Latest Drum News
The world mourns the loss of drumming great Charlie Watts.
In 1961, Watts met Alexis Korner, who invited him to join his band, Blues Incorporated. At that time, considering moving to Denmark as a graphic designer Charlie accepted Korner’s offer in February 1962. Watts played regularly with Blues Incorporated and maintained a job with another advertising firm of Charles, Hobson and Grey. It was in mid-1962 that Watts first met Brian Jones, Ian “Stu” Stewart, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards, who also frequented the London rhythm and blues clubs, but it was not until January 1963 that Watts finally agreed to join the Rolling Stones. Initially, the band could not afford to pay Watts, who had been earning a regular salary from his gigs. His first public appearance as a permanent member was at the Ealing Jazz Club on 2 February 1963.
Although he made his name in rock, his personal tastes lay principally in jazz. In the late 1970s, he joined Ian Stewart in the back-to-the-roots boogie-woogie band Rocket 88, which featured many of the UK’s top jazz, rock. and R&B musicians. In the 1980s, he toured worldwide with a big band that included such names as Evan Parker, Courtney Pine, and Jack Bruce, who was also a member of Rocket 88. In 1991, he organised a jazz quintet as another tribute to Charlie Parker. 1993 saw the release of Warm and Tender, by the Charlie Watts Quintet, which included vocalist Bernard Fowler. This same group then released Long Ago and Far Away in 1996. Both records included a collection of Great American Songbook standards. After a successful collaboration with Jim Keltner on The Rolling Stones’ Bridges to Babylon, Watts and Keltner released a techno/instrumental album simply titled, Charlie Watts/Jim Keltner Project. Watts stated that even though the tracks bore such names as the “Elvin Suite” in honour of the late Elvin Jones, Max Roach, and Roy Haynes, they were not copying their style of drumming, but rather capturing a feeling by those artists. Watts at Scott’s was recorded with his group, “the Charlie Watts Tentet”, at the Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London. In April 2009, he started to perform concerts with the ABC&D of Boogie Woogie together with pianists Axel Zwingenberger and Ben Waters plus his childhood friend Dave Green on bass.
In the July 2006 issue of Modern Drummer magazine, Watts was voted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame, joining Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, Steve Gadd, Buddy Rich, and other highly esteemed and influential drummers from the history of rock and jazz.
Watts’s passing was confirmed by his publicist Bernard Doherty, who said in a statement: “It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Charlie Watts. He 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. We kindly request that the privacy of his family, band members and close friends is respected at this difficult time.”
Earlier this month, it was announced that Watts wouldn’t join THE ROLLING STONES on their fall USA tour in order to recover from an undisclosed medical procedure. Filling in for him on the trek, which was scheduled to kick off on September 26 in St. Louis, was supposed to be his “great friend” Steve Jordan.
“For once my timing has been a little off,” Watts said in a statement announcing his absence from the trek. “I am working hard to get fully fit but I have today accepted on the advice of the experts that this will take a while. After all the fans’ suffering caused by COVID I really do not want the many fans who have been holding tickets for this tour to be disappointed by another postponement or cancellation. I have therefore asked my great friend Steve Jordan to stand in for me.”
Jordan, who has previously played with THE ROLLING STONES guitarist Keith Richards, said: “It is an absolute honor and a privilege to be Charlie’s understudy and I am looking forward to rehearsing with Mick [Jagger], Keith and Ronnie [Wood]. No one will be happier than me to give up my seat on the drum riser as soon as Charlie tells me he is good to go.”
He battled throat cancer in 2004 but got the all-clear after undergoing two operations.
Prior to Charlie’s death, the “No Filter” tour, which was originally supposed to happen last year, was scheduled to hit 15 cities from September through November.
Drumming News Network is gutted at the passing of Charlie, what a life, what a man…
