Backstage with Keith Richards

On the Stones' Steel Wheels tour, Birmingham, AL, 1989

I was minding my own business, sitting in an aisle seat in around the 20th row of Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., to see the Rolling Stones for a second time on the Steel Wheels tour. On a warm October night in 1989, I remember exactly what I was thinking: having a reverie about Bo Jackson, when he played football at Auburn, smashing through the Crimson Tide defense in what in this state is the only game that matters: The Iron Bowl, which used to be played at "neutral" Legion Field, the Alabama-Auburn football game, usually the day after Thanksgiving.

Living Colour, according to the internet, were the opening act, and I was relaxing waiting to see them when a hand tapped me on the arm, a publicist for the band. "Hi Wayne, Keith wants to know if you want to come backstage and hang out a little bit."

I had to take a second to process the question. I had already done my interview with Keith Richards the day before at the Tutweiler Hotel, the old-school fancy place downtown built by and …