The Rolling Stone that gathered a wedge
Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts leaves behind an incredible musical legacy –and a mountain of cash
The Who’s Roger Daltrey may have hoped to die before he got old, but his rivals in the Rolling Stones are still touring nearly six decades after they were first founded. Sadly, they are now one member smaller following the death of drummer Charlie Watts last month. Watts was the last to join the original line up in 1963, says Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph, but he became the cornerstone of the group – along with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, he was the only member to play on all their albums and was “the man in the driving seat” on everything from (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction to Miss You.
Yet despite being at the heart of the world’s greatest band, Watts defied every rock’n’roll stereotype. In contrast to the rest of the “scruffy young blues band”, he always appeared “attired in elegant suits, perfectly accessorised in every detail”, making him “just about the coolest English gent you ever clapped eyes on”. And while his band mates seemed determined “to grow old as disgracefully as possible”, Watts was “mature before his time”, forsaking groupies in favour of his wife, Shirley, whom he married in 1964. He became “the glue that held the Rolling Stones together”.
His “anti-rock’n’roll lifestyle” and “impeccable sense of style” did not make him in any way dull though, as Emma
Kelly points out in the Metro. Watts had to be “badly provoked” to lose his temper, but he was no pushover, as Mick Jagger once found out the hard way. During a trip to Amsterdam, Jagger called up Watts at five in the morning, asking: “Where’s my drummer?” Twenty minutes later, an “impeccably dressed” Watts knocked on the door. “Never call me ‘your drummer’ again,” he said, before grabbing hold of Jagger by his lapels and punching him, sending him flying onto a silver platter of smoked salmon.
Time to stop rolling?
Watts leaves behind not just an “incredible” musical legacy, but “a vast amount of wealth”, thanks to record sales of music and memorabilia, and the “more than 2,000 sell-out gigs around the world” the Stones put on, says Emma Wilson in the Daily Mirror. Indeed, their 2006-2007
A Bigger Bang Tour alone “raked in more than £406m”. The takings, along with some wise investments, means that the quartet of Jagger, Richards, Wood and Watts has a combined fortune of more than £1bn – Watts’ individual net worth was around £200m.
Still, a mountain of wealth can always be made bigger, and the Stones are going ahead with their US tour next month, says Jonathan Dean in The Sunday Times. Who can blame them? Most of us would “keep doing a job we love long after getting our bus pass – particularly if it paid millions”. But the Stones would perhaps be wise to consider whether the death of their “totemic drummer” might not be the signal to “finally... stop rolling”. For many of their fans, a band without Watts will not be the Stones at all. Their 60th anniversary next year would be the “perfect time to retire”, leaving the stage with “a classy farewell acoustic gig, a commemorative box set and a BBC special”.
“The quartet of Jagger, Richards, Wood and Watts has a combined fortune of more than £1bn”