Skip to main content

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards lived fast when the band was at its peak. He cultivated a bad-boy image within the group, but his wild behavior revealed itself years earlier when he got kicked out of the boy scouts. The guitarist lived fast, but he drove slow. Richards picked up a $162.50 traffic ticket in 1975 because of his slow driving. As Rolling Stones bandmate Ronnie Wood tells it, Richards was lucky to escape having another drug arrest.

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards encounters fans and media in 1975 while standing next to a car.
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood rented a car to drive to a 1975 U.S. concert

The Rolling Stones’ 1975 tour of the United States kicked off with drummer Charlie Watts stealing a promotional trick to hype the trek. The band played from a moving flatbed truck in Manhattan a few weeks before the tour began.

As Wood writes in his autobiography Ronnie, a rough plane ride to Memphis after a tour stop near Washington D.C. left him and Richards shaken. They were reluctant to get on another play after playing Memphis. With a day off before a July 6 show in Dallas, Wood and Richards rented a car and drove to Texas.

Richards, Wood, Rolling Stones security chief Jim Callaghan, and drug hookup Freddie Sessler packed into a Chevy and headed from Tennessee to Texas. Richards received a $162.50 traffic ticket in Arkansas because of his slow driving. He and Wood were lucky to escape a massive drug bust, too.

Richards escaped a drug bust but got a $162.50 traffic ticket after police pointed their guns at him

Richards sat at the wheel on the way to Dallas, and “Keith was driving very, very slow — slow enough to get arrested for loitering — and swerving a bit too much from lane to lane,” Wood writes in Ronnie.

Later, Richards, Wood, and their passengers stopped in Fordyce, Ark., on their way to Dallas. The crossroads town in central Arkansas likely didn’t see visitors like them often, if ever. Their mere presence raised suspicion. Wood writes that a nervous diner owner called the police, who were waiting when the quartet departed.

“A patrol car suddenly appeared next to us, the cops motioned for us to pull over (Keith’s driving meant we were pretty much already stopped), and suddenly the two cops from the patrol car were standing in front of us with guns drawn,” Wood writes.

The cops detained Richards, Wood, Callaghan, and Sessler at Fordyce’s old city hall nearly all day, per Wood. The police impounded and searched the car, but not thoroughly enough. In a move out of The French Connection, the hollow spaces behind the door panels hid large amounts of cocaine and marijuana. 

The police missed the drug stash, which meant Richards avoided another Rolling Stones drug bust. But he didn’t walk away scot-free. Wood writes that the police gave Richards a $162.50 ticket for reckless driving.

The Rolling Stones’ founding guitarist is still alive

Related

Keith Richards Described 1 of the Easiest Decisions the Rolling Stones Ever Made

Despite years of heavy drug use, Keith Richards is still alive. 

He’s been prepared for his death for years, but he turned 79 years old in December 2022. That birthday came a few months after The Rolling Stones celebrated their 60th anniversary with a European tour.

He survived a drug bust in England in the 1960s relatively unscathed. He avoided serious jail time in Canada after facing heroin trafficking charges. (The court ordered him to play a concert for the blind as recompense). Keith Richards escaped with a $162.50 traffic ticket in Arkansas in 1975 when the police missed a stash of pot and cocaine in his rented car.

For more on the entertainment world and exclusive interviews, subscribe to Showbiz Cheat Sheet’s YouTube channel.

Best in Music