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Keith Richards proves that there's life in the celebrity memoir yet After dismal sales last year, autobiographies by household names are once again flying off the shelves. Keith Richards’ autobiography starts really well and holds that momentum for a long time; although when it reaches the period covering the Eighties it does fall somewhat into score settling, and after that becomes somewhat bland and without spark. Keith Richard’s part memoir, part management practice and part travelogue, and written from the point of view of someone who describes himself as an ‘Outsider Inside’.The book is Keith’s candid, earnest and forthright account of his 35-year ‘love affair’ with Nigeria. Keith Richards certainly sees it as a syndrome, has a witty name for it, 'LVS' (lead vocalist syndrome), although it could easily be designated PMS (Point Man Syndrome). Symptoms include being a control freak, working sneaky deals behind the band's back, screwing. Life is a memoir by the Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, written with the assistance of journalist James Fox.Published in October 2010, in hardback, audio and e-book formats, the book chronicles Richards' love of music, charting influences from his mother and maternal grandfather, through his discovery of blues music, the founding of the Rolling Stones, his often turbulent relationship.

Little, Brown and Company

Keith Richards reveals something in his new memoir, Life: he did drugs. 'I've done so much bloody blow in my life, I don't miss it an inch. I think it gave me up.'

Keith Richards Memoir

But really, that the Rolling Stones guitarist regularly used heroin until 1979 and cocaine until 2006 isn't exactly news, nor is the candid way that he is talking about it. Given how much was already known about Richards' drug use (rumors even surfaced years ago that he snorted his dead father's ashes with a line of cocaine—Life confirms that he did, by the way), some recent murmurings from Disney are a little surprising. According to Drudge Report, the 'shocking admissions' of drug use in Richards' book could lead to his part being edited out of the next Pirates of the Caribbean film installment:

'They very well could end up cutting Keith out of the new movie over this,' claims an insider close to Disney.

Prior to the release of this book, was Disney unaware that Richards had been tried for drug-related charges five times? That he was sentenced to a year in prison for allowing weed to be smoked on his property in 1967? Or that in 2007—the year when made his first cameo in the Pirates franchise—he gave this interview in which, yes, he talks about using drugs? Why is it that it took Richards' memoir coming out for Disney to raise a moral fuss?

But Disney's possible firing of Richards is just one of many exaggerated reactions to seemingly obvious statements made in the book. Richards refers to Rolling Stones bandmate Mick Jagger as 'Your Majesty' and 'Brenda' in Life, calls him 'unbearable,' and declares that his solo record was 'like Mein Kampf. Everybody had a copy, but nobody listened to it.' Manywriters are shocked by the jabs at Jagger, but the two had been feuding—quite publicly—since the '80s (for example, this barb at Jagger after he was knighted).

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Keith Richards Biography Life

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