(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Fri 27 February 2026 8:00, UK
A guitar is a deeply personal thing, and Keith Richards knows that better than most.
He is famously protective of his instrument, a Fender Telecaster he has nicknamed ‘Micawber’. But that protectiveness did not stop him from stepping on the toes of a few icons while he was still learning his craft.
One night, when Richards was meeting his own hero, Chuck Berry, he made a huge mistake. Left backstage with the instruments, his hands couldn’t help themselves as he recalled, “We saw him play in New York somewhere, and afterwards I was backstage in his dressing room, where his guitar was lying in its case. I wanted to look, out of professional interest”.
The so-called professional interest led him to cross a line as he reached out his hand, only to be swiftly stopped. “As I’m just plucking the strings, Chuck walked in and gave me this wallop to the frickin’ left eye,” Richards remembered, and the lesson was learnt: don’t touch another man’s guitar.
But that knowledge is why it was even more of an honour when Richards himself not only allowed another band to play his guitar, but fully bestowed it upon them, passing it like a baton to a band he truly delivered in.
Few people would even know The Dirty Strangers’ name, but in the 1980s, Richards thought they were the next big thing. “Right now they’re probably the only British band I know of,” he told an interviewer in 1983, and he was doing them huge favours. He offered to play on their debut album, and after learning that they were broke when he asked to do another take, Richards offered up his own funds as the band’s leader, Alan Clayton, recalled, “He offered to pay to redo his guitar, and we went back to the studio with Keith footing the bill. He says he never picked up a guitar to make money, and just wanted to play. There’s lots of people who like music, but only a few people passionate about it like that.”
At a period when The Rolling Stones were in complete tumult, discovering The Dirty Strangers seemed to give Richards something to care about. The band remembered, “Keith acted just like one of the boys, just mucked in and got on with it. He knew all the changes and put everything into it. It was a buzz, but it just felt perfectly normal.”
Even though he bestowed his playing on their album, there was no honour like the moment he bestowed them his guitar. At the guitarist’s Redland estate, Clayton showed up ready to play the idol more songs. “I had my two Telecasters with me, so I left them in the hallway. It was a good night, and Keith really liked the demos,” he said, but as the Stones player had been impressed once again, he clearly felt the need to show his appreciation properly with the ultimate gift.
“Next morning, as we were leaving, I picked up my two guitars. Keith handed me this 1964 Gibson Hummingbird acoustic. ‘You left one’, he said. ‘That’s not mine’, I said,” Clayton remembered as Richard replied, “It is now. It’s yours”.
If that’s not the true rock and roll seal of approval, I don’t know what is.