R.I.P. Charlie Watts, drummer for The Rolling Stones
The musician was behind the kit for one of the world's most famous and enduring rock bands for almost 60 years
Music News The Rolling Stones
Charlie Watts, famed drummer for British rock group The Rolling Stones, has died. He was 80.
Born in 1941, Watts was the son of a truck driver who soon discovered a passion for music, especially jazz, and began drumming in his teenage years. It wasn’t until he was recruited by original Stones members Keith Richards and Brian Jones that Watts developed the harder-edged R&B and rock style that became his signature, though he infused it with the stuttering, jazzy style that became a hallmark of the Rolling Stones rhythm section. And he never lost his passion for the style of music that first got him hooked on performing, recording a Big Band album for Columbia in 1986 and a series of jazz records with a quintet of musicians in the ’90s.
Widely acknowledged as one of the best rock drummers of all time, Watts earned international recognition as a member of The Rolling Stones, beginning with the group’s early successes in the mid-’60s, when their early habit of performing mostly covers soon gave way to their first chart-topping hit, 1965’s “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” From there, the band began a steady stream of massively popular singles and albums (albeit with the latter undergoing some odd transformations in making their way across the pond, as the group’s American label revamped releases, often without the Stones’ approval) over the course of the following decades, particular in the ’60s and ’70s. And while the band would suffer the occasional critical and commercial misfire, a few lineup changes, as well as several periods of hiatus, Watts remained part of the core group, alongside Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, throughout the entirety of the band’s subsequent career.
In early August, it was announced that Watts would be sitting out the Stones’ upcoming resumption of its “No Filter” tour, due to a recent medical procedure. At the time, it seemed as though the drummer would simply require several weeks of rest and recuperation, with Watts himself sending out a message to Stones fans apologizing for his situation and approving a temporary replacement of Steve Jordan on drums during the tour. But a spokesman for the group announced that Watts had died Tuesday morning in London, with the following 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 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.
Keith Richards, in his autobiography Life, describes Charlie Watts’ playing thusly: “There’s tremendous personality and subtlety in his playing. If you look at the size of his kit, it’s ludicrous compared with what most drummers use these days. They’ve got a fort with them. An incredible barrage of drums. Charlie, with just that one classico setup, can pull it all off… we’re damn lucky we got to work with Charlie Watts.”
No cause of death was given.
124 Comments
Watts’ drumming wasn’t flashy but he sat in the pocket and held down the rhythm section for the most famous rock and roll band in the world for 6 decades.“I’m not your fucking drummer. You’re my fucking singer”RIP
Anybody who ever puts Charlie down needs to listen to his tasty playing on this song.
Maybe my favorite of their songs,
Oh, man, everything on Sticky Fingers. The man was goddamn majestic on “Moonlight Mile.”
“Can’t you hear me Knocking” is on SF too. What an album!
Quite possibly the best “We still goin’?” jam in the history of rock recordings.
Hands down my favorite Stones song.
I was always blown away by Sway. Just an absolute legend.
Black and Blue isn’t one of the Stones better albums, but Watts drumming, particularly on Memory Motel, is sheer perfection.R.I.P. to the the guy with the steadiest backbeat in rock.
Emotional Rescue is a guilty pleasure and his drumming on the title track is just such a groove.
Hand of Fate is a classic.
Black & Blue is definitely a “it’s good just to hear them play” kind of deal. Though I always skip Cherry oh Baby
Yes, that’s fantastic. But I can’t say that I’ve ever heard anybody putting him down! Anyone who would is just an idiot. They don’t deserve to listen to “Bitch!”
The beat that kicks of Honky Tonk Women is sheer perfection. Peak cowbell. RIP Charlie.
Mick on Ya-Yas: “Charlie’s good tonight, i’nt he?” *crowd cheers*Fuck you Mick! Charlie was GREAT EVERY night!
one of the hardest things in the world is to…simplify. any god damn asshole can go on and on and make shit wayyy more complicated than it needs to be. smart, talented folks? take complicated ideas…and simplify, for the rest of us…
well. keith moon. that’s a different kettle of fish, really..
I never get tired of this story: Mick calls Charlie’s hotel room at 3 in the moring, drunk as hell, asking “Where’s my fucking drummer?” Charlie gets up, has a shave, puts on a suit, then walks over to Mick’s room and pimp-slaps him. “I’m not your fucking drummer, you’re *my* fucking singer!”
I wanna know if this story is true:So, they’re working on recording “Brown Sugar” (with Mick Taylor). At one point, a nonplussed Taylor informs Charlie he is out of tune with Wyman’s bass. Charlie (supposedly) replies, “I never tune my drums.”
They get back into it.A more frustrated Mick Taylor (supposedly) stops the proceedings again. He just looks at Watts and asks him the obvious: “Whaddaya mean you never tune your drums??” Charlie Watts: “Why tune something I’m just gonna go and beat the shit out of? I’ll hit ‘em for a while, and then they’ll be in tune again.”This story came from Spin in the ‘80s, so it’s fairly probable it’s just untrue. But if it’s just more myth, it’s heartwarming myth…
Mick Avory of the Kinks said something similar, you don’t need to tune the drums, just hit ‘em harder, or something to that effect. RIP Charlie.
Ah, OK, so most likely more mythmaking…
Oh, I don’t know, I just meant that they both had something similar. My source was not the most reliable anyway; Kinks #1 superfan Frank Lima who said Mick Avory told him that himself, but he’s been known to be completely full of shit.
Hell, I just now learned today that Watts was not the very first prospective Stones drummer (that honor going to Avory).
Charlie was also a skilled jazz/big band drummer, so I doubt he never tuned his drums. Still pretty funny, though.
Real drummers always take umbrage with the idea that they’re somehow lesser than musicians who play notes/chords. Especially jazz drummers. My high school band director got publicly shamed once for making fun of drummers too much by one of the (admittedly few) serious percussion players.
4 hand independence? Jesus, that shit never looked easy to me. My sense of time is ludicrously poor.
I can keep time with one foot, but doing it with all 4 limbs definitely takes a level of multitasking I don’t have. Playing notes on a wind instrument always just came easier to me
Guitarist here who also does NOT have the level of dexterity and multi-tasking to play drums beyond a basic Ramones level. That being said, I’ll rag on drummers all day cause that’s just how it goes in bands.
(Even though they’re the motor of a band and without a good drummer you’re doomed)How do you know when a drummer is at your front door? The knock speeds up.
“(Even though they’re the motor of a band and without a good drummer you’re doomed)“Not necessarily. Metallica have gotten by just fine with a guy who can’t even do basic drummer things like keep a steady tempo. He is a GREAT songwriter and arranger though, I’ll give him that.
You say that, but you’re also wrong. Lars isn’t a great drummer but believe me I’ve played with folks way worse. Lars was the right drummer for them on the first two albums but never improved as much as the other members.Now if you want to argue drummers, I can’t stand John Bonham.
“Now if you want to argue drummers, I can’t stand John Bonham.”Yikes. Well, I already know this conversation is heading nowhere good.
You’re entitled to listening to over-mic’d plodding drums, sir. As for me:
I don’t want to get into a fight over this, but you’re defending Large Oilrig, a guy who had bad balancing issues with drum sound on albums his whole career, along with being unable to stay either behind the beat, in front of, or on the beat, always shifting between the three.To me, THAT is the mark of a mediocre to bad drummer.As for ‘plodding’, well…
His roadie was all right.
Yeah, drumming looks easy, until you actually have to maintain a beat with other players. The real artists like Watts can ever so slightly adjust to everyone else’s miscues and make it all sound like it was supposed to be like that. He was also adept at subtly changing time signatures—a skill that he was so good at that it often went unnoticed.Everyone talks about how the Stones are Keith Richard’s band, but a huge part of their sound came from Watts providing that solid foundation they could build on. Of course they’ll carry on, but it won’t be the same without him.
Is it a myth or a story of a drummer taking umbrage at being told what to do by a guitarist (who had only joined the band six months prior) so he got obstinate over something silly just to fuck with the guy?
I do tend to forget (at times like this): these were proud men.
A little detail that’s often left out of that story. Watts hit Jagger so hard he nearly defenestrated (I love that word) him from a 4 story hotel window. Keith saved him from going over and said something to the effect of “he’s wearing my jacket”.
As funny as that is- I feel that detail was a slight embellishment on Keith’s part to build up the myth a little bit.
FUCK!
I think that should be [FUCK!]…
[inaudible chatter]
Welp, he’s gonna have to get a new singer.
He’s also going to have to wait a long time for his rhythm guitarist to join.
He’s “The Normal One” in Heaven now.
I always winsered about all the shenanigans the other band members for themselves into. At some point, he had to have gotten a little frustrated his guitarist was in smack and his singer was more into going to Studio 54 than writing good songs
Supposedly, when the Stones got invited to the Playboy Mansion, Watts spent his time shooting pool with Hefner instead of partying with the bunnies.
I bet you could still catch an STD from that pool table, though.
Yeah, that pool table has most likely seen far more than it ever deserved to.
“Charlie’s good tonight, isn’t he”
I’ve always been impressed with his excellence. I don’t believe he ever did a drum solo on tour (thank you), never flashy, just the backbone of the band. Just listen to his rhythms in their catalog, he made them all unique. Then compare it to other bands. Damn he was fine.
When the drums kick in on “Let It Bleed” it just sounds amazing. Best backbeat in the biz.
Watts cold get flashy if he wanted to, just listen to Moonlight Mile, Memory Hotel or Can you hear me Knockin, but even when he got flashy the backbeat was always the most important thing.
Oh totally agree. I meant flashy in the “drum solo” aspect. I’m not even much of a fan of the guitar solo.
I have had a huge crush on Charlie Watts for as long as I can remember. I wrote an essay about him in my 10th grade English class and got an A in spite of some grammatical errors and lustful language (this is late 1980’s when hair bands were the norm). He seemed so cool and “above it all” and he could wear a three piece suit better than any human I’ve ever seen. I knew this was coming when it was announced he wouldn’t tour, but damn it still feels like a punch to the gut.
He seemed so cool and “above it all”
He considered the Stones his day job.He had another passion
Thank you for posting this!
Jazz drummers don’t have time to flail around and make faces. He was a pro’s pro back there.
“But…I thought making faces was crucial to making you a great drummer?”
I think Lars put himself into some sort of hyperactive trance in order to play. He may not be the best case study.
Much the same way having the blues guy face makes you a great guitarist!
Also that GIF is awesome: I can’t stop laughing at him.
“Arf, arf!”
See also: not tuning your drums.
Fake News. Metallica hired Cricket to play on St. Anger.
RIP. 60 years in a band like The Stones is no poor legacy.
12 years of working, 48 years of just hangin’ ‘round.
Rest in peace.
I have now come to the conclusion that Keith Richards is going to outlive me, despite me being over 25 years younger and in pretty decent shape.
My conclusion regarding Richards is that he has drunk and smoked himself into a piece of cured and pickled human beef, and can exist in this state for as long as he chooses.
I though it was because he hung upside down with gravity boots, which also may be why Keith cannot be killed by conventional weapons.
Have you read Life? It’s terrific … but also speaks to the fact that, somehow, someway, most of what we assumed Richards consumed in the 6os and 70s May have been a gross underestimation. Then he finally cleaned up, stuck to smoking hundreds of cigarettes a day, finally quit those … and continues to soldier on.
But he snorted his father, don’t forget.
I don’t know if you’re joking, but he didn’t. He was joking.
My wife and I discussed this very topic when we heard about Charlie Watts’ passing. We came to the same conclusion you did—Richards has consumed so many chemicals over his lifetime that he’s basically pickled himself. If there’s ever a nuclear war, all that will be left are cockroaches, Twinkies and Keith Richards.
There’s a funny bit in the movie ‘This is 40′, they’re discussing older rock stars (it’s a whole thing about Paul Rudd’s character’s label promoting Graham Parker), anyway, Connie (Chris O’Dowd) says of Keith Richards:
“Okay, stop it. Everybody that you are mentioning looks like an old woman now. You’re just mentioning a bunch of Jessica Tandys. Keith Richards gets away with it, but that’s because Keith Richards looked 70 when he was 40. And now that he’s 70 he looks 69. He’s regenerating.”RIP Charlie Watts
If WALL-E was a truly accurate look at the future, his best friend would have been Keith Richards and not the cockroach.
It would have been funny if they hired Keith to voice the cockroach.
When the end comes, and the bombs all go off, when the flash dies down and the dust settles, there will be nothing moving on the surface of the planet but cockroaches, and Keith Richards, who will stumble out of his cave, peer around curiously, and ask “Where’d everybody go? I saw the lights, I thought we were on…”
Keith Richards could probably survive a nuclear fallout.
“What the fuck was that?? I saw a bright light. I thought we were on…”
If William Burroughs can die, so can Keith Richards.
Well you know, the drummer usually dies first….
The ultimate dead pool. Queen Elizabeth, Betty White, and Keith Richards. My moneys on Keith.
I suspect we may all die first before we find out who wins this one.
There’s only so far clean living will get you.
Queen Mother lived to be 102, so those are the odds to beat with Elizabeth.
This is why we need to care for the planet, people. We to think about what sort of world we’re going to leave for Keith Richards.
RIP
Very sad. Great bands like the Stones get their iconic sounds from the unique abilities and idiosyncrasies of their members. Charlie Watts didn’t get many (if any, to my memory) writing credits, but the Rolling Stones wouldn’t have been the Rolling Stones without him. (Like, for example, that Latin-jazzy shuffle intro to Sympathy for the Devil.) I’m afraid that’s getting lost these days when bands aren’t really a thing. Sooner or later, but definitely within my lifetime, there will not be any widely-known drummers left alive. That’ll be depressing.
wow. rest in peace. this tour will be like a tribute tour to him. or at least it should be.
Jim Morrison said, “No one here gets out alive.” He was, of course, right.This is a sad day in the music world. Charlie Watts was more than just the normal guy in World’s Greatest Rock-n-Roll Band. He was one of the best drummers of the 20th and 21st Centuries, more than worthy of taking a seat next Keith Moon, John Bonham and Neil Peart in Heaven’s rhythm section. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Watts wasn’t flashy. He just cranked out solid beats for 60 years and provided the backbone for every Stones song that hit the charts. While that alone would be a lifetime accomplishment for most mortals, Watts was also an skilled graphic artist and was noted for his style as a member of Vanity Fair’s International Best-Dressed Hall of Fame List.He will be missed.
Memory:November, 1997. Minneapolis. The Bridges to Babylon tour. Center stage, only a handful of rows back. The Stones were thunderous and electric. Through it all, Mr. Watts was solid, stoic, unflappable. Not just holding the pocket; he owned that pocket.The drunk college girls behind us were screaming ‘CHARLIE WATTS!’ at every opportunity.RIP, man. Thanks for the music.
Apparently Charlie got out of the sessions for Bridges as early as he could, because Mick was trying to introduce looping and dance music. Rest of the Stones weren’t having any of that.
I was at that Minneapolis show too with a best buddy of mine, Mike. Wow, what a show. Glad you loved it too. Charlie was the best.RIP Charlie Watts
The several times I saw the Stones in concert, Charlie got the loudest applause BY FAR. Heck, even just showing him on the jumbotron would get a little roar going.
Man, what a bummer of a news update. Some part of me thought that everyone in that band would just last forever.
By the way, has anyone checked on Bob Bert, just to see if he’s okay?
RIP
I know he was 80 and was recently hospitalized, so maybe this news shouldn’t be too surprising. But man, this is hitting me different. Unbelievable musician and genuinely good human. This sucks. Godspeed, Charlie.
We might as well brace ourselves now. Over the next 20 years we’re going to lose this generation of rockers, one by one by one (unless, you know, they’re all traveling together and, you know…).
They’re all in their late 70’s and have not lived the healthiest of lives so I’m thinking we’re about to start seeing some of the bigger ones go. I really wish there was a way of putting Ringo and Paul in some sort of plastic bubble because I can’t imagine a world without any living Beatles around
At least Ringo and Paul made it into their 80s, so at least half of The Beatles made it to old age.
I’ll be flattened when McCartney goes. But I’m old enough to have been flattened when John died. At least Paul has lived a full life.
Honestly can’t imagine a world without Paul, Mick, or Keith. Just unimaginable.
Better prepare yourself then, unless you get hit by a bus first. There’s going to be an ongoing parade of 60’s and 70’s rockers biting it over the next fifteen years. I don’t have to make a list because it will be damn-near anyone you can name.https://theweek.com/articles/861750/coming-death-just-about-every-rock-legend
The mean, snarky part of me wants to do a rock star death pool and place bets on who dies when
yup….pretty much all the titans from 1965-1975 are in their late 70s or already 80. The next 10 years is going to see the loss of so many legends.
This one makes me sad. I love the Stones. I know they get flack for being more of a corporation/circus act than a band, but, you know, they did what they loved and were no less a business than any big act. Gonna put on some albums now. That will include the latter day Blue and Lonesome, because it’s great. Roll steady and rest in peace Charlie.
I think that “corporate entity” tag is grossly overstated. I think the Stones, even now in their 70s, are still a formidable live rock band, and they do it without embarrassing themselves. They don’t pretend that they’re NOT punching 80; they’re not Aerosmith. And again, while they do trot out the old war horse songs again and again and again, I don’t think they get enough credit for dropping lesser played or more obscure/deep cut gems into their set lists.
Yeah. They’re fun. They were always fun. Their socio-political artistic relevance may have run out of gas some time in the 70s, but then that relevance was kind of always about fun anyway.
80 is a pretty good run. Still, he’ll be missed.
Its genuinely possible Keith Richards could end up being the last living member. Imagine that. Damn shame to see Charlie go. I was worried when he said he wouldn’t on tour early this month. Farewell you crazy rocker.
He outlived so many Spinal Tap drummers.
I refuse to shed a tear for this cis white male.
I think he and Levon Helm are the two greatest drummers of rock’s golden age- always in the pocket. This is very, very sad, but if ever anybody got the job done every single time out of the gate, it was Charlie Watts. R.I.P.
Jim Keltner needs to be in that discussion.
“Charlie’s good tonight innit he?” Yes Mick, yes he was. The absolute best. I love the Stones, and this hurts a lot.
When the lord get ready… you got to move…
This news hurts. Charlie was always my favourite drummer. He had a tasteful elegance, and when every drummer in rock music seemed to go for bigger and bigger kits his was always low-key.His ironic detachment always provided a cool contrast with the rest of the Stones who seemed to embody rock excess. He was the true gentleman drummer of Rock n Roll.
RIP
no cause of death was given. really? dude…he’s 80 YEARS OLD…
The Stones are the masters of the lost art of the fading coda and Charlie Watts drumming was such an integral part of that sound.You Can’t Always Get What You Want being my favorite example. The orchestra, and instruments get progressively louder, Jagger screams, and finally Watts pierces thought with his drums. A perfect song for the end of the 60’s
Charlie doesn’t play on You Can’t Always Get What You Want. It’s producer Jimmy Miller on the drums kit.There are indeed a few studio tracks where Charlie doesn’t play. It’s Jimmy Miller again on Happy, Shine A Light and the end of Tumbling Dice, Kenney Jones on It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll, and Ronnie Wood on the two tracks from Dirty Work Keith sings on.
I have heard that there is an infamous drumming flub at the end of Tumbling Dice. Something about how the last big drum flourish started a beat or two ahead of when it was supposed to start. Perhaps it was because Charlie Watts was not playing. A tidy explanation, if so.
“Widely acknowledged as one of the best rock drummers of all time”lol… okay.