Cover of Jimmy Reed’s blues classic is meant to evoke the “electric energy” of video game’s Vice City
Keith Richards put his spin on Jimmy Reed’s 1961 blues classic, “Bright Lights, Big City,” for Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album. It’s one of 34 songs intended to “capture the electric energy of Grand Theft Auto VI’s world of Vice City and Leonida” on the video game’s soundtrack, due out Nov. 19.
Reed took the original version at a medium tempo, imbuing Jimmy Reed, Jr.’s guitar line with swinging swagger, as he slurred the lyrics and let his voice tremble while singing about how he and his baby were bowled over by the big city’s bright lights. Richards, who has always sung his blues songs with a vocal quiver that owes a debt to Reed, plays the guitar with a little more force than Reed did and affects something of a Mississippi-via-Dartford drawl on the vocals. Where the original featured Reed’s searing harmonica solo, Richards plays it straight all down the line into the fade.
Richards’ version didn’t come with any details about when or where he recorded the song, whether it was around the sessions for the Rolling Stones’ recent Foreign Tongues or Hackney Diamonds albums.
Whether part of those sessions or recorded at another time, Richards has been on a roll with his solo contributions to those albums. Rolling Stone praised Richards’ Hackney Diamonds song “Tell Me Straight,” in a review, saying it “builds on a shadowy, skeletal riff that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Nineties grunge record, is as taut as the rest of the album.” Meanwhile, Rolling Stone wrote that Foreign Tongues’ “Some of Us” was “a moving declaration of devotion” that showed “deep emotion and vulnerability in Richards’ voice.”
Time, of course, remains on Richards’ side should he want to record more solo material as the Stones have no 2026 touring plans. They may, however, book residencies in 2027. “It’s the traveling that takes it out of you,” Richards told Uncut. “But I do see the possibility of us doing a residency somewhere. Wherever it is, London, New York, Paris, anywhere. I’ll play Rome! But I don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to throw some shows together in a new format.”
