Keef’s showbiz tips

Business associate owes you money and refuses to pay? Here’s how it’s done, as explained by Keef...

One big setback we had was not being paid by Robert Stigwood for a tour we did with one of his acts... This was his modus operandi — late paying turned into not paying at all... One night at a club called the Scotch of St James he made the terrible mistake of coming down the stairs as Andrew [Oldham] and I were going up. We blocked off the staircase so I could extract payment. You can’t use a boot on a winding staircase

(please note this well)

so he got the knee, one for every grand he owed us — sixteen of them. Even then he never apologized. Maybe I didn’t kick him hard enough.

• Keith Richards, Life, Chapter 5

Fortunately for Stigwood, this was in the days before Allen Klein looked after the Stones.