RIP Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones)

[robphy]

As a high school student, I remember getting tickets to the Tattoo You tour.
I was going redeem a voucher to buy tickets in New York City
(these vouchers were distributed by randomly selected self-addressed stamped envelopes).
A few blocks from the box office, I was offered $500 for my voucher.
(I think my tickets were going to cost $35 each [it turned out for the 13th row in Madison Square Garden (iirc)].
My ticket stub is packed away somewhere in my papers.)
(Maybe I was going to be robbed, I don't know.)
But I turned it down because (for some reason)
I thought this was going to be the last Rolling Stones tour.
Well... I guess it didn't turn out to be so.
My ears were ringing all night.

RIP Charlie Watts.

 

[gmax137]

 

[Astronuc]

USA Today, Music, did some nice pieces on Watts.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/ente...howcase-charlie-watts-magic-drums/5576698001/

There’s a great line in John Hiatt’s 1988 song “Slow Turning,” where the protagonist is in his car trying to listen to the radio but suddenly wheels around: “I’m yelling at the kids in the back seat/Because they’re banging like Charlie Watts.”

Hiatt’s growled lyric is filled with gleeful respect for the Rolling Stones drummer, who died Tuesday at age 80. But, of course, Watts was hardly a banger. In fact, he was the opposite of two thundering peers, The Who’s Keith Moon and Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, whose kinetic kit work often overshadowed the songs.

Watts famously came to rock 'n’ roll from the jazz side of the tracks, a neighborhood he’d run back to time and again throughout his six-decade career. That background came freighted with meaning: You anchor and serve the beat, keep meticulous time and leave the histrionics to the dilettantes.

Indeed, one look at Watts’ unflappable face in any Stones video or documentary – especially compared with peacocking Mick Jagger – and you’d think the wrong drummer showed up for the session.

But Watts was the perfect sticks man for the Stones, offering delicious fills and a hard-charging backbeat, from that first 1964 U.K. No. 1 hit, “It’s All Over Now,” to the 2020 pandemic tome “Living in a Ghost Town.”

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts dies at 80: Playing the drums was all he ever wanted​

https://www.usatoday.com/story/ente...-rolling-stones-drummer-dead-at-80/336569002/

I always like his style.

From Rolling Stone Magazine:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...tts-rolling-stones-drummer-dead-obit-1161926/

Watts was very different from the rest of the Stones. His dapper dress sense — Vanity Fair elected Watts to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame — was ultimately more in line with the jazz he loved and sometimes played than rock & roll. Watts also famously remained faithful to Shirley Shepherd, his wife since 1964, which set him somewhat apart from his excessive, hard-partying bandmates.

Steve Winwood said, “I met Charlie in 1965 when we toured with the Stones on a package theatre tour, I had the pleasure of playing with him on several occasions since then, and he was very supportive and a thoroughly nice man.
Besides that he was a brilliant drummer with his own special technique and definitely throughout the years was the defining groove of the Rolling Stones.”

For all of his low-key skill behind the kit, Watts seemed well aware that he was an irreplaceable element of the Stones’ sound. As one famous story from the band’s heyday goes, Jagger once phoned Watts’ hotel room in the midst of an all-night party, asking, “Where’s my drummer?” Watts reportedly got up, shaved, dressed in a suit, put on a tie and freshly shined shoes, descended the stairs, and punched Jagger in the face, saying, “Don’t ever call me your drummer again. . . . . " I presume he returned to his room.

 

[pinball1970]

Sad day.

Neil Peart, Ginger Baker and Charlie Watts, we seemed to have lost important drummers from huge bands fairly recently.

Not many bigger bands than the Stones.

For me he was very important to the sound, like Keith Moon and Ringo but he was not technical. A technical drummer would not have fit too well.

Easily one of my favourite bands.

80 is a good age for a rock star.

 

[Mondayman]

Sad news.

Keith is one of my favorite musicians ever, and Charlie Watts was the perfect drummer for him. One of my favorite bands. Everything they released from 1968 to 1972 is absolute magic.