![\"Keith](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Keith-Richards-1982-The-Rolling-Stones-Guitarist-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Marcel Antonisse \/ Anefo)<\/p>\n
Sat 3 January 2026 3:00, UK <\/p>\n
Anybody who has ever picked up a guitar has attempted, at one point or another, to evoke the bone-rattling rock and roll stylings of Keith Richards<\/a>, who completely redefined the landscape of rock and roll guitar during his 1960s heyday. Seemingly, though, Richards had his own selection of guitar heroes to light his way to rock and roll greatness. <\/p>\n To their credit, The Rolling Stones have always been pretty overt in their influences, going right back to their early days under the blues-centric leadership of Brian Jones. Although it might have been the songwriting stylings of Richards and Mick Jagger that thrust the group firmly into the spotlight of the British Invasion, it was performing covers of Chuck Berry<\/a>, Muddy Waters, and Buddy Holly that allowed the band to really hone their craft. <\/p>\n Even when the Stones became fully immersed in their own original output, penning counterculture anthems<\/a> like \u2018Street Fighting Man\u2019 towards the tail-end of the 1960s, the influence of those early blues and rock \u2018n\u2019 roll progenitors was never too far away, particularly within the musical mind of Keith Richards. <\/p>\n No matter which avenue of artistic inspiration the guitarist is drawing from, all roads seem to lead back to the influences he soaked up during his fittingly wild adolescence back in the 1950s and 1960s. In fact, Richards has routinely admitted himself that virtually everything he creates is an amalgamation of those influences, floating around in the musical ether. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople today run themselves into a corner thinking they actually created these things,\u201d he told Guitar Player<\/a> back in 1992. \u201cI\u2019d rather look upon myself as an antenna or some go-between. I\u2019m just around. Songs are running around \u2013 they\u2019re all there, ready to grab.\u201d <\/p>\n That is, in essence, the secret to Richards\u2019 incredible songwriting career; simply plucking songs from the continually moving rock and roll continuum.<\/p>\n \u201cYou play an instrument and pick it up,\u201d Richards continued, highlighting one particular figure who has never failed to provide him with musical inspiration. \u201cWhat I generally do is like, \u2018Fingers are getting a bit soft right now. I\u2019ll go through the Buddy Holly songbook\u2019 \u2013 because I love Buddy\u2019s songs.\u201d<\/p>\n Having paved the way for a plethora of young rock and roll stars during his tragically short time on Earth, Holly has been a continuous influence over Richards \u2013 and, by extension, the rest of The Rolling Stones \u2013 since their very first jam sessions. In fact, Holly\u2019s 1957 track \u2018Not Fade Away\u2019 was one of the tracks that helped to establish the Stones as a transatlantic rock and roll phenomenon when they covered it back in 1964. <\/p>\n It speaks to the unparalleled talents of Buddy Holly that his discography, despite lasting for only around three years before his untimely death, is single-handedly, according to Keith Richards, at least, responsible for inspiring a plethora of The Rolling Stones\u2019 most iconic, enduring anthems. By extension, you could argue, Holly changed the course of rock and roll history for a second time, years after \u2018the day the music died\u2019.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Marcel Antonisse \/ Anefo) Sat 3 January 2026 3:00, UK Anybody who has ever…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[32327,96,25721,128,15747,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-349494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-buddy-holly","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-keith-richards","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-the-rolling-stones","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}