Keith Richards on the new Stones tour: 'What else would I be doing?'

Keith Richards is on the phone talking about one of his favorite subjects.

"The rhythm section ... I love rhythm sections, it all starts there," says the Rolling Stones guitarist as if describing the Book of Genesis. At his most eloquent, as in the passages from his 2010 memoir, "Life," when he reminisced about the days when he'd press his ear to a phonograph speaker to better hear the interplay of the Jimmy Reed or Muddy Waters band, the back-line figured mightily in his understanding of how music moved the soul.

Now he was thinking about his Stones compatriot, drummer Charlie Watts, possibly for a number of reasons. There's no doubt that the ebb-and-flow between Watts and Richards gives the best Stones music its eternal elasticity, and puts some jump in the band's hits-dominated stadium tours. But in