Charlie Watts (The ABC & D of Boogie Woogie) featuring Mick Hucknall
@ the PizzaExpress Jazz Club
Photography 17 March 2012 - 25 June 2011

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Charlie Watts biography

One of the great apocryphal rock n’roll stories is that Mick Jagger referred to Charlie Watts as “my drummer”. In response, the impeccably polite Charlie Watts allegedly punched Jagger in the face. He then corrected the statement clarifying with the Rolling Stones front-man that Jagger was “my singer”. Read all you need to know THE drummer of The Rolling Stones.
Watts grew up near Wembley Stadium. (A venue his band now easily sells out, and Mick Jagger sometimes, respectfully, refers to him as ‘The Wembley Whammer’.)

Watts was the son of a truck driver but his pre-teen discovery of jazz and blues music meant music would be his profession. The musically precocious Watts even listed Miles Davis and John Coltrane as key influences and converted a banjo into a snare drum to emulate his jazz drumming heroes.

He wasn’t, however, a music obsessive at school, and was a keen sportsman. He left school at 16, and then studied at the Harrow School of Art.

In 1960, Watts got a job with a London advertising agency. He showed his literary and artistic talents though his children's book about jazz legend Charlie Parker, ‘Ode to a High-Flying Bird’, which was published in 1961. Watts also played drums with a variety of groups, including Alexis Korner’s ‘Blues Incorporated’. Blues Incorporated was an important part of London's burgeoning blues scene, and featured appearances by such performers as Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, and others.

Watts, however, quit the band as it became more popular because he did not want to leave his day job. Guitarist Brian Jones went on to form the Rollin' Stones (later the Rolling Stones) with singer Mick Jagger, pianist Ian Stewart, and guitarists Keith Richards and Dick Taylor in 1962. After turning down the Rolling Stones previously, Watts finally agreed to join the group and played his first gig with the band in January 1963.

“For me it was just another job offer,” Watts explained in ‘According to the Rolling Stones’. He had no expectation that the group would soon be the next big rock sensation. In 1964, the Rolling Stones hit the No. 3 spot on the British pop charts with their cover of Bobby Womack’s “It's All Over Now.”
While the rest of the band was cultivating their image as rock music's bad boys, Watts was settling down. He married Shirley Ann Shephard in 1964, and the couple had a daughter named Seraphina four years later.

The Rolling Stones scored their first No. 1 hit in the United States in 1965 with ‘Satisfaction’. A string of other successful songs quickly followed such as 'Paint It Black' and 'Ruby Tuesday'. The self-described “World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band” continued to enjoy enormous popularity for the next two decades.

By the 1980s, Watts found time to pursue projects outside the Rolling Stones. He returned to his first love, jazz, by forming a number of different groups, including a 32-piece band called the Charlie Watts Orchestra. Around that same time, Watts worked with early Rolling Stones member Ian Stewart in the band Rocket 88.

In the early 1990s, Watts released several albums with another group, ‘The Charlie Watts Quintet’, including a tribute to Charlie Parker. He joined forces with drummer Jim Keltner for 2000's Charlie Watts/Jim Keltner Project, which covered a broad spectrum of musical styles. In 2004, he put out an album with Charlie Watts and the Tentet, another jazz ensemble. Watts, a long-time smoker, was also diagnosed with throat cancer that year. He received treatment, and made a full recovery.

Watts continues to record and play with the Rolling Stones and expects to stay with the band until Mick Jagger or Keith Richards decides to retire. “We couldn’t go on without them. Maybe as the Keith Richards All Stars, but it would be a different band—which I wouldn't mind playing for,” Watts said.

Mick Hucknall biography

Mick Hucknall was born in Manchester and, after living very briefly in Bredbury, his family settled in Denton, a working class area to the east of Manchester city centre. Hucknall attended Audenshaw School and has always been a staunch Manchester United supporter.

Hucknall was raised single-handedly by his father Reg, who was barber by profession. His mother, Maureen, left when he was only three years old. Hucknall is incredibly close to his father and still stays with him whenever he is in Manchester.

Hucknall has said that being abandoned by his mother and being bullied at school left him with huge insecurities. He has tried to remedy this by recreating a sense of self-worth, partly through being on stage. He met his mum only once, when she asked to see him before she died. Hucknall didn’t want a relationship with her, as he was concerned for his father’s feelings. He thought it would be a kick in the teeth to his father if he did form a relationship with her, after all his father’s hard work over the years as a single parent.

Hucknall’s father wasn’t a fan of his music and apparently told him to become a marine biologist, but luckily he followed his heart and a legend was created.

He began his music career in the late 1970s by forming the punk-inspired ‘Frantic Elevators’. The band released four singles, including a version of “Holding Back The Years,” which he later recorded with Simply Red. Hucknall’s fondest memory of his time with the Frantic Elevators was being ‘severely gobbed on in Middlesborough’ which apparently was a mark respect!

Following the split of Frantic Elevators, Hucknall formed the band ‘Simply Red’, in 1984, with 3 ex-members of ‘Durutti Column’. The group signed to Elektra Records in 1985 and released “Picture Book” in October that year.

The single “Holding Back The Years” caused the “Picture Book” album to go platinum, and made the group one of the major successes of 1986.

The album “A New Flame” (1989) went gold due to the cover of the 1972 Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes hit “If You Don't Know Me By Now,” which hit number one and became a gold single.

Simply Red’s line up has changed dramatically over the years. By the 90’s Simply Red effectively became Mick Hucknall accompanied by various musicians.

“Stars” was the best-selling album of 1991 topping the charts for 19 weeks, and spawned the Top Ten hits “Stars” and “For Your Babies” and the Top 40 hits “Something Got Me Started,” “Thrill Me,” and “Your Mirror.”

Worldwide, “Stars” sold eight-and-a-half million copies by the second quarter of 1993 and outsold much-hyped efforts by Michael Jackson, U2, Dire Straits and Guns N’Roses.

“Life” (1995) proved more of a success at home than in America. The band returned to the charts in 1996 and 1997 with cover versions of Aretha Franklin's “Angel” and Gregory Isaacs’ “Night Nurse.”

The Album released in 1999, “Love And The Russian Winter,” was branded a failure in the press and broke the band’s run of UK chart-toppers.

Hucknall broke away from mainstream record labels and set up his own simplyred.com where he released the album “Home” in 2003.

Hucknall had previously set up reggae label “Blood and Fire” in 1993 with Steve Barrow, Bob Harding, Elliot Rashman and Andy Dodd. They wanted to bring the standard of reggae reissues up to the level of the best in jazz, blues, R&B and to ensure that both artists and producers were paid for their work.

Simply Red announced they were to quit in 2010 after a farewell tour.