Click
an image to return to the tributes main page.
Click here
to see Charlie Watts with Mick Hucknall, 2012.
2 June 1941 – 24 August 2021
Charlie Watts passed away peacefully in a London hospital at
the age of 80. No cause of death has been given to date.
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.
|