With the Rolling Stones on tour this summer and fall, can you think of a better time to get intimate with 15 of Richards’ greatest guitar riffs? After all, they’re woven into the fabric of our lives. We’ve heard and, in many cases, played ’em a thousand times, yet they continue to sound amazingly fresh and energetic. But did we get them right? Let’s find out.

Tools

One guitar is all that’s required for this lesson, but if you want to accurately reproduce Richards’ tonal characteristics, you’ll need at least one electric, one acoustic, and a few low-wattage amps. And if you’ve got multiple axes, you may want to break a few of them out to accommodate the various open tunings covered in the following examples. And, speaking of tuning, not all of these riffs were recorded at concert pitch. You’ll find it necessary to tune slightly flat or sharp in order to play along with some of the original recordings.

Hooks Galore

It’s no accident that most of these catchy riffs serve as song introductions, though some also pull double duty as verse and/or chorus figures. These infectious themes grab you by the ears and quickly sink their claws deep into your psyche. Of course, many of these riffs have evolved over decades of Rolling Stones concerts, but we’ll focus on the album renditions, as there’s something indelible and heart-warming about the original performances that keeps us coming back. All of the following examples except “Midnight Rambler” and “Monkey Man” (from 1969’s Let It Bleed) are available on the Rolling Stones’ collection Forty Licks [Virgin]. Let’s savor them in chronological order. Grab your Les Paul, Tele, and Strat, fire up a few Vox, Fender, and Ampeg amps, and get ready to navigate rock and roll’s greatest riffs of wealth and taste. You may be surprised by what you find.