“The Rolling Stones” Keith Richards Hand Signed 10X8 Color Photo. This item is authenticated By Todd Mueller Autographs and comes with their certificate of authenticity. (born 18 December 1943), often referred to during the 1960s and 1970s as Keith Richard, is an English musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the co-founder, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-principal songwriter of. Magazine called Richards the creator of “rock’s greatest single body of riffs” on guitar and ranked him fourth on its list of 100 best guitarists in 2011. The magazine lists fourteen songs that Richards wrote with the Rolling Stones’ lead vocalist. Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Richards plays both lead and rhythm guitar parts, often in the same song; the Stones are generally known for their guitar interplay of rhythm and lead (“weaving”) between him and the other guitarist in the band. In the recording studio Richards sometimes plays all of the guitar parts, notably on the songs. Sympathy for the Devil. He is also a vocalist, singing. On many Rolling Stones songs as well as occasional lead vocals, such as on the Rolling Stones’ 1972 single. , as well as with his. He has also appeared in three. Pirates of the Caribbean. Whose look and characterization was inspired by Richards himself. Richards was born on 18 December 1943 at Livingston Hospital, in. He is the only child of Doris Maud Lydia (née Dupree) and Herbert William Richards. His father was a factory worker who was wounded in the. Richards’s paternal grandparents, Ernie and Eliza Richards, were socialists and civic leaders, whom he credited as more or less creat[ing] the Walthamstow. , and both were mayors of the. Municipal Borough of Walthamstow. In Essex, with Eliza becoming mayor in 1941. His great-grandfather’s family originated from. His maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore “Gus” Dupree, who toured Britain with a. Gus Dupree and His Boys, fostered Richards’s interest in the guitar. Richards has said that it was Dupree who gave him his first guitar. His grandfather’teased’ the young Richards with a guitar that was on a shelf that Richards couldn’t reach at the time. Finally, Dupree told Richards that if Richards could reach the guitar, he could have it. Richards then devised all manner of ways of reaching the guitar, including putting books and cushions on a chair, until finally getting hold of the instrument, after which his grandfather taught him the rudiments of Richards’s first tune. He worked on the number’like mad’, and then his grandfather let him keep the guitar, which he called’the prize of the century’. Richards played at home, listening to recordings by. His father, on the other hand, disparaged his son’s musical enthusiasm. One of Richards’s first guitar heroes was Elvis’s guitarist. Richards attended Wentworth Primary School with. And was his neighbour until 1954 when the Richards and Jagger families both moved. From 1955 to 1959, Richards attended Dartford Technical High School for Boys. Recruited by Dartford Tech’s choirmaster, R. “Jake” Clare, he sang in a trio of. At, among other occasions. In 1959, Richards was expelled from Dartford Tech for truancy and transferred to. At Sidcup, he was diverted from his studies proper and devoted more time to playing guitar with other students in the boys’ room. At this point, Richards had learned most of. Richards inadvertently met Jagger again on a train platform when Jagger was heading for classes at the. London School of Economics. That Jagger was carrying revealed a mutual interest and led to a renewal of their friendship. Along with mutual friend Dick Taylor, Jagger was singing in an amateur band, Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys, which Richards soon joined. The Blue Boys folded when. After sharing thoughts on their joint interest in the blues music, invited Mick and Keith to the Bricklayers Arms pub, where they then met. By mid-1962 Richards had left. To devote himself to music, and moved into a London flat with Jagger and Jones. His parents divorced at about the same time, resulting in his staying close to his mother and remaining. From his father until 1982. In 1963, the band’s manager. Dropped the s from Richards’s surname, believing that “Keith Richard”, in his words, “looked more pop”. During the late 1970s, Richards re-established the s in his surname.