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Photo Gallery: Portraits of Keith Richards 1963-71

Was the Human Riff ever as photogenic as Mick Jagger?

by Jasper ReesThursday, 28 October 2010

The Human Riff is ready for his poolside close-up

The lens loved Mick. Those child-bearing lips, to use Joan Rivers’s ripe phrase, always came up a treat in photographs. Did it ever love Keith quite so much? Ever since he started creosoting himself in eyeliner and crumbling like an oxidising mummy before our very eyes, he has been the incarnation of the photogenic rock wreck. Once upon a time, though, when The Rolling Stones were at their creative zenith, the Human Riff presented a young and even ingenuous mug to the camera. A new exhibition of portraits, to coincide with the publication of his autobiography Life, shows Richards before heroin and kohl began to play merry hell with that infamous physiognomy.

Images 1-3 © Philip Townsend
Image 4 © Eddie Kramer
Images 5-8 © Michael Cooper/Raj Prem Fine Art Photography
Images 9 & 10 © Dominique Tarle

Click on the images to enlarge

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