Life

by Keith Richards; James Fox

  I cleaned up for tours, but in the middle of a long tour, somebody would give me some shit and then I’d want some more. And I’d say, well, I’ve got to get some more now, because I need to wait until I have some time off to clean up. I’ve had some lovely junkie babes on the road, ones that saved my life, got me off the hook here and there. And most of them not lowlife bitches. A lot of them very sophisticated, very smart women who were into it themselves. It wasn’t like you had to go to the gutters or the whorehouses to find it. You could be at some backstage party or go and visit these society people, and a lot of the shit I’ve scored is because they offered it, these debutante junkies, bless their hearts.

  Even then I could never get being with a woman I didn’t genuinely like, even if it was just for a night or two, or just a port in the storm. Sometimes they were taking care of me, sometimes I was taking care of them, and a lot of it had nothing to do with lust. A lot of times I’ve ended up in bed with a woman and never done anything, just cuddled and slept. And I’ve loved loads of them. I’ve always been so impressed that they actually loved me in return. I remember a chick in Houston, my junkie friend, I think on the ’72 tour. I’m out, fucked up, and I’m cold turkey. Bumped into her in a bar. She gave me some stuff. For a week I loved her and she loved me and she saw me through a hard time. I’d broken my own rule and gotten strung out. And this sweet girl came to my rescue, moved in with me. I don’t know how I found her. Where do angels come from? They know what’s what and they can see through you, cut through the bullshit look in your eyes and say, “You’ve got to do this.” From you, I’ll take it. Thank you, sister.

  Another was in Melbourne, Australia. She had a baby. Sweet, shy, unassuming, she was on the scuppers; the old man had left her with the kid. She could get me pure cocaine, pharmaceutical. And she kept coming to the hotel to deliver, so I went, hey, why don’t I just move in? Living in the suburbs of Melbourne for a week with a mother and child was kind of weird. Within four or five days I was like a right Australian old man. Sheila, where’s my fucking breakfast? Here’s your breakfast, darling. It was like I’d been there forever. And it felt great, man. I can do this, just a little semidetached. I’d take care of the baby; she went to work. I was husband for the week. Changed the baby’s diapers. There’s somebody in a suburb in Melbourne who doesn’t even know I wiped his ass.

  Then there was the stopover Bobby and I made with two girls we picked up in Adelaide. Lovely girls who took care of us very well. These chicks had some acid, and I’m not a big acid head, but we had a couple of days off in Adelaide, and they were fine-looking babes and they had a little hippie bungalow up in the hills, drapes and candles and incense and sooty oil lamps. So OK, take me away. We’d been living in hotels, we’d been on the road forever, and just to be taken out of our context was a huge relief. When we had to leave, because we had to go from Adelaide to Perth, which is the other end of the fucking continent, we said, why don’t you come with us? So they did, but we were still all fucking high as kites. We got on the plane, and somewhere halfway to Perth, Bobby and I were in the front seat, both girls burst out of the john seminaked. They’d been having it off together and they came tumbling out, giggling. They were outrageous Australian Sheilas. We were laughing. “Go on, get ’em out,” and we heard this collective gasp from the rest of the tube behind us. We figured we were on our own plane; we’d forgotten about the other passengers. And we turned around and there were two hundred shocked faces behind us, Australian businessmen and matrons. Their gasps took the air out of the whole cabin. Some of them started laughing and some went to see the captain and demanded immediate reprisals. So we were threatened with arrest at Perth airport. We were all corralled for a bit when we landed. It was a close call, but somehow we talked our way out of it. Bobby and I were saying, what have we got to do with it? We were just sitting in our seats. The two girls explained they were “exchanging frocks.” I don’t know how they got away with it.

  They came with us to Perth, we did the gig, and then we left on our own plane, a cargo plane, a Super Constellation. Leaking oil, no soundproofing, and all your own kit, bring a mattress or two to lie on. We spent fifteen hours from Perth to Sydney. You could raise your voice; it wouldn’t matter. It was like being in a World War II bomber, without the Benzedrine. And we obviously made the most of it. We knew these chicks a week. This happens on the road a lot. Very fierce relationships form and then they’re gone; it’s almost a flash. “I was really close to her, I really liked her, I almost remember her name.”

  It’s not like I was collecting—I’m not Bill Wyman or Mick Jagger, noting down how many I’ve had. I’m not talking about shagging here. I’ve never been able to go to bed with a woman just for sex. I’ve no interest in that. I want to hug you and kiss you and make you feel good and protect you. And get a nice note the next day, stay in touch. I’d rather jerk off than just have a piece of pussy. I’ve never paid for it in my life. I’ve been paid for it, though. Sometimes there’s a backhander—“I love you too, and here’s some smack!” Sometimes I’d get into it just for fun. Can you pull her? Let’s see if you can. Try your best line. Usually I was more interested in chicks who weren’t slavering and falling all over me. I’d be hanging out and go, let’s try the wife of the banker.…

  I remember once in Australia, I had a room opposite Bill Wyman’s. And I found out he had a deal with the doorman, because there were something like two thousand chicks outside the hotel. “That one in the pink. No, not that one in the pink, that one in the pink.” He had loads of chicks up there that day, and none of them stayed more than ten minutes. I don’t think any of them got much more than the insipid cup of tea that Bill likes—some hot water with a little milk in it and a dip of a tea bag. It was just too short for anything to happen and get dressed again. None of them emerged disheveled, so to speak. But then it would go down in the book: had that one! I counted nine in four hours. He wasn’t shagging them, so I presume he was auditioning them. “You from around here?” Bill was just blatantly like that. The weird thing is that, as different as they seem, Bill Wyman and Mick Jagger were actually very similar. That would rankle Mick like a motherfucker, me saying that. But if you saw them together on the road or read their diaries, they were basically the same. Except Mick’s got a bit of class, standing at the front, being the lead singer and la la la. But if you saw them off stage and what they were doing, “How many did you have tonight?” they were the same.

  Different from teenyboppers or the queues of chicks waiting for tea with Bill Wyman were the groupies. I’d like to vindicate them as the fine young ladies they were, who knew what they wanted and knew what to provide. There were a few blatant opportunists, like the plaster casters who went around trying to get an impression of every rock-and-roll player’s cock. They didn’t get mine. I won’t go through that. Or the butter queens, rivals to the plaster casters. I’ve got to admire their moxie. But I don’t like professionals who go around predatorily, had him, had him… like a Bill Wyman in reverse. I was never interested in that lot. I would deliberately not fuck ’em. I’d tell them to get undressed and go, OK, you can leave now. Because you knew you were gonna be chalked up on scoreboards.

  But there were loads of groupies out there that were just good old girls who liked to take care of guys. Very mothering in a way. And if things got down to that, OK, maybe go to bed, have a fuck. But it wasn’t the main thing with groupies. Groupies were friends and most of them were not particularly attractive. They were providing a service. You got into town, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and there would be one or two chicks who you knew would come by and make sure that you were OK, take care of you, make sure you ate properly. They banged on the door, and you’d look through the little hole and say, oh, it’s Shirley.

  The groupies were just extended family. A loosely framed network. And what I really liked was there was no jealousy or possession involved in any of it. In those days there was a kind of circuit. Play Cincinnati, next you’re goi
ng to be playing Brownsville, then you’re going down to Oklahoma; there was a sort of route. And they’d just pass you on to their next friend down the road. You go in there and ask for help. Baby, I’m dying out here! I’ve done four shows, I’m croaking. And they were nurses, basically. You could look upon them more like the Red Cross. They’d wash your clothes, they’d bathe you and stuff. And you’re going, why are you doing this for a guitar player? There’s a million of us out there.

  Flo, who I’ve already mentioned, was one of my favorites, lived in LA, one of a band of black chicks. Flo had another three or four groupies around her. If I was a bit short of weed or whatever, she would send her crew out. We slept together many times, never fucked, or very rarely. We just crashed out or stayed up and listened to music. A lot of it was to do with music. I had the best sounds, and they would bring me their local sounds that had just come out. Whether you ended up in bed together was immaterial, really.

  Bobby Keys and I got into further trouble at the end of the Far East tour in early 1973. In fact, Bobby got into such bad trouble he might still be doing time now but for a deus ex machina of intervention. It was pineapples this time that came to his rescue.

  We had played Honolulu as the first gig of the tour. Honolulu was the point of exit and reentry into the United States for this tour, which had taken us to New Zealand and Australia. You had to register musical instruments on the way out of Hawaii and have the list checked on the way back to prove you weren’t importing goods.

  Bobby should tell the story, since he is the main protagonist.

  Bobby Keys: Keith and I and the Rolling Stones tour Australia and the Far East, early in 1973. That’s back when Dr. Bill used to travel with us, and there were concessions of self-medication for Keith and me to relieve the stress of the road. We’re on our way back and we go through customs in Hawaii. I’ve got all my saxophones with me, and they want to check the serial numbers to make sure they’re the same horns I took out. So the guy’s got to turn the horn upside down because the serial numbers are printed upside down. Well, the minute this guy turns the saxophone around, I hear this rattling sound. Oh God, I know what that is! BOINNNGGG, right on the desk out comes a syringe. And sticks in the desk in front of the customs guy. So one thing naturally leads to another. Keith is there with me; we’re in the same line. They separate us immediately, take me away and give me the whole rubdown and find these large capsules full of smack and what have you. They’re just soaking it up. The booking guy has made his fucking year’s quota now! He’s just rattling that typewriter. “Oh boy, we nailed a Kingfish and his sidekick now, buddy! This is it, yeah, we got the menu on these boys!” And they do. They’ve just taken our pictures and we’ve given them our prints, and they’re just having so much fun out there—hee hee, ten years! Ten years! Being the very end of the tour, there wasn’t really an entourage at all, everybody had split. I was allowed one phone call.

  Meanwhile, they’ve got me and they’ve got nothing. I was traveling clean. They’d gone through me with a fine-tooth comb. I’m presuming that Bobby is now definitely in the clink. There’s no way you can have a syringe come flying out and get away with it. I need a phone call, because I know Bobby’s going to need a lawyer. So I’m going through pains to call Frisco, LA, to get him a mouthpiece. Finally they let me on the next connection to Frisco. I get in the queue to get on the plane, and who’s fucking there ahead of me but Bobby bloody Keys! What the fuck are you doing here, baby? They just put me through the goddamn grinder! How come you’re here before me? Says Bobby, “I made a phone call.” “You made a phone call? Who to?”

  “To Mr. Dole.”

  Bobby: This man Mr. Dole was the big pineapple exporter, the Pineapple King of Hawaii. You ever opened up a can of Dole pineapples, you know who he is. And he also owned the franchise of a professional football team of the World Football League. And Keith and I somehow had run into his daughter when we played Hawaii on the way to Australia. And she invited us up to the house for an afternoon with her and some of her friends, lovely, lovely ladies, all tanned, tanned and rich. Everything was nice and friendly, and phone numbers were exchanged, and we had an enjoyable evening that went on into the night, and I got real friendly with Mr. Dole’s pretty daughter and I’m sure we drank lots of pineapple juice. This was before security; we were let loose on the world on our own then, so all sorts of shit happened. We’re here Dole-ing it out at the mansion, and in the morning Mr. Dole comes in and there’s this sort of embarrassed, “Oh, Daddy!” He sees this bacchanal scene in his lounge, with Keith Richards and me. And his daughter says, “Let me introduce you to my new friends.” Keith’s just out the door like a shadow, but Mr. Dole, instead of calling the dogs and saying, “Eat these people!,” says, “Very happy to meet you.” Daddy is actually gracious. This is uncomfortable as hell, because I’m screwing the Pineapple Princess. Mr. Dole gives me his card, saying, “Well, obviously you’re my daughter’s friends. If there’s ever anything I can do for you if you’re passing through Hawaii, give me a call. Here’s my private number, goes straight through.” So I take Mr. Dole’s card, put it in my wallet and don’t think any more about it.

  Now, on the verge of many years of hard labor in the Texas sun, I have my one phone call and I don’t have any numbers to contact anybody. Nobody from the Stones party knows where the hell we are. Then I find Mr. Dole’s card in my wallet, the only card I have and the only number I have. So I call this number, and I amazingly get through to Mr. Dole. And I say, “Mr. Dole, do you remember that scantily clad guy and that half-dead-looking Englishman who were in your living room the other day? Well, this is half of them.” “Oh hello, Bobby, how are you?” I say, we’ve had a little problem here. They found this and that, and syringes, and… we don’t know what to do. And he says, “Where are you, what happened exactly? What flight were you on?” And I tell him, and he says, “Well, I’ll see what I can do,” and he hangs up. I don’t know what’s happening to Keith but I’m scared to death. I thought we were really going to Leavenworth. I was just waiting for the guys to come with the chains and take us away. So I’m sitting back there, partitioned off by this mirrored glass from these clowns that have booked us. And all of a sudden the phone rings at this guy’s desk, the one who’s been talking all this shit at us, and you can tell, just by the change in his posture, that something has got him going. He looks back at me, looks back at the phone, hangs the phone up, and he just kind of shakes his head very slowly and tears up the charge sheet. They give the shit back, put us on the plane and say, “Don’t ever do this again!” And we fly happily off into the sunset.

  But it doesn’t finish there. We get on the plane, and I’m going, fuck, man. Better make some phone calls to get some shit for Frisco when we get there. Know anybody in Frisco? Who do we call? Now, for some reason I pull out my wallet, I immediately feel these two unfamiliar bumps under its skin. Unmistakable. In there are two double-O caps full of smack, which is a damn good whack of pure heroin. The caps came from the chicks in Adelaide, our Sheilas. Customs had been through me like a dose of salts, they’d searched me, they’d been up my ass! If I’d been busted I would never have got back in the country again. How did they miss them? You find that a lot with customs people. If you think you’re clean, you are. And I was totally convinced I had cleaned out my shit. So I immediately went to the bathroom. And suddenly everything went rosy. We’ll share one cap now —snort it because we don’t have any needles. That will keep us going and then we can make phone calls when we get there. Another close shave. The dog that didn’t bark in the night.

  Bobby and I seem to be lucky in combination, especially at airports in those years. Once, going through security in New York, Bob was taking care of the baggage. One bag of mine had to go in the hold; it couldn’t go through checks. It had a shooter, my .38 special, in it, with five hundred rounds of ammunition. I used to carry a lot of heat. None of my guns were legal. I’m not allowed to own firearms; I’m a convicted felon. I
n the hold it would have been cool as part of the general baggage. And Bobby got it fucking wrong, and I saw the bag with the shooter in it going through the X-ray. Fuck! No! I yelled out, “BOB!” and everybody that’s looking at the machinery turned round and looked at me and took their eyes off the screen. They didn’t see it go through.

  I went straight back to Jamaica, where I’d left Anita and the children. We stayed in Mammee Bay that spring of 1973. It was already getting a little rough in some ways. Anita was beginning to act in unpredictable ways; she began to suffer from paranoia, and during my absence on tour began to collect a lot of people who took her hospitality for granted—a bad combination. Even when I was there we had a pretty rowdy house. Without realizing it, we were shocking the neighborhood. White man with a big house and everybody knew that Rastas were round there every night, recording, playing music. The neighbors wouldn’t have minded over the weekend or something. But not on a Monday or a Tuesday. We were starting to do it every damn night. And also the pong coming out of that house! These guys were burning weed by the pound in the chalice. The smoke would go for a mile. It didn’t suit the neighbors. I learned later that Anita had also sorely pissed a few people off. She’d been warned a few times, and she’d been excessively rude to the constabulary or anyone who complained. They were calling her rude girl. They called her, more comically, Mussolini, because she spoke Italian. Anita can be rough. I was married to her (without being married to her). And she was in trouble.