When people chuck about words like 'legend' or 'icon', they often do so with far too little care. But when it comes to Charlie Watts, these words cannot be overused. Because he was, quite simply, the rock-and-roll backbeat of the Rolling Stones for more than half a century. And more than that, he was the backbeat of the latter half of the twentieth century itself.
Drawn to music by the allure of jazz and greats like Charlie Parker, Watts has often said he almost fell into the role of being the drummer for the Rolling Stones. As a boy, he turned a banjo head into a snare drum, and that set him on a percussive path for life. But his love of jazz never left him, and whilst he always played with metronomic precision, he did so with the feel of a jazz drummer who knew that the 'roll' of rock and roll lay in that micro-moment just behind the beat, and it was this moment that Watts nailed again, and again, and again.
Watts loathed touring but loved playing on stage. He once remarked that if he could go home after every gig, he'd happily 'tour' forever. He loved playing with the boys (as he always called them), and saw himself as an important part of bringing their sound to life. That said, he played without ego; he avoided fills and loathed solos. He only played what the songs - and his bandmates - required of him, and he was as reliable as an atomic clock.
Watts loved clothes and was often adjudged to be England's best-dressed man. The cut of a Saville-Row suit with the panache of a silk scarf invariably adorned him when in public, and if rumour is to be believed, in private as well. Charlie did as he pleased, and largely, that meant keeping to himself, spending time with his family, listening to jazz (and playing it in his own side projects), drawing, and tending to his many horses.
The drummer is meant to be the wild one, as the all-too-short lives of Keith Moon and John Bonham attest. But Watts lived a life as far from that cliche as possible. Though he had a period of difficulty in the early 1980s - in the form of a heroin addiction - he recovered (thanks to a great deal of support from Mick Jagger) and returned to his peaceful life. He shunned groupies, remaining faithful to his wife, Shirley, who he married in 1964. Rather than run about in pursuit of sex, he sketched his hotel rooms. In fact, he is known to have sketched every single one he stayed in over his nearly-six-decade career as a touring musician.
Mick and Keith squabbled a bit, but never about Charlie. He was their rock. Keith, who's never been backward when it's come to self-mythologising, has never wavered in his belief that the core of the Stones is Charlie, and that without him, there's no band. It's difficult to disagree with him. That sound, that beat, that pulse; that was Charlie. The Stones' version of white-boy blues and sexualised danger was given an English sense of panache and genuine musicality by the man at the drum kit. A man who played with the facial expressions of a tradesman - an artisan - who knew exactly what to do. A man in complete command of each movement, but who never cruised or wavered in attention, who hit each snare and cymbal with effortless poise.
Take Charlie out of music and you don't have The Stones. Take the Stones out of music and you'd might as well remove a colour from the rainbow. It's unthinkable. The man was mortal, but his legacy will live forever. And I'm sure that fact would greatly embarrass him.
I'm sorry, Charlie, but you were one of the great. Sticks down, Sir. It's time to go home.
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