Besides being the co-founder of The Rolling Stones and one of the most important lyricists of their career alongside Mick Jagger, Keith Richards is also known as one of the most influential rhythm guitar players of all time. He has been an incredible inspiration for countless musicians over the past six decades that the band has been active.
Richards is also remembered for being quite sincere and always saying what he really thinks about other artists. So when he praises someone, it’s likely that he genuinely means it. Once, he mentioned a guitarist, saying this musician was a better guitarist than he was.
The guitar player that Keith Richards said was better than him
Curiously, the guitar player is José Feliciano, the Puerto Rican singer and guitarist. He became famous for songs like “Feliz Navidad” and many renditions of famous Rock and Roll songs, including many Stones tracks.
In an interview with Esquire magazine in 2015, Keith Richards was asked if he knew that José Feliciano lived in the same town the guitarist lived at the time, which was Connecticut. His answer was: “I do know that, but I’ve never met him. We’ve never crossed paths, even though Weston is a very small town—there’s a gas station and a market.”
The interview jokes, saying: “So you’re actually the second-best guitarist in Weston, Connecticut.” Keith replied, saying: “I’d go for that. He’s a far better guitar player than me. No, I mean technically, classically. I ain’t trained that way. I force the thing to do as it’s told.”
During the same conversation Keith said he hates to give interviews with Guitar Magazine, for example. Because they ask a lot of technical stuff and he doesn’t know much about it.
José Feliciano
José Feliciano was born in Lares, Puerto Rico in 1945, two years after Keith Richards. He was born blind as a result of congenital glaucoma and was first exposed to music at the age of 3. He started his musical career when he was still a teenager, in 1962. His debut album was released in 1965. Since then he has released more than 50 albums worldwide in both English and Spanish.
He covered a few Rolling Stones a few times live and some of them were “Under My Thumb”, “The Last Time” and “Start Me Up”. He became famous especially in the United States in 1968 with the release of his album “Feliciano!” That record had praised covers of “California Dreamin'”, “Light My Fire”, “In My Life” and “And I Love Her”. That record was nominated for “Album of the Year” at the 1969 Grammy Awards and Feliciano won the prize for “Best New Artist” that year.
His biggest hit single was the cover of The Doors’ “Light My Fire”. It appeared on the Top 10 for several countries like Canada, USA and UK. His most recent album is “Behind This Guitar”, released in 2020.