Rip This Joint

There's not enough space on this half-page to cover the depth of Bobby Keys' discography. Here he is discussing a sample of the setlist you can expect when his Suffering Bastards come to town; he played on all these original recordings. “A lot of the material is taken from the Stones stuff, Exile On Main Street and Sticky Fingers, that period of time,” he says in his friendly Texan drawl. “Also some stuff from Joe Cocker I did with Mad Dogs & Englishmen, some hit records I did with George Harrison on All Things Must Pass and some John Lennon things people would be familiar with; Whatever Gets Your Through The Night and Power To The People.”

That's barely scratching the surface; you could go into classic albums from Warren Zevon, Dr John, Eric Clapton, Donovan, Harry Nilsson… Even the personnel on Keys' eponymous 1972 debut solo album are staggering, “There's some great players on there. Clapton plays a lot of guitar on there, George and Ringo, Billy Preston, some excellent musicians…”

The Rolling Stones will always be the band Keys is best known for his association with; he's been with them almost 45 years and has been a vital part of their sound. He says when he first went in to lay down a sax part on the Let It Bleed album, he didn't know what he was getting himself into. “Didn't have a clue. The first track I played on was Live With Me, which was also the first track that Mick Taylor played on.”

After all these years, he never gets sick of playing with or listening to the Stones. “Nope, I really don't. The band have never become a parody of themselves, they're not just going through the motions or any of that jazz – I'd get sick of that real fast. I don't get sick of playing with people that are playing on the kind of level they are – I've played Brown Sugar 2000 times or more, and I still put everything into it as much as I did the first time I played it – as do they.

Having played on so many hugely influential recordings, it's interesting to hear where Keys himself found his early inspiration. The late 1950s was a big time for the saxophone in rock'n'roll. “My approach to music was influenced by King Curtis and saxophone players of the late '50s on the Atlantic label, they had so many great saxophone players – The Coasters' records, LaVern Baker… That's when I became really aware of the saxophone as a rock'n'roll instrument. And those old r'n'b records, Fats Domino, Little Richard – everyone had saxophones! Then it changed and everybody had guitars.”

He comes to Australia with The Suffering Bastards, a band put together by a friend for a bit of fun. “It all came about primarily because I was looking for something to do; a sax player in Nashville is not the busiest guy in town. I ran into this fella Chark [Von Kinsolving]; he had a place to play and knew musicians and it worked out real well.”