21 Facts About Bobby Keys

Robert Henry Keys was an American saxophonist who performed as a member of several horn sections of the 1970s.

Bobby Keys played on hundreds of recordings, and was a touring musician from 1956 until his death in 2014.

Bobby Keys was born at Lubbock Army Airfield near Slaton, Texas, where his father, Bill Keys, was in the US Army Air Corps.

Lucy Bobby Keys Brubaker went on to become a state senator in New Mexico.

Bobby Keys started touring at age fifteen with fellow Texan Buddy Knox.

Bobby Keys reportedly played the saxophone on Elvis Presley's 1962 version of "Return to Sender".

Bobby Keys is best known for his impressive resume as a musician and his friendship with Keith Richards.

Together with Jim Price on trumpet, Bobby Keys toured with the Stones from 1970 to 1973.

Richards recalled Bobby Keys overcoming Jagger's objections to returning to the band:.

Bobby Keys shared saxophone duties with Ernie Watts on the 1981 tour, performing on a total of 10 songs out of a 23 song set.

Bobby Keys was reinstated as the band's main touring saxophonist on the 1982 European Tour, together with Gene Barge.

Bobby Keys played with the Stones on all subsequent tours up to his death.

Bobby Keys started the year working on Clapton's first solo LP.

From 1973 to 1975, Bobby Keys participated in Lennon's "Lost Weekend" in Los Angeles along with Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson and Keith Moon; while in Los Angeles, he played on Lennon's albums Walls and Bridges and Rock 'n' Roll.

Bobby Keys played the solo on Leo Sayer's 1977 international soft rock hit "When I Need You" from the Endless Flight album.

In 1979, Bobby Keys was part of a Rolling Stones spin-off band called The New Barbarians that played two concerts in Canada and eighteen shows across the United States in April and May 1979.

In 1989, Bobby Keys became the musical director for Wood's new Miami club, Woody's on the Beach.

The first week the club opened Bobby Keys booked Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino and the Crickets.

Bobby Keys appeared on December 16,2011, with the Athens, Georgia-based band Bloodkin in their "Exile on Lumpkin Street" show at the Georgia Theater, which re-opened in August 2011 in its remodeled and enlarged space after the building had been gutted by fire in June 2009.

Bobby Keys played on their 14 On Fire tour with Roskilde Festival in Denmark being his last gig for the Stones.

Bobby Keys died of liver cancer in hospice care at his home in Franklin, Tennessee, on December 2,2014, sixteen days before his 71st birthday.