Keith Richards - Crosseyed Heart

[All Nights Reserved]

Keith Richards' first solo album since 1992 opens like a fever dream, with the 71-year-old rock god croaking acoustic blues like Robert Johnson after burning down a half-ounce spliff. But it's a feint. "All right, that's all I got," he snaps just under two minutes in, before upshifting into his most eccentric and best-ever solo set. Crosseyed Heart is the sound of Richards following his pleasure wherever it leads, with a lean, simpatico team including longtime session pals Steve Jordan, Ivan Neville and Waddy Wachtel backing him up all the way.

 

Naturally, there's a dip into roots reggae: Gregory Isaacs' 1974 lovers' rock signature, "Love Overdue," complete with brass and Neville's sweet backing vocals. There's also a straight read of "Goodnight Irene," a folk standard that Richards likely heard as a kid when the Weavers' version charted in 1950. Two originals are as strong as any Stones songs of recent decades: "Robbed Blind," a "Dead Flowers"-scented outlaw-country ballad that echoes Merle Haggard's "Sing Me Back Home," and "Trouble," all hiccup-riff swagger with a slide-guitar mash note from Wachtel to ex-Stone Mick Taylor. There's a charmingly cheeky duet with Norah Jones ("Illusion"), and some beautifully telling moments (see "Amnesia") where Keith's guitar is nearly everything — his sublime grooves sprouting melodic blooms and thorny leads. It's proof that, at core, dude's an army of one.

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/keith-richards-crosseyed-heart-20150914

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_btCZWi1jkg

[heavyharmonies]

Huh. I never knew the undead could sing.

[PeterS]

Talk is Cheap and Main Offender are two of my favourite albums.

 

After two spins doesn't seem in the same class as those two but maybe a grower?

[All Nights Reserved]

Talk is Cheap and Main Offender are two of my favourite albums.

 

After two spins doesn't seem in the same class as those two but maybe a grower?

 

Just my thoughts. It's lighter, mellower than the previous ones (of course, he's 72 this year), but it easily could be a grower.

[martinsane]

Interestingly enough or maybe not but the glam band Talks Cheap got their band name from that Talk Is Cheap album. We listened to "Take It So Hard" 20 times a day back then running all over town in the self made topless 75' Plymouth Duster.

 

[All Nights Reserved]

My favourite one is probably "999" off Main Offender. At least this one rocks for sure.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-sJSszVD3M

[Jez]

Does he only know one or two riffs??

[All Nights Reserved]

Does he only know one or two riffs??

 

It's basically two. But you are able to play that under any influences.

[PeterS]

 

Talk is Cheap and Main Offender are two of my favourite albums.

 

After two spins doesn't seem in the same class as those two but maybe a grower?

 

Just my thoughts. It's lighter, mellower than the previous ones (of course, he's 72 this year), but it easily could be a grower.

 

 

He might be 72 but we're also a couple of weeks (cough) older as well.

 

It is growing on me but there are a few songs in there I just can't get into.

 

Also. How do you go from being ripped off and not being able to go to the police to 'You got nothing on me'?