Keith Richards' Open-G Tuning Revelation: The Birth of the Stones' Signature Sound

The most important gear shift in Rolling Stones history wasn’t a new amp or pedal—it was Keith Richards dropping the low E string. In late 1968, while messing around with a five-string acoustic tuned to open G (DGDGBD), he stumbled into the sound that would define the next fifty years of the band. The open tuning let him play rhythm lines that doubled as riffs, with the open D and G strings droning underneath everything like a bagpipe or a sitar. He couldn’t solo the same way anymore, but he didn’t care—the band got heavier, looser, and weirder overnight.

The first Stones song recorded in open-G tuning was “Honky Tonk Women” in early 1969. Listen to that opening: it’s not a chord, it