WATTS DEFINED STONES’ SOUND
Iconic style set songs without getting in way
A few weeks ago, an old clip of Rolling Stones’ drummer Charlie Watts made the rounds on social media. Watts had decided to sit out the Stones’ upcoming tour after an undisclosed medical procedure and the world seemed hungry to remember his talents.
The 2006 concert clip focused on just the drummer as he pounded through “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” for the thousandth time, making clear that Watts, as much as anyone, defined the Stones’ sound.
Watts, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 80, spent six decades powering “the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World.” He did it with ease. He did it in tailored suits. He did it after a childhood not caring a whit for rock ’n’ roll.
Born in 1941, Watts grew up when jazz had as much cultural cachet as blues, R&B or rock ’n’ roll. Back when British kids were going gaga for Chuck Berry, Ruth Brown and Elvis, Watts was digging Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. The swingin’ big band beat and in-the-pocket approach of bebop stayed with Watts through dozens of gold LPs, record-setting tours and immortal songs.
“We starved ourselves to pay for him!” guitarist Keith Richards wrote in his autobiography “Life.” “We went shoplifting to get Charlie Watts. We cut down our rations, we wanted him so bad, man.”
As early as the ’50s, Watts made a name for himself in London as an ace drummer, which made him one of the few in-demand cats on the blossoming R&B scene. The style the Stones fell in love with remained essentially unchanged from the boom of the band’s 1964 take on “Route 66” to the stomp on its version of “Just a Fool” in 2016.
That style had him digging a big, fat groove through a remarkable catalog. Sometimes he dug toward the lazy, late and sloppy side of the groove as in “Honky Tonk Women.” Other times he carved out something on the rushed, thrusting-forward side like during “Paint It Black.”
“Charlie can rush like mad and still make it feel great. That’s his style,” session legend Jim Keltner told Drum! “He can’t explain it and I don’t necessarily like going into too much detail with him about it. I just marvel at it.”
But he never climbed out of the groove to get flashy. And flashy quickly became the rage.
During the years Watts played with the Stones, drummers got gonzo. Icons such as Keith Moon, John Bonham, Neil Peart and Stewart Copeland expanded the instrument’s range (and size, building toward 40piece kits). Compared to the setup used to create “Tom Sawyer,” Watts’ kit looks like a kid’s. But he made it work wonders others couldn’t.
Going back to that 2006 “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” clip, so many bits help illuminate Watts’ approach: the rushed beat, the insanely tight fills, the jazz drummer’s grip, the tiny kit, the absolute fury with which a guy well into his 60s can slam the skins. But what stands out most is how Watts defines the song without ever getting in the way of it. Here and on “Gimme Shelter” and “Mixed Emotion” and, well, everything, his beat both hits you in the chest and just sits back and does its job.