Keith Richards

Biography: An English musician, songwriter and founding member of The Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock?s greatest single body of riffs" and, placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting partner and band vocalist Mick Jagger are listed among Rolling Stone Magazine?s "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Richards? notoriety for illicit drug use stemmed in part from several drug busts in the late 1960s and the 1970s.

Keith Richards is the only child of Bert Richards and Doris Dupree Richards. He was born at Livingston Hospital in Dartford, Kent. His father was a factory worker injured during World War II during the Normandy invasion.

Richards? paternal grandparents were socialists and civic leaders whose family originated from Wales. His maternal grandfather (Augustus Theodore Dupree), who toured Britain with a jazz big band, "Gus Dupree and his Boys", fostered Richards? interest in guitar.

Richards? mother introduced him to the music of Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington and bought his first guitar, while his father disparaged his son?s musical enthusiasm. Richards? first guitar hero was Scotty Moore.

Richards attended Wentworth Primary School with Mick Jagger and was his neighbour until 1954, when the family moved. From 1955 to 1959 he attended Dartford Technical School. Recruited by Dartford Tech?s choirmaster Jake Clair, Richards sang in a trio of boy sopranos at, among other occasions, Westminster Abbey for Queen Elizabeth II.

In 1959 Richards was expelled from Dartford Technical School for truancy and transferred to Sidcup Art College. At Sidcup, he was diverted from his studies proper and devoted more time to playing guitar with other students in the boys room. At this point, Richards had learned most of Chuck Berry?s solos.

Richards met Jagger on a train as Jagger was headed to classes at the London School of Economics. The mail order rhythm & blues albums from Chess Records, by Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters, Jagger was carrying, revealed a mutual interest and led to a renewal of their friendship. Along with mutual friend Dick Taylor, Jagger was singing in an amateur band: "Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys", which Richards soon joined. The Blues Boys folded when Brian Jones and Ian Stewart accepted Richards, Jagger, and Taylor into the just-forming Rolling Stones.

In mid-1962 Richards had left Sidcup Art College to devote himself to music and moved into a London flat with Jagger and Jones. His parents divorced about the same time, resulting in his staying close to his mother and remaining estranged from his father until 1982.

After the Rolling Stones signed to Decca Records in 1963, their band manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, dropped the "s" from his surname believing "Keith Richard", in his words, "looked more pop". In the late 1970s Richards re-established the "s" to his surname.

Richards views his role in the Rolling Stones as "oiling the machinery", while Stewart has called him the musical leader of the band. Both Bill Wyman and Ronnie Wood have said that, unlike most other bands which usually follow the drummer, the Rolling Stones, in Wyman?s words, "have no way of not following him".

Richards? guitar playing shows a fascination with chords and rhythm while avoiding flamboyant virtuosity in favour of riffs described by Chris Spedding as "direct, incisive and unpretentious." Richards prefers to play in tandem with another guitarist and has always toured with one. Chuck Berry has been an inspiration for Richards, and it was Richards and Jagger who introduced Berry?s songs to the Rolling Stones? early repertoire.

Richards? backing vocals appear on every Rolling Stones album; and on most albums since Between the Buttons (1967), he has sung lead or co-lead on at least one track (see list below). Richards views the vocal training he got in his choirboy days as part of his professional arsenal, and has said of his own singing: "It?s not the most beautiful voice in the world anymore, but the Queen liked it, when it was at its best... It?s not been my job, singing, but to me, if you?re gonna write songs, you?ve got to know how to sing".

Richards has been tried on drug-related charges five times: in 1967, twice in 1973, in 1977 and in 1978. The first trial - the only one involving a prison sentence - resulted from a February 1967 police raid on Redlands, Richards?s Sussex estate, where he and some friends, including Jagger, were spending the weekend. The subsequent arrest of Richards and Jagger put them on trial before the Courts of the United Kingdom while also exposing them to public opinion. On 29 June 1967, Jagger was sentenced to three months? imprisonment for possession of four amphetamine tablets; Richards was found guilty of allowing cannabis to be smoked on his property and sentenced to one year in prison. Both Jagger and Richards were imprisoned at that point: Jagger was taken to Brixton prison in south London, and Richards to Wormwood Scrubs Prison in west London. Both were released on bail the next day pending appeal.

Richards made a cameo appearance as Captain Teague, the father of Captain Jack Sparrow (played by Johnny Depp), in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World?s End, released in May 2007, and won the Best Celebrity Cameo award at the 2007 Spike Horror Awards for the role. Depp has stated that he based many of Sparrow?s mannerisms on Richards. Richards reprised his role in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, released in May 2011.

In 1979, Richards met future wife, model Patti Hansen. They married on 18 December 1983, Richards?s 40th birthday, and have two daughters, Theodora and Alexandra, born in 1985 and 1986 respectively.

Richards maintains cordial relations with Italian-born actress Anita Pallenberg, the mother of his first three children; although they were never married, Richards and Pallenberg were a couple from 1967 to 1979. Together they have a son, Marlon (named after the actor Marlon Brando), born in 1969, and a daughter, Angela (originally named Dandelion), born in 1972. Their third child, a boy named Tara (after Richards?s and Pallenberg?s friend Guinness heir Tara Browne), died on 6 June 1976, less than three months after his birth.

Richards still owns Redlands, the Sussex estate he purchased in 1966, as well as a home in Weston, Connecticut and another in Turks & Caicos. His primary home is in Weston. He is an avid reader with a strong interest in history and owns an extensive library. An April 2010 article revealed that Richards yearns to be a librarian