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State of Arkansas Pardons Keith Richards

The state of Arkansas has given Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards a clean slate on their crime books, wiping off a 1975 ticket for reckless driving. Now if he can only get his record cleaned up everywhere else.

"I realized his impression of our state was marred by a misdemeanor traffic stop," a concerned Governor Mike Huckabee said. "I wanted to clear his record in Arkansas as a goodwill gesture." Richards apparently did not, however, have his $162.20 fine returned. He had made a joke about his arrest during a Stones show in Little Rock earlier this year.

In July 1975, Richards was barreling through Fordyce, Arkansas, with a trio of passengers -- Stones bandmate Ron Wood, a security guard for the group, and a random fan. Fordyce, incidentally, was not a date on the Stones tour schedule, but instead just a lunch stop between Memphis and Dallas.

After seeing the vehicle swerve, a police officer pulled Richards over. Despite the guitarist's claim that he'd merely bent down to fiddle with the radio, the carload was hauled in to City Hall, and Richards received his reckless driving charge -- plus a charge for possession of a concealed knife, which was later dropped. The police also said that they'd caught a whiff of marijuana when they pulled Richards over.

Gov. Huckabee may feel a certain musical kinship with Richards, as he moonlights as the bassist in a band called Capitol Offense, which rocked the Republican National Convention in 2004.

--The ARTISTdirect Staff
07.20.06