The guitarist Bruce Springsteen thought was out of everybody’s league: “Spectrally beautiful”

Bruce Springsteen has said Keith Richards was a major influence on his guitar playing, describing the Rolling Stones guitarist as “spectrally beautiful”. Richards helped inspire Springsteen to learn the instrument and showed how the Stones’ blend of rock and R&B could shape a younger musician’s sound.

Springsteen recalled being voted out of an early band, The Rogues, partly because his inexpensive guitar would not stay in tune. He went home, put on the Rolling Stones’ second album and spent the night learning Richards’s solo on “It’s All Over Now”, which the Stones had taken to number one in Britain in 1964 after it was first recorded by The Valentinos.