Rock royalty which called county home
SOME of the biggest names in rock music have chosen to make Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds their home.
Charlie Watts is perhaps the bestknown rock drummer in the world.
The founder member of the Rolling Stones lived in Foscombe House in the Severnside village of Ashleworth from 1976-1983 with his wife Shirley, who is a horse breeder.
Usually impeccably turned out, Watts may be a man of few words, but he has a nice turn of phrase.
When asked to describe life as a Rolling Stone on the band’s 25th anniversary he replied: “Five years playing, 20 years hanging about.”
Steve Winwood, who lives in Turkdean, near Northleach, has been a member of rock royalty since singing the number one Keep On Running with the Spencer Davis group at the age of 16 in 1965.
Success followed with Eric Clapton in Blind Faith and as a member of the supergroup Traffic.
He has also notched up multi-million worldwide record sales as a solo artist.
He married his wife Nicole at Cheltenham register office in 1978.
Toni Iommi, the man credited with the invention of heavy metal music, lives in the quiet Cotswold town of Broadway.
As lead guitarist of Black Sabbath, he came to fame with Ozzy Osbourne and co following the release of their album Paranoid in 1970.
Mr Iommi developed his distinctive guitar style out of necessity after losing the tips of two fingers on his fret hand in a machine tool accident.
Besides guitar he plays the accordion and along with the satanic riffs for which he is known, composes church music.
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Richard Ashcroft rose to stardom as lead singer/guitarist with The Verve, a band he founded in 1990.
Once dubbed Mr Rock ’n’ Roll by Noel Gallagher, he lives with his wife and two children in the village of Taynton, near Newent.
Had rock superstardom not beckoned, Mr Ashcroft might have followed a career in football having played for Wigan Athletic’s youth side.
Chris Martin of Coldplay described him as ‘the best singer in the world.’
Despite this embarrassment, Ashcroft has made a number of top selling solo albums.
John Entwistle lived in Quarwood House on the outskirts of Stow-on-thewold from 1976-2002.
The renowned bass guitarist and founder member of The Who, Entwistle was an accomplished euphonium player and arranged all brass parts for the Who’s recordings.
After his death from a heart attack prior to a show in Las Vegas in 2002, the musician’s 200 guitars were sold at auction by Sotheby’s, along with an eclectic range of collections including stuffed fish and stage costumes.
Sade, who lives near Stroud, rose to fame with the release of her album Diamond Life in 1984.
It was the biggest-selling debut record by a British female singer and in its wake came more multi-million albums that topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
Awarded an OBE in 2002, Sade took a 10-year sabbatical from music before returning to the charts with Soldier Of Love in 2010.
Last year she recorded her self -penned Flower Of The Universe, which appeared in the Disney film A Wrinkle In Time.
Jim Capaldi, who was born in Evesham, was the co-founder with Steve Winwood of the progressive rock group Traffic.
The band enjoyed considerable success in the late 1960s and ’70s with chart singles penned by Capaldi and Winwood such as Paper Sun and albums such as John Barleycorn Must Die.