetti acoustic at about 13. For the sessions for the first Stones album in January 1964 his electric was a Harmony Meteor, a thin hollow archtop with two DeArmond pickups, and a Harmony 12 string acoustic is on Not Fade Away and Tell Me. In 1964 he got a 1959 Les Paul Standard, fitted with a Bigsby, that he later sold to Mick Taylor. There was also a black Les Paul Custom painted by hand. Mixdown says it was a 1957 model painted by Anita Pallenberg in 1967, and Guitar World calls it a 1958, so the year is open. At Hyde Park on 5 July 1969 he played a korina Gibson Flying V.

Micawber and five strings

His number one is a Fender Telecaster called Micawber, after the character in David Copperfield. Eric Clapton, Who’s Who number 3 gave it to him for his 27th birthday. The sources disagree on whether it’s a 1953 or a 1954. It has a 1950s Gibson humbucker at the neck, mounted backwards, and a steel guitar pickup at the bridge. It has no sixth string. It was at Villa Nellcôte for the Exile on Main St. sessions. Other Teles have names too: Malcolm, a 1954 natural finish five string, and Sonny, a 1967 sunburst. Dice is a yellow Les Paul TV Junior with one P-90, played in standard tuning with a capo at the seventh fret.

He took the low string off and tuned the rest to open G, G D G B D, from the late 1960s. Most players used open tuning for slide, he told Guitar World in 2002, “But I wanted to use it for rhythm guitar.” The Telecaster “really lent itself” to it. Mixdown says he got the tuning from Ry Cooder, and in 1992 he said he’d started hanging out with Taj Mahal and Gram Parsons around 1967. Jumpin’ Jack Flash is open E or open D with a capo, plus a Nashville tuned guitar.

Two amps and a fuzz box

His distortion trick is a Fender Twin with a small Champ slaved to it, the two blended. “A really good distortion” needs to come from two different places, he said in 1992. On Satisfaction in 1965 the fuzz was a Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone, which Ian Stewart fetched from a music shop after the band had burned up amps chasing the sound. It was meant as a stand-in for horns, and he never went back to the effect. In 1968 he pushed acoustic guitars through cassette recorders to squash the sound. He also owns a Twin with serial number A00003, which he confirmed in 1992 was the third one made.

Rhythm first

He told Guitar Player in 1977 that technique was never his thing, and that he’d never be a George Benson or a John McLaughlin. He learned from Chuck Berry, Who’s Who number 36, Bo Diddley, Who’s Who number 40, Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed records, while Brian Jones leaned towards Elmore James, B.B. King, Who’s Who number 2 and Howlin’ Wolf. When a 1992 interviewer compared his open G playing to John Lee Hooker, he called it the best compliment he’d had that day.

Stories people still tell

1. Platform two.

   The meeting at Dartford station is one of rock’s favourite origin stories, and it’s true. It was a reunion, though, not a first meeting. They’d known each other as children.

2. The palm tree that wasn’t.

   The 2006 Fiji fall became a coconut palm in the retelling. Richards has described a low branch instead.

3. Best man.

   He married Patti Hansen on his 40th birthday, 18 December 1983, at the Finisterra Hotel in Cabo San Lucas. Jagger, Who’s Who number 19 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) was his best man.

Legacy

The Rock Hall lists Aerosmith, Guns N’ Roses and the White Stripes among the bands the Stones influenced. You can hear Richards in their riffs, and you can hear Berry, Who’s Who number 36 in his.