Keith Richards is truly blessed.
Not only is he the subject of numerous jokes pertaining to his longevity, given his well documented intake of drugs and alcohol, he’s lucky that he’s still able to play the guitar given his arthritic riddled fingers.
Asked by the BBC if its affected his playin,g he says, “Funnily enough, I’ve no doubt it has, but I don’t have any pain, it’s a sort of benign version. I think if I’ve slowed down a little bit it’s probably due more to age.
“And also, I found that interesting, when I’m like, ‘I can’t quite do that anymore,’ the guitar will show me there’s another way of doing it. Some finger will go one space different and a whole new door opens.
“And so you’re always learning. You never finish school, man.”
Richards, who owns more than a thousand guitars, is still fascinated by it. “The more you play it, the less you know it. It provides you with endless questions. You can never know the whole thing. It’s impossible.”
And he still has a penchant for coming up with great riffs as is evident on the new Rolling Stones album, Hackney Diamonds, their first of original material since 2005’s A Bigger Bang. It will be out on October 20th, including a a Dolby Atmos mix done by Giles Martin.
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