What would Keith Richards do_ - Jessica Pallington West [71]
claiming later he had to save his life. We’re not all that strong, after all.
April 14, 1975 – Ron Wood is named as newest Stone.
Dubbed “the professional second banana” and “the Henry Kissinger of the Stones,” he keeps peace between Keith and Mick. He also has a Keith Jr. talent for attracting disaster.
July 5, 1975 – Keith is arrested with Keith Jr., aka newly minted partner-in-trouble Ron Wood, on Arkansas highway.
Charges: speeding and possession of an offensive weapon. The weapon: a tin-can opener. Thirty-one years later Governor Mike Huckabee will pardon him. The confiscated knife is framed and hung on wall in Arkansas courtroom.
March 26, 1976 – Keith’s son Tara Jo Jo Gunne Richards is born in Geneva.
April 1976 – Crashes Bentley in Buckinghamshire.
Drugs are found in wreckage and Keith is carted off once again. Rumor has it he was set up as an unwitting courier.
April 20, 1976 – Black and Blue is released.
Songs include “Fool to Cry” and “Memory Motel.” Ron Wood makes album debut as a Stone.
May 19, 1976 – Arrested again: Newport Pagnell.
Car crash, asleep at the wheel, unidentified substance found in car.
May 1976 – Reportedly nods out onstage during concert at Earls Court, England.
June 1976 – Ten-week-old Tara dies of mysterious illness.
Keith hears the news while on tour in Paris and continues on with the show. Keith and Anita are described as a broken F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Soon after, daughter Dandelion is sent to live with Keith’s mother and is raised as Keith was.
August–October 1976 – Court: Newport Pagnell.
Cocaine-possession charge. The trial spans months. Keith arrives two hours late because, he says, he was waiting for his pants to come out of the dryer. The judge: “It strikes me as extraordinary that any gentleman of this stature can only afford one pair of trousers.” Pays bail.
January 10–12, 1977 – Court again.
Two counts of narcotics possession from car accident in May. It’s argued a fan placed drugs in the car without Keith’s knowledge. Verdict: guilty. £750 fine, plus £250 in costs, and a warning that next time he has a run-in with the police, there will be jail time.
February 1977 – Another run-in. Keith is fined £25 for driving without proper papers.
February 24, 1977 – The Toronto headache begins.
All the other brushes with the law are child’s play. This time it’s big. On a flight to Toronto, Keith shoots up in the bathroom and drops spoon in toilet. The spoon does him in; it leads the police to search further. They find what they’re looking for. On landing at the airport, the focus turns to Anita for possession. But there’s more to come. Some say Keith is framed by a disgruntled Stones insider.
February 27, 1977 – Arrest: Canadian drug police arrive at Suite 2223 at the Harbour Castle Hotel, Toronto.
It takes about forty-five minutes to wake Keith up to tell him he’s under arrest. “It’s pretty frightening waking up with cops all around your bed."
March 4, 1977 – Amid all the trial drama, the Stones and Keith play the first of the El Mocambo Club concerts.
To add to the drama, Margaret Trudeau, wife of the Canadian prime minister, shows up. Thanks, Margaret.
March 7–14, 1977 – On trial in Toronto.
Fans arrive en masse with “Free Keith” T-shirts, but the I-Hate-Keith contingent arrives too. One woman grabs his hair, spits at him. He is rearrested after his first day in court. Keith’s attorney will go on to compare him to Billie Holiday, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Vincent Van Gogh, and Dylan Thomas, saying, “I ask your honor to understand him as a creative tortured person—as a major contributor to art. He turned to heroin to prop up a sagging existence … He has fought a tremendous personal battle to rid himself of this terrible problem.” When the judge later claims Richards’s songs glorify drugs, Keith responds: “This is a misconception. I mean, about one percent of our songs glorify the use of drugs, and Mick Jagger wrote them anyway, not me."
March 1977 – “Life