{"id":40842,"date":"2021-08-26T07:05:21","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T01:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/districtchronicles.com\/charlie-watts-was-quiet-dignified-and-the-soul-of-the-rolling-stones\/"},"modified":"2021-08-26T07:05:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T01:35:28","slug":"charlie-watts-was-quiet-dignified-and-the-soul-of-the-rolling-stones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/districtchronicles.com\/charlie-watts-was-quiet-dignified-and-the-soul-of-the-rolling-stones\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Watts was quiet, dignified and the soul of the Rolling Stones"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I WAS standing at the back of the stage at one of the Rolling Stones\u2019 concerts at Wembley Stadium in the Nineties.<\/p>\n

Charlie Watts, perhaps looking for a partner in crime, or maybe because he was just being cheeky, looked back at me and winked.<\/p>\n

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Charlie always thought that being a rock star in the biggest rock and roll band in the world was slightly ridiculous<\/span>Credit: Redferns<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He wasn\u2019t being disrespectful, wasn\u2019t being rude, he was just being Charlie.<\/p>\n

Because Charlie always thought that being a rock star in the biggest rock and roll band in the world was slightly ridiculous.<\/p>\n

And Charlie, who died on Tuesday aged 80, refused to let success go to his head. In 1986, after 25 years on the road with the band, he told an interviewer, in his inimitable deadpan way, \u201cIt\u2019s been five years of work and 20 years of hanging around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlie Watts took everything in his stride, including being a drummer in a band that played rock music. He much preferred jazz, and right up until the end of his life played in a small jazz band as a side hustle.<\/p>\n

He was always the reluctant Rolling Stone, the last one to grow his hair in the Sixties, the only member of the band who wanted to continue playing jazz and rhythm and blues rather than get involved in the brand new world of pop.<\/p>\n

He was also the first to marry, making an honest woman of his girlfriend Shirley, in 1964, just as the band were on the cusp of global fame.<\/p>\n

True to form, he didn\u2019t really tell anyone, as that would have been tantamount to making a fuss. And Charlie rarely made a fuss.<\/p>\n

Only once did he make such a fuss that it made the papers.<\/p>\n

After Mick Jagger rang Charlie up one night and asked, \u201cWhere\u2019s my drummer?\u201d, Watts got out of bed, shaved, put on one of his bespoke suits, put on a tie and slipped into a pair of freshly polished Oxfords. <\/p>\n

Then he went to Jagger\u2019s room, punched him in the face and told him, \u201cDon\u2019t you ever call me your drummer again. You\u2019re my f*ing singer!\u201d<\/p>\n

He was still so angry when he woke up that he told the band\u2019s guitarist Keith Richards that he had a good mind to go back to Jagger\u2019s room and do it again.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, he didn\u2019t. <\/p>\n

In fact, in later years, as the relationship between Jagger and Richards became more fractious \u2014 a war of attrition that was exacerbated by Jagger\u2019s determination to pursue a solo career, and by Richards\u2019 fondness for heroin \u2014 Charlie became the band\u2019s mediator.<\/p>\n

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Charlie was more of a Rolling Stone than all of them<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He had always been the one member of the band who everyone else listened to, the one who was most grounded, and the one who could always see the big picture.<\/p>\n

Jagger was the global superstar, hobnobbing with royalty, appearing on magazine covers and appearing in the gossip columns of the newspapers. <\/p>\n

Richards was the rock and roll hero, the guitar king who enjoyed his reputation as the man that drugs couldn\u2019t kill. While Watts remained the real core of the band, the beating heart. He kept time, for sure, but he also kept the soul of the band close to his heart.<\/p>\n

And when there were arguments between the Stones, they were always resolved the same way. \u201cWhat would Charlie think?\u201d That\u2019s what they would say. <\/p>\n

Because Charlie was more of a Rolling Stone than all of them.<\/p>\n

And they knew it.<\/p>\n

Because Charlie could swing. He had a way of drumming that was completely particular, without being wildly idiosyncratic. He wasn\u2019t a wildman drummer like Led Zeppelin\u2019s John Bonham or the Who\u2019s Keith Moon, and instead took his style from the kind of drumming he really liked \u2014 jazz drumming.<\/p>\n

Plus he always played just a little behind the beat. He says this was because he always followed Keith Richards, and as Keith always played just a tad behind the beat, that this determined his style.<\/p>\n

But it was more than that.<\/p>\n

Charlie\u2019s style was never to anticipate the groove, but to slightly play with it, making his style ever-so nonchalant.<\/p>\n

This is what gave the Rolling Stones their groove. Their sound. Their style.<\/p>\n

Because while the Stones made some of the most demonstrative rock and roll records of all time \u2014 just think about the extraordinary riffs contained in Honky Tonk Women, Tumbling Dice, Satisfaction, Jumpin\u2019 Jack Flash, Start Me Up etc \u2014 they were always rather aloof, espousing a kind of \u201ccome and get me\u201d quality. <\/p>\n

They were big records, but they were never in your face, never desperate for attention. A Rolling Stones record didn\u2019t have to convince you to like it, which is why the Rolling Stones became the band they were.<\/p>\n

Of course Charlie had his indulgences. Having eschewed drugs for years, in his fifties he irrationally decided to take up heroin, something which he put down to a midlife crisis.<\/p>\n

But he soon realised how ridiculous he was behaving, and he stopped it. He also quit drinking and smoking at the same time.<\/p>\n

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Perhaps this is how it was always going to end, the quiet man of rock going out in the quietest way possible, dignified to the last<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He bred horses, and kept warehouses full of things he was never going to use. He kept a bunch of fancy vintage cars, even though he couldn\u2019t drive. <\/p>\n

And he had a clothes obsession that kept a variety of Savile Row tailors in business for years. I knew his stylists extremely well for years, and I was bewildered by the amount of money Charlie could spend on clothes. Sorry, not clothes, suits.<\/p>\n

Charlie never liked the slovenly nature of rock and roll, and when occasion demanded it, would always wear a suit rather than jeans and a T-shirt.<\/p>\n

This was a manifestation of his genuine working-class roots.<\/p>\n

His father, Charles, was a lorry driver, and his mother, Lillian, a housewife.
When Charlie spoke, he spoke in gentrified Cockney, not in the garbled Mockney used by so many rockers. Charlie was true to his roots. Genuine. A proper gentleman.<\/p>\n

The one thing you\u2019re not allowed to be in rock and roll is normal, and yet Charlie Watts was normal through and through. <\/p>\n

In the 1980s a friend of mine moved back to New York from London. In London he had run the fashionable King\u2019s Road store, Granny Takes A Trip.<\/p>\n

In New York he found himself unable to find work, so he took a job as a sales assistant in the trendy Barneys department store.<\/p>\n

A couple of months into his new job, the floor manager told my friend there was \u201csomeone here to see you\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was Charlie. They were old friends, and the Rolling Stone wanted to see how his old mate was doing. \u201cHe asked me how I was and wished me good luck. That\u2019s the kind of man he was.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a sentiment that appears to be shared by many people who knew him over the years.<\/p>\n

Whenever someone famous dies, you can judge how people felt about them by the miniature obituaries that appear on Instagram.<\/p>\n

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The one thing you\u2019re not allowed to be in rock and roll is normal, and yet Charlie Watts was normal through and through. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

When Charlie died on Tuesday, the outpouring of grief on the social media platform was not just abundant, it was heartfelt.<\/p>\n

Never have I seen so many posts about a person\u2019s death, and rarely have I read such loving tributes.<\/p>\n

The reason is simple: Charlie was the real deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not really a rock star,\u201d he said once. \u201cI don\u2019t have all the trappings of that. Having said that, I do have four vintage cars and can\u2019t drive the bloody things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been interested in doing interviews or being seen. I do interviews because I want people to come and see the band.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Rolling Stones exist because people come to the shows.\u201d After every tour he was asked whether he would retire, and up until his fifties he used to seem eager to hang up his drumsticks. <\/p>\n

But as he became of pensionable age, he appeared to relish the prospect of carrying on until he dropped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve thought that the band might stop a lot of times,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to think that at the end of every tour. I\u2019d had enough of it \u2014 that was it. But, no, not really. I hope [when it ends] that everyone says, \u2018That\u2019ll be it\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d hate for it to be a bloody big argument. That would be a real sad moment.\u201d In the end, there was no argument. Charlie just quietly bowed out.<\/p>\n

When the Stones announced a few weeks ago that Charlie would not be accompanying them on their forthcoming American tour as he recovered from an unspecified medical procedure, there were rumblings that Watts was actually far more frail than anyone thought. And so it proved.<\/p>\n

However perhaps this is how it was always going to end, the quiet man of rock going out in the quietest way possible, dignified to the last.<\/p>\n

Charlie, we\u2019re going to miss you. We\u2019re all going to miss you.<\/p>\n

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The Stones announced a few weeks ago that Charlie would not be accompanying them on their forthcoming American tour as he recovered from an unspecified medical procedure<\/span>Credit: Terry O’Neill \/ Iconic Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Charlie had a way of drumming that was completely particular, without being wildly idiosyncratic<\/span>Credit: TWITTER\/KEITH RICHARDS<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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He was always the reluctant Rolling Stone, the last one to grow his hair in the Sixties, the only member of the band who wanted to continue playing jazz and rhythm and blues<\/span>Credit: Getty<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Paul McCartney pays tribute to the late Charlie Watts<\/span><\/div>\n

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