What happened to Keith Richards’ hands?

Keith Richards is the archetype of what every rhythm guitarist should strive for.

Although he never played anything too flashy in The Rolling Stones, his ability to come up with rhythm parts or put a riff together out of thin air is the kind of genius that helped spark the golden age of hard rock after the so-called “British Invasion”.

So, what happened to Keith Richards’ hands?

Despite being able to insure his hands for millions of dollars if he wanted to, Richards has developed a form of arthritis that severely limits the way he plays guitar.

Since his hands already looked like they were in pain when he wasn’t playing the guitar, he has had to make numerous changes to how he normally plays chords, usually shown strumming slightly differently whenever the group takes to the stage.

There are even a handful of songs on The Stones’ latest album, Hackney Diamonds, where Richards takes a back seat to Ronnie Wood, whether that’s for his solo number ‘Tell Me Straight’ or locking into a groove with Steve Jordan on drums. Still, Richards has gone through hell, and no amount of whining over a little finger fatigue would get in his way of making kickass music.

While Richards has still been pumping out riffs for decades, no one thought those immortal fingers suddenly falling silent.

Because when you look at his track record as a rock and roll hellraiser, Richards seems like he will outlive us all. Despite seeing his friends like Charlie Watts and Brian Jones pass away over the hills, Keef seems to have that gene that seems part-human and part-vampire half the time, especially considering the amount of drugs that should have probably killed him somewhere along the line.

But even though he can still deliver the goods onstage, he has had to restructure his usual approach to his guitar. Any guitarist of his age is going to go through some trouble with their fingers, but Richards has developed a condition that has severely limited what he could on the guitar outside of his famous licks.

While it didn’t take as much dexterity to play rhythm guitar, no amount of medical problems will ever slow Richards down.

He had gone through drug addiction and heartbreak too many times before, so what’s a little bit of finger pain to deal with for a lifetime’s worth of rock and roll excess?

While the condition is a serious ailment, Richards has said on numerous occasions that it is a benign version of arthritis and that he can still perform Stones classics with little trouble.

Since most of their setlist involves him only using a five-string guitar, it also makes his job a bit easier to only bar five strings instead of having to put the guitar neck in a chokehold whenever he straps it on.

Richards even said he is working with new ways around his problems all the time, saying, “I found that interesting when I’m like, ‘I can’t quite do that any more,’ the guitar will show me there’s another way of doing this.

Some finger will go one space different, and there’s a whole new door just opened here.” Most artists would think their playing days were numbered when getting a diagnosis like this, but Richards went to the Django Reinhart school of guitar playing, where every weakness can be turned into a strength.