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In a recent article with Yahoo Steve Jordan is asked to reflect on the most recent Rolling Stones tour, the first tour without Charlie Watts. This is a fascinating interview you have to read, posted below are excerpts from that interview along with a link to the full interview.
Thirty-five years ago, Steve Jordan got a call from Keith Richards asking him to play drums on a new version of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” that he was creating with Aretha Franklin. “I remembered Charlie Watts saying, ‘If you ever work outside of [the Rolling Stones], Steve Jordan’s your man,’ ” Richards wrote in his memoir Life. “It was a great session. And in my mind, it was lodged that if I’m going to do anything else, it’s with Steve.”
He stuck to that pledge over the years when he used Jordan in his group the X-Pensive Winos along with special projects like the Chuck Berry documentary Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll. And when word came down this past summer that Charlie Watts would be unable play on the Stones tour because of health problems, Jordan was the obvious candidate to take his place.
“After all the fans’ suffering caused by Covid,” Watts said in a public statement, “I really do not want the many RS 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.”
It was only supposed to be a temporary position, but it became permanent on Aug. 24 when Watts died. That placed a heavy burden on Jordan’s shoulders, but he handled his responsibility with incredible grace and dignity throughout the entire tour. Around a week after the run ended, Jordan spoke with Rolling Stone about the experience, and to share a new song he created with former Beastie Boys DJ Mix Master Mike.
Are you still unwinding from the tour?
Yeah. It takes a minute to decompress, for sure.
How did you feel when you walked offstage after Florida and it was all over?
We ran off the stage, into a car, and then got on a plane. It was like several stages of decompression, and we’re still decompressing. I spoke to Keith last night and we’re still decompressing. The Stones are like a thing unto themselves. Even the band members, when they talk about the Stones, it’s like they’re talking about something else. They’ll be like, “The Stones were doing this,” and I’m like, “You’re in the Stones!” It’s like this third person, or something.
Let’s go back to the beginning. How old were you when you became a fan of the Stones?
Probably about eight. I was more of a Beatles fanatic than a Stones fanatic at that age. You had to choose between them. You couldn’t be a fan of both bands. It was forbidden. But the good songs broke through that. Basically, I think by 1965 when “Satisfaction” hit, there was no denying “Satisfaction.” Everybody loved “Satisfaction.” It didn’t matter if you were a fan of the Kinks, or whoever. Everyone loved “Satisfaction.” It broke through.
Jump ahead to 1978 and tell me about first meeting them.
When I first met Charlie, it was the first show of the fourth season of SNL. I was in the house band. There was extra security and everything because they were there. Everybody was trying to get close, but I wasn’t focused on that because the New York Yankees were playing the Kansas City Royals in the American League championship series. That was the only thing that meant anything to me, whether the Yankees were going to advance to the World Series. [Editor’s note: The Yankees won 2-1 that night and advanced to the World Series. They then beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games.]
I was in the SNL band dressing room, which was called the Departure Lounge. I was in there watching the game. I wanted to get the autographs of the band, but I wasn’t going to hang out and miss the game to meet them. My recollection is I somehow ran into Charlie. One thing leads to another where I asked him for an autograph and the band. He comes back with a piece of paper.
I end up sitting in the dressing room with him and showing him the ins and outs of baseball. He said, “Oh, this is kind of like a combination of cricket and rounders, isn’t it?” I’d heard about rounders. That’s where you run back and forth to the bases. And cricket involves a bat. It is a combination of those two games. I was like, “I guess it is.” Sitting next to Charlie Watts, watching the Yankees. It doesn’t get much better than that.
What led to you spending more time with them around the recording of Dirty Work?
Charlie had invited me to the studio in 1985 when I was in Paris doing a record with a Duran Duran offshoot band called Arcadia, which was Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon. I found them at Pathé Marcon [studio], and that’s when I accidentally fell into working with them since Charlie asked me if I’d play some drums. I said, “Absolutely not.” I wouldn’t do that. But I’d play percussion or augment some stuff he was doing. Maybe if he wanted an additional hi-hat or bass [drum], I’d play along. I’d do something like that, but I would not play the drums. That would have been sacrilegious. It was flattering, but as a hardcore Stones fan, I would shoot the guy who was going to play while Charlie was there.
There are only a few drummers that played on Stones tracks while Charlie was alive and well. That was Kenney Jones who played on “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll” with Willie Weeks on bass since the track was really cut with Ron Wood. Then Jimmy Miller played drums on “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Happy” because Jimmy Miller was producing, and he happened to be a fine drummer. He had that pulse, that New York funk, that groove, to bolster that aspect of the band, which he did with Traffic and Spencer Davis Group. And then Sly Dunbar played on “Undercover of the Night.” That was a specific thing they were going for. It’s happened in those cases, but in any other case, it’s Charlie.
They’ve had great percussionists play with them from time to time, like Rocky Dijon from Rock and Roll Circus. That’s the role I wanted to play, like when Ollie Brown played along during the live stuff with Stevie Wonder. That was the role that I was more comfortable being in for the band because there’s a lot of percussion with the Stones. It’s really the maracas, which Mick ends up playing a lot … it’s important on those recordings. You miss it when you don’t hear it.
Did you see the Stones on the 2019 tour?
I did. In fact, I spent the day with Charlie in Chicago. I had done a clinic/Q&A at Chicago Music Exchange. I did a tape interview for Reverb earlier that day, so I hit the Chicago scene that day. And then I spent the soundcheck out with Charlie. It was an extraordinary performance. I remember thinking then, “This is just incredible that he can still play like this, powering this band, in a stadium.”
You don’t understand what that is. You need to alter your playing when you’re playing in a stadium. A lot of the subtleties that you would like to execute just don’t translate in an 80,000-person stadium. If that’s the essence of your playing, you have to figure out what your approach is going to be, and not compromise your musicality. That’s because your musicality is the thing that makes you so unique and fuels the sound of your band. That’s a lot to think about, much less execute. And he did it flawlessly that night. I was amazed. I obviously didn’t know that would be the last time I’d see him play.
How did you first hear about the possibility of you stepping in for the tour this year?
I was almost the last person to know. I don’t want to get into the details. But I was surprised because, first of all, I didn’t know that Charlie was in the hospital. That was news to me, and troublesome news to me. But it was still the thing where Charlie was recovering, and so I was just going to fill in for maybe some rehearsals. Maybe I would play part of the show, and if they did the B-stage thing where it’s kind of acoustic, maybe Charlie would do that part.
That’s kind of what it was. It was not anything more than that. It was kind of like, “Maybe I’ll just do the rehearsals, and when he’s recovered, then he will come in and do the shows.”
Charlie died during rehearsals, and suddenly the tour took on a very different tone. Did you feel a different sort of burden at that point?
The morning that I got the news that he had passed was one of the worst days of my life. It still is. And then there was all this stuff I didn’t ask for.
Each night had a different set list on this tour, and they threw in some real surprises, like “Connection.”
When you have 8 million songs that are great, you can’t just play the same 19 songs every night. Not only does that keep the band fresh, but people that follow this band all over the world don’t want to hear the same songs every night. The band is very cognizant of the fact that they have fans that travel all over to see them, or remember what they played the last time they were in that town. Mick and the band are very cognizant of that, as well. There’s a record of what was played the last time they were in the city. It’s very thorough. It’s not a slapdash kind of approach. It’s very thorough.
From a fan’s perspective, a tour is the best way to honor the guy. They should just keep going out there and playing the music they made with him. And you did a really great job with a very hard task.
Well, I put the music first. When you do that, you can’t really go wrong. You put the personalities aside and the burden you think you’re carrying, you put all that aside and think about the music. You put your heart into the music, and you go. That’s it.
Read the full story: HERE
