Charlie Watts: the weirdest of The Rolling Stones

“I don't have a problem with drugs;

I have problems with the police.”

Keith Richards is an expert in lapidary sentences.

Although not necessarily trustworthy: "Without Charlie Watts there is no The Rolling Stones."

In August 2021, it was announced that due to unspecified health issues, Watts would not be able to join the next leg of the

tour ;

implicitly, it was suggested that Charlie would return as soon as he regained his strength.

It could not be: he would pass away three weeks later, at the age of 80.

And the Stones would resume the road as if nothing serious had happened: with another drummer, Steve Jordan, Richards's comrade.

More information

Charlie Watts, drummer and rhythmic heart of the Rolling Stones, dies at 80

Inevitable, they will tell me.

The only thing that makes this gang-together-for-eternity myth ugly is the fact that the Stones have suffered defections: Mick Taylor and Bill Wyman (Brian Jones is in another category).

And in both cases, it cannot be said that the fraternity between colleagues worked.

Taylor and Wyman aspired to contribute their own songs to the Rollingstonian repertoire;

in the last case, they were confirmed with the recognition of their participation in certain issues.

No way: whatever the genesis, everything was signed exclusively by Jagger-Richards.

'Sympathy for the Drummer: Why Charlie Watts Matters' (Kultrum Books).

Charlie Watts didn't have those ego problems.

He lacked the will to compose, let alone rock compositions.

The green dog within the Stones was known: a lover of jazz, who only listened to rock by chance or during his workday.

However, it is possible that he was more of a drummer than a jazz acolyte.

In the first of two recently published books about him,

(Kultrum Books), Mike Edison explains how Watts studied drummers in Chicago blues, southern soul, reggae Jamaican, from

even from

.

Was it what the Stones needed or was there also the pride of the professional who wanted to master the novelties?

Beginning in the 1980s, he used his money to start jazz groups that performed and recorded intermittently.

He even made a record of, for lack of a better label, experimental music, with fellow Californian Jim Keltner.

Sequencers,

, processed voices, tribal songs... and a point of provocation: each cut was named after Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams and other famous jazz rappers.

Mike Edison conveys a genuine enthusiasm for Watts' music, though I'm afraid many descriptions will only make sense to professional drummers.

But the man gets wet and dares with unconventional opinions.

The opposite of

, by Paul Sexton, recently translated and edited by HarperCollins Ibérica.

It is an "authorized biography", which explains why the period, during the eighties, when his character soured and he turned to alcohol and hard drugs, is only briefly explained.

It was during that time when, it is assumed, he punched Mick Jagger, after an impertinence from the singer.

'Charlie's Good Tonight', by Paul Sexton.

A pity, since such departures from everything humanize a character who can be described as a project of a 19th century aristocrat.

The idea of ​​his elegance led him to order dozens of handmade shoes —at 4,000 pounds each pair— or buy at auction two suits that belonged to Edward VIII, that fleeting king of the United Kingdom with sympathies for Adolf Hitler.

He also acquired some of the most expensive cars on the market, although he did not deign to learn to drive.

He, too, did not know how to ride a horse, although he amassed an impressive stud, including Pinta, a filly raised in Poland for $700,000.

He had a collector's mind and, as a graphic designer, loved well-made objects.

He also accumulated records, historical drums, weapons from the American Civil War, jazz posters and a long etcetera.

He thought it was easier to understand the past than the present that he had to live.

He never understood that someone like him, a minimalist drummer, would get the biggest cheers when The Rolling Stones played in stadiums.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber