Keith Richards Brings Blissful Resolve to Crosseyed Heart

New releases are rare from the Rolling Stones. The last studio album of new material that garnered uniformly critical, popular and well-deserved praise dates back to 1978’s Some Girls.

In the studio, the band commonly-and arguably-known as the “World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band” has left little impact for almost four decades.

It’s a fact that leaves even the most patient and enduring fan resigned and frustrated. Mick Jagger’s stillborn solo career and Keith Richard’s ragged-but-right albums of the 80’s and early 90’s-with the X-Pensive Winos-were pleasant enough diversions. Richards surprisingly outpaced Jagger in critical praise. Meanwhile their legendary band waited in the wings for the Glimmer Twins minor ego battles to be settled in the dust of time and lack of phenomenal solo success.  But, as they reconciled and reunited, their fortune and influence has been made on the long international road of shows they’ve generously and successfully continued to present to near Ringling Brothers delirium.

But, it’s a roadshow and reputation based on albums created in the 60’s and 70’s over a span of 15 years.

A recent break in the Stone’s tour schedule has become a reason for rock’s most legendary living guitarist to allow for a little moss to grow as he cultivates a new album, Crosseyed Heart. 

First, to allay any doubts, Keith Richards’ new album is an unqualified success. To be sure, it’s more Wilbury than Stones, but it serves as a reminder of just how fine The Rolling Stones once were and can be again in the studio-if they commit to their material in the same way Richards has here.  

With no pressure to complete a collection of songs as a tie-in for his band’s most recent tour, Richards with considerable help from producer and drummer, Steve Jordan, has built an album that calls to mind the best blues, country, reggae drenched days of Exile on Main Street-without the heroin.  

Crosseyed Heart is a clear-eyed look deep into the heart of what makes Keith Richards tick as an artist, mainly a holy congregation of electric and acoustic guitars grinding out driving rhythms that remain close to the bone of what has always made his music great. And it all comes from the heart while remaining clear Richards is having fun here with little to prove beyond allowing the music to flow.

As chronicled in the recent Netflix documentary, Under the Influence, Richards has been not only influenced, but strongly shaped and formed by the music he’s embraced. This being so, there is a four-lane highway of song style that form Crosseyed Heart, which includes the obvious rock, blues and country, and less familiar to many fans, reggae.  

Opening with the title track, an acoustic solo Richards pounds out with the pulse of a Robert Johnson-like beat that eventually falls apart to a lighthearted casual close, but not before it is clear it has become a doorway into the greater rooms of Richards’ soul as portrayed on this album.  For Keith Richards, it all begins with the Delta blues of this little song.

“Heartbreaker, “and “Trouble” are smoky roadhouse rockers that move through the common Stones-like rhythm with lyrics that sound as if, in his old-age, it’s women who have Richards under their thumb. But, throughout the tightly wound rhythmic patterns on these songs with their reggae undertow, as though unleashed, his familiar guitar breaks out and sings with the energy and ease his  years of rock & roll passion allows. The albums then rolls like a slow-train through country blues on songs like “Robbed Blind,” an achingly beautiful song of lost love and “Just A Gift.” Also included is a stirring duet with Norah Jones, “Illusion.”

One of the best moments on the album is found in “Love Overdue,” a song written by reggae legend, the late Gregory Isaac. While Richards’ vocal has more character than technical prowess, his voice is smooth and tender on this tribute to the music of Jamaica washed in just the right amount of reverb.  

Its Richard’s straightforward homage to his hero, Chuck Berry that drives many of the songs including a raucous and raw “Blues in the Morning,” while “Goodnight Irene” is a sweet Dylanesque reading of the Lead belly folk classic.

By far the most modern of the rockers on this collection is the tour-de-force of “Substantial Damage,” which gives Richards the opportunity to one-up Jagger at his own sassy vocal game. It’s chaotic fun with a Tom Waits inspired arrangement of crashing percussion and guitars. This is the one track that may induce in the listener the desire to hear as a potential Rolling Stones song.

The album concludes on a solid R&B note with “Lover’s Plea.”  It could be more effectively sung by Percy Sledge or Otis Redding, but the Stax arrangement and Richards’ sincerity, vulnerability and obvious love for his inspiration, help him to pull it off to point of emotional beauty that would be hard for a better singer to lean into.

Throughout the proceedings, producer, Steve Jordan, has kept the album feeling fresh and live-in-the studio. In fact, it feels downright lived in.  He’s allowed Richards vocal to be upfront-remember the original buried vocal on “Happy?”  There’s no mistaking, this is Keith Richards here in his full imperfect glory. 

The band remains the original X-Pensive Winos, with the final performance by the late Bobby Keys on sax on any album by a Rolling Stone. Waddy Wachtel adds great companion guitar chemistry to Richards-a necessity for the guitarist based on his Stones history with a succession of mates including Brian Jones, Mick Taylor and Ron Wood. Wachtel fills their shoes well.

It’s hard to feel anything but love for the authentic spirit of this loose, ragged and beautifully celebrative album. It not only gives us Keith Richards at the peak of his powers as a guitarist and an imaginative recording artist; it also helps us remember how good The Stones could be in their studio glory days.

The album more than reaches its potential as a hint of what a fan might expect of a latter day classic Stones album-which many still hold out hope for.   But this is 100 proof Keith Richards and ultimately he shines through with often playful and engaging creative bursts.

Like the bony, blissfully wrinkled and worn face who smiles out from the cover, the album is warm, familiar and resolved in its expression of love for a life in music that has been well lived.

What more can any artist ask for as he looks back over his life and the music that has always driven him?