The Saxman: Bobby Keys

"My closest pal. A soul of rock 'n roll, a solid man, also a depraved maniac." That's how Keith Richards introduces Bobby Keys in his 2010 autobiography Life.

For more than 40 years — onstage and on record — Keys has played sideman to Richards as saxophonist for The Rolling Stones. His baritone imprimatur can be heard on "Brown Sugar," "Honky Tonk Women," "Rocks Off" and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," to name a few.

The burly 68-year-old native Texan, who has a Texas-sized personality to match, has long lurked in the shadows of rock 'n' roll legends. And for the past two decades he's lived a low-profile life here in Nashville.

But Keys' half-century-and-counting recording career — which includes performances on albums by artists the likes of John Lennon, Joe Cocker, Barbra Streisand, B.B. King, Carly Simon and Lynyrd Skynyrd — is mostly devoid of country credits.

"I really don't do that many sessions in town," he tells the Scene, "I gave up trying to promote saxophone in this neck of the woods. ... [But] I like to play golf, and there's a lot of good golf courses here."

Fellow Texans Jerry Allison and Joe B. Mauldin (also known as Buddy Holly and The Crickets' rhythm section) lured Keys to Nashville in the early '90s. "There was a nest of Texans living here, so I decided to settle in," he says of what was planned as a weeks-long stay in Music City. "I just really liked it. I liked the people here," he says. "But it's a graveyard for saxophone players."

Between worldwide stadium jaunts with the Stones, Keys' life in Nashville has mostly consisted of quiet days on the links, indulging in his childhood passion of building and operating remote-controlled model airplanes and spending time with his wife Holly and dog JJ.

That's a far cry from the storied lore of sex, drugs and televisions tossed off hotel balconies that have followed him as Keith Richards' longtime partner in party crimes. While many of those misdeeds are well-documented, Keys says his autobiography Every Night's a Saturday Night (which comes out this week) is about the music. He says the rest of the story has been done "to death, to death, TO DEATH."

To promote the book — there's also a feature-length documentary in the works — Keys is coming further out of the shadows, leading his band The Suffering Bastards, an ensemble including Nashville notables Dan Baird, Mike Webb, Steve Gorman, Dean Tomasek and Mercy Lounge co-proprietor Chark Kinsolving, in performing choice cuts from the Keys-contributed catalog.