Keith Richards is the king of putdowns. Bruce Springsteen? “To me, it’s pretentious,” he told Rolling Stone in 1988. Prince? “To me, it’s kid stuff.” Guns N’ Roses? “I admire their guts. But too much posing.”
But no fellow rocker has earned the Telecaster-toting guitarist’s ire as much as Elton John. It’s bad enough that Richards has taken every opportunity to refer to John in interviews by his homely birth name, Reginald Dwight — he’s also leveled some of his harshest snipes at the piano-playing rocker. In response, Elton — a musician every bit as bitchy as Keef — has given back in equal measure.
To be fair, there’s nothing unusual about feuds between rockers. They all have egos — and opinions. Even Carlos Santana, known for his beneficent and spiritual demeanor has a dark streak. Remember when he famously put down Kiss in 2000, launching a years’ long fight between the two men?
But Keith and Elton’s spat has been among the longest running, and certainly most enjoyable to watch, over the years.
Apparently it began at a 1975 Rolling Stones concert in Fort Collins, Colorado during the group’s Tour of the Americas ’75. It was the band’s first road show with Ronnie Wood, who replaced Mick Taylor following his comparatively brief stint in the band. With no new album to announce — It’s Only Rock ’N Roll had come out more than seven months earlier — the band was simply trying out its new lineup and giving fans more of what they wanted.
Unfortunately every one got a little too much at the July 20 show in Fort Collins at Hughes Stadium. Midway through the show, the Stones brought Elton onstage to play piano and sing along as they performed their hit “Honky Tonk Women.” Introduced by Mick Jagger as “Reg from Watford,” Elton appeared onstage wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers windbreaker and a cowboy hat.
He performed “Honky Tonk Women,” then played along on another 10 songs. The Stones’ keyboardists, Billy Preston and Ian Stewart, were put off by his endless noodling. The band struggled to get him to leave, and even the audience began to boo.
As John explained in his autobiography, Rocketman, his behavior was all down to the effects of cocaine, which was quickly becoming everyone’s drug of choice in the 1970s.
“Cocaine gave me too much confidence for my own good,” he wrote. “If I hadn’t been coked out of my head when the Rolling Stones turned up in Colorado and asked me to come onstage with them, I might have just performed ‘Honky Tonk Women,’ waved to the crowd and made my exit. Instead, I decided it was going so well, I’d stay on and jam along to the rest of their set, without first taking the precaution of asking the Stones if they wanted an auxiliary keyboard player.”
“For a while, I thought Keith Richards kept staring at me because he was awestruck by the brilliance of my improvised contributions to their oeuvre. After a few songs, it finally penetrated my brain that the expression on his face wasn’t really suggestive of profound musical appreciation. I quickly scuttled off, noting as I went that Keith was still staring at me in a manner that suggested we’d be discussing this later, and decided it might be best if I didn’t hang around for the after-show party.”
Years later, Richards was still fuming. Asked in that same Rolling Stones article above what he thought of Elton’s then current top-10 single, “I Don’t Wanna Go On With You Like That,” he replied, “Lovely bloke, but posing.”
Elton took the sniping in stride. But it was Richards’ next zinger that got under his skin.
When Elton’s friend Princess Diana died in 1997, he reframed his 1973 hit “Candle in the Wind,” an ode to Marilyn Monroe, as a tribute to the late member of the royal family.
Keith stuck the knife in. “Songs for Dead Blondes,” he declared of the two tunes in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that October. “I’d find it difficult to ride on the back of something like that myself, but Reg is showbiz.”
Elton responded in kind in an interview with The Daily News that same month.
“I’m glad I’ve given up drugs and alcohol,” he griped. “It would be awful to be like Keith Richards. He’s pathetic, poor thing. It’s like a monkey with arthritis, trying to go onstage and look young.
“I have great respect for the Stones but they would have been better if they had thrown Keith out 15 years ago. … I just think he’s an asshole and I have for a long time.”
Elton was apparently still seething in 2011 when he took aim at Richards’ new autobiography, Life, in which the guitarist revealed some details about Mick Jagger’s anatomy that would be better left unsaid.
“I was a bit put off by hearing about the bit about Mick Jagger’s penis,” Elton huffed. “If I said that [John’s songwriting partner] Bernie Taupin was a miserable twat and had a small penis, he’d probably never talk to me again. It’s like, why do that?”
With no end in sight to the feud, Ronnie Wood intervened to get the two men to call a truce. When Keef and Elton showed up for the GQ Awards in London on September 8, 2015, relations were cordial enough for them to pose for a photo together.
Apparently all was forgiven on both sides when Elton joined the Stones for a guest appearance on the tracks “Get Close” and “Live by the Sword” from their 2023 album, Hackney Diamonds. John was thrilled to finally become part of the Rolling Stones family, alongside guests that included Paul McCartney.
But Keith couldn’t help using the collaboration for a bit of self-aggrandizement, noting that it was Elton — not the Stones — who was basking in reflected glory.
“Everyone’s a fan of the Rolling Stones. Just like Paul, Elton was like, ‘I just fucking played with the Rolling Stones.’”
