I'm about two thirds of the way through Keith Richards' Life (2010), and I'm finding it to be quite simply terrific. Some of the descriptive bits are so vivid you'd think the guy was a novelist rather than a rock 'n' roller - I nearly wrote "rocker" there, which would have been a mistake, because one of the really big deals to him is the importance of the swing element in music. He comes back to the point several times in fact, and one of the criticisms that he has for a lot of rock is that the roll part has been forgotten (but I don't agree with him in thinking that the charge can be applied to the Beatles - just listen to "Eight Days a Week": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtuybFrq7Rw, in comparison to "Something Happened to Me Yesterday": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=banNjTF6qEI, if you want evidence. However the Stones did learn to swing much harder later on, like on this one for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geQ_SmCZWjE). The book has a lot of very insightful stuff on music from the various perspectives that he's assumed (fan, student, performer, composer, band leader), including some things I'd never seen written about before, really important for musicians and fans to think about. It's not only a great and fun autobiography, it's an essential book on music.

One of the many musicians originally inspired by the Stones, David Johansen, had a similar comment recently about how vital swing rhythms are to rock, pointing out that without it, rock becomes militaristic - which was the case with a lot of punk. It's also the case with techno and any other style of music played (largely) by machines. The human element necessary in trying to figure out how the triplet and the eighth note co-exist (playing swing eighth notes is one of the most difficult things a jazz musician has to learn) is crucial to the excitement generated and will never be replicated or replaced. The best swing music - be it jazz, country, rock, r&b - has the power to draw in the listener in a very subtle and seductive way, and I'm not sure that music that doesn't understand this is destined to last. Which won't be the case with the work of any of the names above.