What would Keith Richards do_ - Jessica Pallington West [72]
Aka: Stranded in Canada. He records, with Ian Stewart, five despair-filled country songs he’d learned from Gram Parsons, including one about a man facing the electric chair. While at the hotel, Keith and Anita watch Taxi Driver repeatedly on pay TV. Anita complains that being on the high floor is like “living in an airplane.” Seven-year-old Marlon acts as bodyguard, dutifully telling all meddling adults, including Margaret Trudeau, to fuck off.
April 1977 – The United States grants Keith a health visa to clean up.
He undergoes “black box” treatment for heroin in Pennsylvania, an “electro-acupuncture” process that Eric Clapton had used. While treated, Keith reportedly stays at the same house where the film The Blob was filmed.
June and July 1977 – Keith misses his court appearance in Toronto due to drug treatment.
September 1977 – Newport Pagnell court hearing: Bail is set at £5,000.
September 23, 1977 – Love You Live, recorded at the El Mocambo Club, is released.
October 1977 – The Stones come to Paris to record; Keith can’t find the apartment he’d bought in 1968.
December 1977 – Keith makes it to court in Toronto at last.
February 15, 1978 – The arresting and chief investigating of-ficer in the Toronto bust is killed in a car crash.
(Is Anita really a witch?)
June 9, 1978 – Some Girls is released to more headaches.
Songs include the autobiographical “Before They Make Me Run,” about Toronto. Jesse Jackson launches campaign to ban the album for sexually explicit lyrics about black women. Keith responds: “We write our songs from personal experiences. Okay, so over the last fifteen years we’ve happened to meet extra-horny black chicks— well, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m wrong and neither does Mick.” He later expounds on the choice of the album name: “Because we couldn’t remember all their fucking names."
July 1978 – Riot: Orchard Beach, New York, when Stones refuse to do encore.
September 1978 – Yet another Keith house goes up in flames
(a rental in Hollywood). “I open the door to the bedroom and I’m looking at a fireball rushing down the corridor towards the oxygen … and me! There’s the two of us stark naked. Half the house is already destroyed, the roof is falling in on us, but we’ve managed to get through … to the swimming pool … Stark fucking bullock naked with this blonde saying to me, ‘Do something.’ And I said, ‘What do you want me to do? Piss on it?’ Suddenly this car stops and it’s Anita’s cousin. And she goes, ‘Get in!’ And she just scooped us up and whisked me off so nobody could find me for a couple of days."
October 7, 1978 – Too stoned to deliver one line in a skit about drugs on Saturday Night Live.
October 23–24, 1978 – Crown prosecutor appeals sentence in Canada, and Keith goes back to court.
“It’s Canada versus the Rolling Stones. I mean, I didn’t screw Margaret Trudeau. I have to pay for the rape of Canada.” Eventually, blind Toronto teenager privately appeals to the judge, citing Keith’s kindness to her and his looking out for her at concerts. Through this intervention by the “Blind Angel,” an order is given to perform a free concert at the Canadian Institute for the Blind.
January 1979 – Trouble with evil twin heats up.
Stones begin work on Emotional Rescue. The rift between Keith and Mick gets ugly. Largely because Keith is no longer “gone” in a heroin blur, when the band’s operation was left to Mick.
February 1979 – Longtime Stones road manager goes missing in Bermuda Triangle. The Stones eventually find him.
April 1979 – Live concert to aid the Canadian Institute for the Blind,
as set in motion by the Blind Angel. The Stones perform with Ron Wood’s band, the New Barbarians.
June 27, 1979 – Toronto court again.
Keith’s statement: “I can truthfully say that the prospect of ever using drugs again in the future is totally alien to my thinking.” Drug-trafficking charges are dropped.
June–July 1979 – Keith’s drug dealer tells all.
Up and Down with the Rolling