Contributing musicians: Keith Richards, Steve Jordan, Waddy Wachtel, Charles Hodges, Larry Campbell, Bernard Fowler, Ivan Neville, Bobby Keys, Paul Nowinski, Meegan Voss, Blondie Chaplin, Norah Jones, David Paich, Pino Palladino, Clifton Anderson, Kevin Batchelor, Charles Dougherty, Pierre DeBeauport, Spooner Oldham, Ben Cauley, Jack Hale, Lannie McMillan, Jim Horn, Aaron Neville, Babi Floyd, Sarah Dash, Harlem Gospel Choir.

Crosseyed Heart
Heartstopper
Amnesia
Robbed Blind
Trouble
Love Overdue
Nothing on Me
Suspicious
Blues in the Morning
Something for Nothing
Illusion
Just a Gift
Goodnight Irene
Substantial Damage
Lover's Plea
 
 
 

(The sessions were) very civilized... He hadn't played in a while, so we took the recording sessions really slowly - bi-weekly to start with, just a few hours... Which is very different from the other albums, when we would start at midnight and end at 8 AM... We'd knock about a tune he already had, maybe one he'd even cut a demo with in the Stones.

Keith Richards took his time to complete Crosseyed Heart... Certainly, Crosseyed Heart hardly feels like it was labored over; it's not the work of a perfectionist hoping every element lands in its right place. It sounds like it was knocked out in a week, which is about the highest compliment that can be paid to a record as casual as this. Main Offender felt like the result of endless hours of expensive studio jams, but Crosseyed Heart feels like it fell into place, with its songs arising out of jams with a drummer instead of being excuses for jams. Bookended by acoustic numbers -- the first is the charmingly tossed-off title track, a song that feels clipped in its conclusion, the last a version of Lead Belly's Goodnight Irene, with the lyrics slightly modified -- the album does indeed bear the suggestion of a construction, a record that slides from obsession to obsession without calling attention to transitions. Nothing here is surprising, not the overdriven Chess boogie of Blues in the Morning or the ska shuffle of Love Overdue, but that familiarity is an asset, because Keith luxuriates in his detours so much he winds up synthesizing his affections into a signature, a move highlighted by the soulful crawl of the Norah Jones duet Illusion, a song where both singers seem seduced by the slow groove. Illusion mildly recalls Make No Mistake, but where that Talk Is Cheap number underlined its Stax connections, Crosseyed Heart isn't so edgy: Keith no longer has to prove what he has to contribute to either the Stones or the culture at large, so he settles into his favorite sounds, loving to play the blues, rock & roll, country, and folk he's always savored, then sliding into the open-chord boogie that's unmistakably his. He may not forcibly claim this ground here but that's the appeal of Crosseyed Heart: it's a winningly low-key record, where the atmosphere matters more than the songs, yet Richards doesn't neglect writing tunes this time around. 4/5

Keith Richards' first solo album since 1992 opens like a fever dream, with the 71-year-old rock god croaking acoustic blues like Robert Johnson after burning down a half-ounce spliff. But it's a feint. All right, that's all I got, he snaps just under two minutes in, before upshifting into his most eccentric and best-ever solo set. Crosseyed Heart is the sound of Richards following his pleasure wherever it leads, with a lean, simpatico team including longtime session pals Steve Jordan, Ivan Neville and Waddy Wachtel backing him up all the way. Naturally, there's a dip into roots reggae: Gregory Isaacs' 1974 lovers' rock signature, Love Overdue, complete with brass and Neville's sweet backing vocals. There's also a straight read of Goodnight Irene, a folk standard that Richards likely heard as a kid when the Weavers' version charted in 1950. Two originals are as strong as any Stones songs of recent decades: Robbed Blind, a Dead Flowers-scented outlaw-country ballad that echoes Merle Haggard's Sing Me Back Home, and Trouble, all hiccup-riff swagger with a slide-guitar mash note from Wachtel to ex-Stone Mick Taylor. There's a charmingly cheeky duet with Norah Jones (Illusion), and some beautifully telling moments (see Amnesia) where Keith's guitar is nearly everything — his sublime grooves sprouting melodic blooms and thorny leads. It's proof that, at core, dude's an army of one. 3.5/5

In the Crosseyed Heart song Nothing on Me, Keith Richards reflects on his reputation as an outlaw: They laid it on too thick / They couldn't make it stick... Although it's impressive that Richards can keep a grudge warm for over 40 years, the song also brings into focus a particularly rueful sensibility that runs through the grain of Crosseyed Heart. Principally, the songs here are concerned with betrayal, romance and love lost; all delivered with the wisdom of Richards' accumulated years... In that sense, Crosseyed Heart has the warm, cask-aged feel of a late-period Dylan album. It's not dark yet, but it's getting there: just time for the playful reckoning with the myths, the ladies and the ones that got away... The best songs have a(...) relaxed vibe to them. On Amnesia, that might be a distant, funkier cousin to Doom and Gloom - Keith dryly confesses: I didn't even know the Titanic sank. Elsewhere, Robbed Blind is carried along on a rolling piano and pedal steel that channels the melody from Dylan's Queen Jane Approximately... The rest of the LP is not perfect by any standards - some of the tracks, like Heartstopper, feel like generic mid-tempo, Transatlantic rockers. Lyrically, Richards sometimes relies too heavily on the Random Stones Lyric Generator... But Richards has always worn his humour and his soul well, and those qualities are sympathetically served here. If Crosseyed Heart is an indciation of where a potential new Stones LP might one day go, then this is the kind of record you'd wish they'd make. 7/10

Back to Main Page.