Credit: Gibson
Sun 2 August 2026 15:00, UK
Keith Richards was always down for anything when working with The Rolling Stones.
He has always had the reputation of being one of the most unassuming musicians in the industry, and while all signs point to someone like him being allowed to be a dick, he seems to be completely happy playing music and jamming with his friends half the time he’s playing. He didn’t need the bells and whistles of fame to enjoy playing music, but he did have more than a few moments where he felt like the band was moving in the wrong direction.
And if there’s one thing that you can guarantee about Keef, it’s that he was going to give anyone a straight answer whenever he talked about his issues with music. He wasn’t very candid about most of his musical opinions, and when you look at the sweet spot that he had with The Stones, it all came back to the kind of bluesy tunes that they excelled at, with the occasional country song thrown in for good measure.
But half the battle was getting Mick Jagger to be on board with anything that they were doing. Jagger was always looking to move on to the next phase of what The Stones should be, and while he was still proud of the work he had done on records like Exile on Main St, it didn’t take him long to start looking for different outlets for inspiration, whether that was taking on new styles or completely overhauling the band’s sound.
That was easier said than done, though. The Stones have always tried to be a democracy whenever they worked together, and Richards wasn’t shy about saying when he thought some of their tunes sucked. He knew that the band had no business playing disco songs around the late 1970s, and even if ‘Miss You’ did end up becoming a massive hit, it wasn’t like it was going to go down in history as one of the most energetic Stones songs of all time.
If Jagger couldn’t get his ideas out with his bandmates, the only thing he could hope for was to make a few decent tunes on his own. There’s no way of breaking up The Stones by any means, though, and despite Jagger having a few decent tracks on his own, She’s the Boss was practically dead on arrival. No one wanted to see The Stones split apart, and Richards was absolutely furious hearing about what Jagger did.
The songs weren’t there as far as he was concerned, and he would have been much happier if Jagger just focused on making records with The Stones, saying, “I mean, if he had done his favourite Irish folk songs with a lady harpist or had Liberace accompany him on Frank Sinatra songs, something couldn’t have possibly done in The Stones, that would have been fine, [but it’s] not a very inspired piece of work.”
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Jagger did eventually return, but given how the next few years played out, it’s not like the band were on steady ground or anything. Dirty Work was one of their least inspired records up until that point, and when Jagger decided to pull the plug on the idea of touring around it, Richards was ready to call him every name in the book, even subtly referring to him as a bitch every single time he was asked about whether the band would tour.
There were a lot of hurt feelings when She’s the Boss came out, but it was about much more than Jagger turning his back on the band. Richards didn’t want to lose his writing partner, but given what Jagger was working on, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would have wanted a version of his tunes that sounded like Rolling Stones knockoffs every single time he performed by himself.
