I love the title “Crosseyed Heart,” and I still can’t explain quite what it means. I wanted to make a record that gave thanks and praises to everybody that influenced me. So in a way, “Crosseyed Heart” was to Robert Johnson. And later on, I realized without realizing it that I was tipping my hat in a lot of directions: to Gregory Isaacs for “Love is Overdue,” and to Otis Redding, and to a whole lot of people. I was paying my dues!
~Keith Richards (Jim McGuinn interview @ thecurrent.org)

Naturally, there’s a dip into roots reggae: Gregory Isaacs’ 1974 lovers’ rock signature, “Love Overdue,” complete with brass and Neville’s sweet backing vocals. There’s also a straight read of “Goodnight Irene,” a folk standard that Richards likely heard as a kid when the Weavers’ version charted in 1950. Two originals are as strong as any Stones songs of recent decades: “Robbed Blind,” a “Dead Flowers”-scented outlaw-country ballad that echoes Merle Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home,” and “Trouble,” all hiccup-riff swagger with a slide-guitar mash note from Wachtel to ex-Stone Mick Taylor. There’s a charmingly cheeky duet with Norah Jones (“Illusion”), and some beautifully telling moments (see “Amnesia”) where Keith’s guitar is nearly everything — his sublime grooves sprouting melodic blooms and thorny leads. It’s proof that, at core, dude’s an army of one.
~Will Hermes (review @ rollingstone.com)

Keith Richards on the Andrew Marr Show (Clips from Crosseyed Heart) Sept 2015:

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