Something for the weekend.

Keith Richards - Life

It's been a long time coming, with too many unauthorized Rolling Stones biographies to mention, but finally we have the ultimate, and at times shocking, first hand account of Keith's experiences in what he would lovingly refer to as "the crossfire hurricane".

Hands down THE music biography of the year, Life is awash with Keith's affectionate matter-of-fact honesty and reads like an endless roller coaster of Jack Daniels-fueled adventures. Great rock autobiographies are a rare species, but this book by Richards (amounting to almost 600 pages!) is an absolute joy to read.

No stone is left unturned (excuse the pun) and the amount Keith actually remembers is phenomenal. The book meticulously covers everything from his childhood in Dartford, Kent and every misadventure in between, ranging from the famous drug bust in Fordyce, Arkansas to the awe inspiring and now infamous Exile On Main Street recording sessions, through to Keith's ability to stay awake for nine days straight (when under the right influence) and his enormous admiration for buddies Gram Parsons, Bobby Keys and shepherds pie.

At the core of the book is the Jagger/Richards relationship, which has gone through phases of almost tender brotherly love to intense visceral hatred, and ends with Keith simply dismissing Jagger's ludicrous knighthood and deciding to let things be (as long as their dressing rooms are at least a mile apart).

Life is a surprisingly fast paced and exciting book, and probably the only biography this year to include an in depth and personalised recipe for bangers and mash.

Graham Bywater
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