Somebody Up There Likes Me (2019)

Directed by: Mike Figgis | 71 minutes | documentary, music, biography | Starring: Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards

We know Ronnie Wood as that eternally young rascal at the side of Keith Richards, as the second guitarist on the world stage of The Rolling Stones. Part pose, we know, and that other part of Wood’s personality, the easygoing, arty talker, is featured extensively in “Somebody Up There Likes Me,” a documentary by Mike Figgis (“Leaving Las Vegas”).

Figgis is also British, and a peer of Wood. The conversation immediately turns to drink and drugs, abundantly present in different phases of the life of the now clean, gritty boy. Music naturally also plays an important role in the documentary, which flows along pleasantly, as if you were part of a conversation between old friends.

Figgis seeks the tranquility of a classical piano in ‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’ as he portrays Wood, accompanied by Damien Hirst, while painting. As a student at the art academy, Ronnie already had to navigate between art and music. In the present, that imbalance has disappeared, although the Stones do occasionally have a concert tour in between, once every few years.

Mick Jagger speaks, with a heavy English accent referring to the London jazz scene in which the Stones made their debut, Richards, Charlie Watts and Rod Stewart have their say. Well preserved gentlemen, old chap. The blues, the young dogs of yesteryear felt more at home there. Old cake, but tasty cake.

‘Woodie’ meandered a bit in the swinging sixties, but in the meantime did play with Jeff Beck and the aforementioned Rod Stewart in the Jeff Beck Group. You don’t hear that too often anymore, but nice and raw, even more than half a century later. He was even offered a place in Led Zeppelin by a shadowy manager.

Later it becomes The Faces (again with Stewart) and then the Stones came. For 45 years now, Wood has been filling the gaps in Keef’s riffs. ‘Being in the right place, in the right time’, he says himself. Humble dude: on the acoustic guitar, singing, you would still attribute a solo career to him. It never happened. The reason can be guessed: Ronnie Wood is the ideal foreman.