(Credits: Far Out / Raph Pour-Hashemi)
When anyone has amassed the amount of riffs Keith Richards has, there’s bound to be a few that get old after a while.
Even though there are plenty of fans that would love to hear their favourite bands play the hits every single time they take to the stage, there are often a few tunes where everyone onstage is rolling their eyes waiting for the tune to be over. But whereas most people would sleepwalk through their biggest hits, Richards seemed to be eternally tied to his guitar whenever he got onstage.
Although there are more than a few tunes in the band’s catalogue that have him taking a lead vocal, there’s no reason to think that Richards was comfortable being a frontman. He wanted the band to be a gang most of the time, and all he needed was the right set of chords to get himself going and creating a base for Mick Jagger to work off of half the time he played.
And while it was like pulling teeth trying to get both of them into a room to write their own songs for the first time, Keef took to it like a fish in water. He knew that the greatest artists that he listened to always came back to having a great guitar riff, and while he would eventually turn full chords into classic hits like ‘Start Me Up’ and ‘Gimme Shelter’, nothing could beat getting that single line in a tune like ‘Satisfaction’.
Because if aliens were sent down demanding to know what the term ‘riff’ meant, ‘Satisfaction’ is the clearest example. Jimmy Page certainly had his time working with the few perfect licks in his catalogue, but by trying to recreate a horn line, Richards came up with the kind of fuzzy rock and roll tone that made millions of kids trying to figure out what the hell he was playing half the time.
Compared to the rest of the classic hits in The Stones’ catalogue, though, Richards knew it was much more interesting playing tunes like ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’, saying, “I love ‘Satisfaction’ dearly and everything, but those chords are pretty much a de rigueur course as far as songwriting goes. But ‘Flash’ is particularly interesting. It’s allllll right now. It’s almost Arabic or very old, archaic, classical, the chord setups you could only hear in Gregorian chants or something like that. And it’s that weird mixture of your actual rock and roll and at the same time.”
And from a guitarist’s perspective, ‘Flash’ is also one of the most enjoyable riffs to play. ‘Satisfaction’ gets a lot of the credit for being the first of its kind in many respects, but the power behind the follow-up was always about taking the basis of the blues and making it a little bit nastier.
While it’s not as easy to spot the Arabic influences that Richards is talking about, it is at least a great way to see what makes him tick. He wanted to make music that was a bit more eclectic than the average blues rock outfit, and while they would get a chance to stretch with Brian Jones in the band to play whatever instrument they needed, it was worth it if it meant honing their blues chops even further when they eventually got Mick Taylor in the group for records like Exile on Main St.
But beyond being a great song, there’s a certain vibe around ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ that matters far more than any kind of musical punch. The Stones were clearly moving away from the image of rowdy schoolboys that wanted to play the blues to seasoned veterans that were ready to conquer the rock and roll world.
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