10 Keith Richards Collaborations Outside of the Rolling Stones

For quite a while, Keith Richards was perfectly content to simply be the Rolling Stones‘ lead guitarist. Even after 20 years, this was enough for him.

“I, personally, had no intention of doing anything outside of the Stones until 1986, when Mick [Jagger] decided he wanted to make movies,” Richards said to GQ in 2020. “Hey, we both needed a break. I mean, I’m not going to put it on one guy or the other. We’ve been doing the Stones for a long time, and everybody wanted to spread their wings a bit, I guess. Except Mick wanted to do it before I did.”

Richards wound up releasing his first solo album, Talk Is Cheap, in 1988, recorded with the X-Pensive Winos.

“I learned an awful lot really quickly about what it is to be the frontman and working with different guys and seeing how they would treat it differently,” Richards said, looking back at the experience. “They gave me so many new insights. Sometimes you can be deaf to things, or blind, so to get their take on these songs — I was open for business.”

Talk Is Cheap opened the door for numerous other collaborations outside of Richards’ work with the Rolling Stones which, of course, he continued to do. Below we’ve listed 10 such examples in chronological order.

1. That’s the Way God Planned It With Billy Preston

Richards is best known for playing guitar, but please never underestimate his skills on bass, which he has utilized a number of times on Rolling Stones records. He also it put it to good use on “Do What You Want” and “That’s the Way God Planned It (Parts 1 & 2),” the opening and closing tracks to Billy Preston‘s 1969 album That’s the Way God Planned It.

 

2. Bush Doctor With Peter Tosh

Both Richards and Jagger contributed to Peter Tosh’s 1978 album Bush Doctor — which makes sense given it was released on Rolling Stones Records, the label formed by the band in 1970. Richards plays guitar on two tracks, “Bush Doctor” and “Stand Firm.” “If anybody can bring reggae music to the rest of the world, especially America, then Peter’s the one to do it along with Bob Marley,” Richards said to Creem in 1979.

 

3. “Truly” With Ian McLagan

Ian McLagan, keyboardist for the Faces, was very close friends with Richards. Below, you can hear Richards play guitar and sing backing vocals on “Truly” from McLagan’s debut solo album, 1979’s Troublemaker. Richards and McLagan were actually bandmates for a brief period in a group called the New Barbarians.

 

4. Rain Dogs With Tom Waits

Rain Dogs (1985) was the first Tom Waits‘ album that Richards appeared on, though not the last. Richards contributed guitar to three Rain Dogs songs: “Big Black Mariah,” “Union Square” and “Blind Love.” Later, Richards played on Bone Machine (1992) and Bad as Me (2011).

 

5. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” With Aretha Franklin

In 1987, Aretha Franklin became the very first woman to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Franklin did not attend the ceremony, but Richards was there to deliver a rather disheveled induction speech. When Franklin recorded a version of the Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” for the album Aretha, she naturally enlisted Richards to play lead guitar. In 2008, Richards was asked by Rolling Stone to name his top 20 singers. At number 20 he put himself, and at number one he put Franklin.

6. “Ghost Dance” With Marianne Faithfull

This 1994 Marianne Faithfull track is a cover of Patti Smith‘s “Ghost Dance.” Richards played guitar, as well as coproduced it, and it also includes Ronnie Wood on backing vocals and Charlie Watts on drums. Because the only thing better than one Rolling Stone is three of them.

 

7. “Paying the Cost to Be the Boss” With B.B. King

In 1997, the legendary B.B. King enlisted the help of a whole bunch of fellow musicians for an album called Deuces Wild. On “Paying the Cost to Be the Boss,” that meant Richards, Jagger, Watts, Wood and Darryl Jones on bass.

 

8. The Last of the Rock Stars With Ronnie Spector

Even just the first few chords of “Work Out Fine,” from Ronnie Spector‘s The Last of the Rock Stars (2006) album screams Richards. He played on this track, plus “All I Want.” “I’ll tell you, nobody has Keith Richards’ heart,” Spector told Rolling Stone in 2016. “He has the biggest, greatest heart.”

 

9. “That Kind of Fool” With Jerry Lee Lewis

Jagger and Wood appeared as joint guests on “Evening Gown,” a track from Jerry Lee Lewis’ 2006 album Last Man Standing. Richards, however, got a whole track to himself where he got to sing lead.

 

10. “The Worst” With Sheryl Crow

In 2017, Rolling Stone asked Sheryl Crow who her heroes are. “Gandhi,” she replied, “and then after that I would say Keith Richards.” On Crow’s 2019 album Threads, Richards both sings and plays guitar on “The Worst,” a song that originally appeared on the Stones’ 1994 album Voodoo Lounge.