Posted on 04/19/2026 2:52:17 PM PDT by Libloather
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has cheated death so many times he’s like a cat with nine lives, only in his case, it’s probably ninety-nine.
A show in Sacramento in December 1965 proved almost fatal for Richards.
While he was singing, Richards, 82, didn’t realize his mic was ungrounded.
“The strings of his guitar touching the metal stand shorted out the amp and sent a strong surge of electricity” through his body, writes Bob Spitz in the upcoming book “The Rolling Stones: The Biography.”
A photographer who was there remembers that Richards was “unconscious for a long time,” and when the same thing happened a few years later to Leslie Harvey, the lead guitarist for Stone the Crows, he was instantly killed.
Richards was probably spared because he had been wearing “thick, rubber-soled shoes.”
The “Start Me Up” co-writer’s drug use ramped up when he began dating model and actress Anita Pallenberg in 1967, after she had been involved with his bandmate Brian Jones. Their relationship, which eventually included three children (one died of SIDS), was filled with a seemingly unending supply of illicit drugs.
Richards had always enjoyed recreational drugs, but then he was introduced to speedballs: heroin mixed with cocaine, snorted to generate an intense rush.
“‘Heroin,’ according to Keith, ‘made everything possible,'” writes Spitz. “He considered it ‘the great leveler,’ and said, ‘once you’re on that stuff, it doesn’t matter what comes your way, you can handle it.'”
(Excerpt) Read more at pagesix.com ...
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Clearly the two keys to long life are heroin and cholesterol.
…and his Love of Music.
Love The Stones.
It seems that back then we were regularly reading about him getting blood transfusions.
Didn’t he and Mick Jagger basically have all the blood in their body replaced at a clinic in Switzerland as a way to try and detoxify themselves?
Beat me by a minute!
You had more detail!
You had more detail!
His doctor is dead. 😆
Yeah, I guess he would look about 82 in 65.
Keith Richards is absolute proof of life after death. He is still Rocking and probably in reality dead. Apparently God liked his music and gave him an extension of his death, yea he is dead but still rocking.
“The strings of his guitar touching the metal stand shorted out the amp and sent a strong surge of electricity” through his body,...
Electro-shock therapy must be his key to a long life!
Strange Brew - electroshock therapy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsYqPRIMzfM
IMO best with the 5 upper strings of a set of #9 and lose the high-e rather than the lower five and lose the low-e.. I also prefer to redo the bridge and nut and spread the 5 strings evenly across the fretboard... the slightly wider spacing is nice... but u may need to go to hotrail pickups as pickups with 6 magnets won't exactly align... some work well, others not so much.
Yep that one is a great Stones song. Unique.
👍
A photographer who was there remembers that Richards was “unconscious for a long time,” and when the same thing happened a few years later to Leslie Harvey, the lead guitarist for Stone the Crows, he was instantly killed.
Didn’t something similar happen to Keith Relf of The Yardbirds?
Bill Hicks did a great bit about Richards: Keith, and bugs are the only survivors of a nuclear war. (This article sounds like a scene from Spinal Tap.)
Love The Stones.
“I love the Stones, I watch them whenever I can...Fred....Barney.” - Steven Wright
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