Keith Richards (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 the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone 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 Mick Jagger on its “Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list.
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 – Brian Jones (1962-1969), Mick Taylor (1969-1975), or Ronnie Wood (1975-present). In the recording studio Richards sometimes plays all of the guitar parts, notably on the songs “Paint It Black”, “Ruby Tuesday”, “Sympathy for the Devil”, and “Gimme Shelter”. He is also a vocalist, singing backing vocals on many Rolling Stones songs as well as occasional lead vocals, such as on the Rolling Stones’ 1972 single “Happy”, as well as with his side project, the X-Pensive Winos.
He has also appeared in three Pirates of the Caribbean films as Captain Teague, father of Jack Sparrow, whose look and characterization was inspired by Richards himself.