Never intensely interested in soloing, Richards preferred to work the groove using open-chord tunings drawn from Delta blues. Richards was born in Dartford, Kent. In 1951, while attending primary school, Richards first met and befriended Jagger, although they would be split up three years later when they moved on to different schools. By this age, Richards had already become interested in music.. Behavior problems at school led to Richards’ expulsion in 1959, but the headmaster thought he might find a niche as an artist,, and Richards was sent to Sidcup Art School. There he met future Pretty Things guitarist Dick Taylor, who at the time was playing in a blues band with Jagger. Discovering their new mutual interest, Richards and Jagger struck up their friendship all over again, and Richards joined their band not long after. Over the next couple of years, that band evolved into the Rolling Stones, who officially debuted on-stage in the summer of 1962. The rest was history — initially a blues and R&B cover band, the Stones branched out into original material penned by Jagger and Richards. ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ made them superstars in the States as well as the U.K., boasting one of rock’s all-time great guitar riffs, which Richards played into a tape recorder in the middle of the night. After the death of Brian Jones in 1969, the Stones became a more straightforward, hard-rocking outfit, and Richards’ guitar took center stage more than ever before. Over 1976-1977, Richards entered the studio for a few solo sessions, but the only result to see the light of day was the Christmas single ‘Run Rudolph Run’ (issued in 1978). The Stones returned in 1978 with Some Girls, it was acclaimed as their strongest, most focused work in years, and helped rejuvenate their popularity as an arena rock attraction. Things went sailing along smoothly for the next few years. Richards released his first solo album, Talk Is Cheap, in 1988. The Stones had their biggest success in some time with the 1989 album Steel Wheels and its blockbuster supporting tour. In the early ’90s, Richards and Jagger once again began working on solo projects, but this time with the understanding that nothing took precedence over the Stones; Richards’ second studio album, Main Offender, was issued in 1992, and again received fairly solid notices. Since then, Richards has concentrated on recording and touring with the Stones.
