Dana’s note: Although, the Rolling Stones are not a hard rock/heavy metal band, nor a band that Eddie plays on his radio shows, they, like The Beatles, are rock pioneers, who influenced many of the bands we enjoy. Therefore, I thought it important to acknowledge Watts’ passing.
According to his publicist, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has passed at age 80, reports the Associated Press.
Bernard Doherty said Tuesday (August 24th) that Watts “passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier today surrounded by his family.”
“Charlie was a cherished husband, father and grandfather and also as a member of The Rolling Stones one of the greatest drummers of his generation,” Doherty said.
Watts had announced he would not tour with the Stones in 2021 because of an undefined health issue.
The quiet, elegantly dressed Watts was often ranked with Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, John Bohman and a handful of others as a premier rock drummer, respected worldwide for his muscular, swinging style as the Stones rose from their scruffy beginnings to international superstardom. He joined the band early in 1963 and remained over the next 60 years, ranked just behind Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as the group’s longest-lasting and most essential member…
…Watts reportedly had his eccentricities — he liked to collect cars even though he didn’t drive and would simply sit in them in his garage. But he was a steadying influence on stage and off as the Stones defied all expectations by rocking well into their 70s, decades longer than their old rivals the Beatles…
…[Bandmates] Jagger and Richards at times seemed to agree on little else besides their admiration of Watts, both as a man and a musician. Richards called Watts “the key” and often joked that their affinity was so strong that on stage he’d sometimes try to rattle Watts by suddenly changing the beat — only to have Watts change it right back.
Jagger and Richards could only envy his indifference to stardom and relative contentment in his private life, when he was as happy tending to the horses on his estate in rural Devon, England, as he ever was on stage at a sold-out stadium.
Watts did on occasion have an impact beyond drumming. He worked with Jagger on the ever more spectacular stage designs for the group’s tours. He also provided illustrations for the back cover of the acclaimed 1967 album Between the Buttons and inadvertently gave the record its title. When he asked Stones manager Andrew Oldham what the album would be called, Oldham responded “Between the buttons,” meaning undecided. Watts thought that Between the Buttons was the actual name and included it in his artwork.
To the world, he was a rock star. But Watts often said that the actual experience was draining and unpleasant, and even frightening. “Girls chasing you down the street, screaming…horrible!… I hated it,” he told The Guardian newspaper in an interview. In another interview, he described the drumming life as a “cross between being an athlete and a total nervous wreck.”
Charles Robert Watts, son of a lorry driver and a housewife, was born in Neasden, London, on June 2nd, 1941. From childhood, he was passionate about music — jazz in particular. He fell in love with the drums after hearing Chico Hamilton and taught himself to play by listening to records by Johnny Dodds, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and other jazz giants.
He worked for a London advertising firm after he attended Harrow Art College and played drums in his spare time. London was home to a blues and jazz revival in the early 1960s, with Jagger, Richards and Eric Clapton among the future superstars getting their start. Watts’ career took off after he played with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, for whom Jagger also performed, and was encouraged by Korner to join the Stones.
Watts wasn’t a rock music fan at first and remembered being guided by Richards and Brian Jones as he absorbed blues and rock records, notably the music of bluesman Jimmy Reed. He said the band could trace its roots to a brief period when he had lost his job and shared an apartment with Jagger and Richards because he could live there rent-free.
“Keith Richards taught me rock and roll,” Watts said. “We’d have nothing to do all day and we’d play these records over and over again. I learned to love Muddy Waters. Keith turned me on to how good Elvis Presley was, and I’d always hated Elvis up ’til then.”
Watts was the final man to join the Stones; the band had searched for months to find a permanent drummer and feared Watts was too accomplished for them. Richards would recall the band wanting him so badly to join that members cut down on expenses so they could afford to pay Watts a proper salary. Watts said he believed at first the band would be lucky to last a year.
“Every band I’d ever been in had lasted a week,” he said. “I always thought the Stones would last a week, then a fortnight, and then suddenly, it’s 30 years.”
31 Responses
I am totally devastated right now, I love Charlie Watts, and The Rolling Stones. So many things I want to say, especially expressing my appreciation for the way Charlie always, always kept the band on the right track, he really was the engine and the driving force behind the band, he kept the Stones rolling! He was always about the song and the music first, no flash, no solos, no showing off, no bullsh-t! Watts has always and will always “Shine A Light” on drummers and musicians everywhere, forever! God bless you, Charlie Watts, rest in peace, and thank you for your excellence!
Here are just 60 reasons why I love Charlie Watts and the Rolling Stones…
Salt Of The Earth ☆ Rip This Joint ☆ Star Star ☆ All Down The Line ☆ Shine A Light ☆ Sway ☆ Loving Cup ☆ Respectable ☆ Mixed Emotions ☆ 2000 Light Years From Home ☆ Hang Fire ☆ When The Whip Comes Down ☆ Dance (Pt. 1) ☆ Stray Cat Blues ☆ Rock And A Hard Place ☆ She Was Hot ☆ Terrifying ☆ Neighbours ☆ Hand Of Fate ☆ Get Off Of My Cloud ☆ No Expectations ☆ Let It Bleed ☆ Worried About You ☆ Live With Me ☆ Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) ☆ Under My Thumb ☆ Don’t Stop ☆ Monkey Man ☆ You Got Me Rocking ☆ Happy ☆ Beast Of Burden ☆ Rocks Off ☆ Little T&A ☆ Love Is Strong ☆ She’s A Rainbow ☆ Brown Sugar ☆ Emotional Rescue ☆ You Can’t Always Get What You Want ☆ If You Can’t Rock Me ☆ Can’t You Hear Me Knocking ☆ Bitch ☆ Gimme Shelter ☆ Ruby Tuesday ☆ Angie ☆ Tumbling Dice ☆ Waiting On A Friend ☆ Street Fighting Man ☆ Wild Horses ☆ Sympathy For The Devil ☆ Midnight Rambler ☆ Miss You ☆ Let’s Spend The Night Together ☆ Paint It, Black ☆ Honky Tonk Women ☆ She’s So Cold ☆ Shattered ☆ Jumpin’ Jack Flash ☆ Start Me Up ☆ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction ☆ It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll ~ BUT I LIKE IT!! 😉 And I LOVE The Rolling Stones!
RIP Charlie Watts, thank you for keeping the Stones rocking and Rolling! Cheers!!
– ^ thank you for keeping the Stones (and all of us “Stonies” 😉 ) rocking and Rolling!
All the greats are leaving us…. RIP charlie
The Rolling Stones wouldn’t sound like the Rolling Stones without that instantly recognizable Charlie Watts drum beat. Shine on, Charlie Watts.
One anecdote relates that in the mid-1980s, an intoxicated Jagger phoned Watts’s hotel room in the middle of the night, asking, “Where’s my drummer?” Watts reportedly got up, shaved, dressed in a suit, put on a tie and freshly shined shoes, descended the stairs, and punched Jagger in the face, saying: “Don’t ever call me your drummer again. You’re my fucking singer!”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Watts#Private_life_and_public_image
Medved,
If that story is true, Watts was a badass to boot, that is hysterical.
In The Dirt movie, the actor who played Mick Mars (Iwan Rheon (who also played the despicable, Ramsay (Snow) Bolton on Game of Thrones) called Tommy Lee (played by Machine Gun Kelly) “drummer.” Sounds like Watts would never have tolerated being called “drummer”-LOL!!
Watts was always dapper and classy, even when he was pissed! Only Jagger and Richards could turn Charlie into a “Street Fighting Man!” 😉
That happens to be one of my favorite Stones songs-LOL!
Okay, the story was published in the NY Post, as well, Here are a few blurbs from the story.
“Charlie Watts beat more than just the drums…
…This forgotten slice of rock history occurred in 1984 in Amsterdam, when the legendary UK group’s tensions were at an all-time high, the Grunge reported, many years after Watts joined the band in 1963.
In his book Under Their Thumb, Rolling Stones fanzine editor Bill German described how Watts was irked at remarks Jagger had made during a meeting in which the Stones were discussing whether they should break up.
“[Jagger said] something like: ‘None of this should matter to you because you’re only my drummer,’ ” German wrote of the…singer’s remarks.
In his autobiography Life, Keith Richards recalled that an inebriated Jagger — who had displayed increasing megalomania at the time — had riled up Watts the night before by calling his hotel room and repeatedly shouting, “Where’s my drummer?”
Suffice it to say, the condescending slight didn’t sit well with Watts.
“[Watts] kept it bottled inside until he got back to his hotel room,” German described in his book. “He then clicked off his TV, put on his shoes, walked down the hall and knocked on Mick’s door. When the lead singer of the Rolling Stones opened it, his drummer clocked him on the jaw. Charlie then turned round and calmly walked away.”
Per Richards’ book, the…drummer had slugged Jagger so hard that he “fell back onto a silver platter of smoked salmon on the table.”
According to Under My Thumb, the Stones guitarist then encountered Watts in the hallway after the fact and asked where he had come from. German wrote that the legendary percussionist matter-of-factly replied, “‘I’ve just punched Mick Jagger in the face’ and kept walking.”
Read more at: https://nypost.com/2021/08/24/why-charlie-watts-once-punched-mick-jagger-in-the-face/?_ga=2.85063772.453955598.1629821535-1583405690.1629821535.
I heard about this incident a while ago, but didn’t know all the details, until now! Thank you, Dana! 😉 Every band has arguments/fights, especially a band like the Stones who have been around since the stone age… (ducking) LOL!
LOL!!
I love that story, and again, it makes Watts come off like a badass. Good for him putting Jagger in his place. Typical lead singer syndrome.
Absolutely nobody held it down like Charlie. He wasn’t fancy, but he didn’t have to be. That swing, that tight feel, he was so great.