Keith Richards speaks of some of his favorite Keith Richards solo recordings including this reference of the Richards-Gibbons connection

“Keith Richards speaks of some of his favorite Keith Richards solo recordings including this Richards-Gibbons connection.  Take a listen and it does indeed become clear that the mysteriously unfathomable

start-up of the song challenges even the most dedicated of downbeat fans.”

“Take It So Hard” [1988]

Album: Talk Is Cheap

After Jagger decided to go solo in the mid-Eighties, Richards did the same, jamming with drummer Steve Jordan, who’d appeared on the Stones’ 1986 album, Dirty Work. “He heard something in my voice which he thought could make superfine records,” Richards recalled. Together they collected wealth of like-minded player to make for a top rate band, dubbed “The X- Pensive Winos”, which included keyboardist Ivan Neville and guitarist Waddy Wachtel, and went on into Canada recording Talk Is Cheap. “The mood was ferociously hot. We could hardly believe it,” Richards said. “Yet It was just that which brought me back to the good groove. I felt as if I’d just gotten out of some sort of jail.” One of the first tracks cut was the rocker that became the album’s first single — a lover’s pep talk with a hard groove, barroom piano, a misfit-gang chorus and Richards’ roaring Telecaster. “I went back to the house thinking, ‘We’ve conquered Everest already?’ said Wachtel. When Billy F Gibbons of ZZ Top heard the song, its shuddering intro stood out — and BFG recounted a lengthy conversation with Richards about the intro to Bo Diddley’s “Crackin’ Up,” which the Stones covered earlier in the Seventies. “You can’t find the downbeat [on “Crackin’ Up”]… and the first time I heard those confounding opening bars of ‘Take It So Hard,’ it was that same, can’t-find-the-downbeat effect,” said Gibbons. “You can’t help but smile.”

– – – Grainger Parlance

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