Legendary Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts dead at 80
Drummer Charlie Watts anchored one of rock ’n’ roll’s great rhythm sections and helped steady famously volatile band
LONDON — Charlie Watts, the self-effacing and unshakeable Rolling Stones drummer who helped anchor one of rock’s greatest rhythm sections and used his “day job” to support his enduring love of jazz, has died, according to his publicist. He was 80.
Bernard Doherty said Tuesday that Mr. Watts “passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier today surrounded by his family.”
“Charlie was a cherished husband, father and grandfather and also as a member of The Rolling Stones one of the greatest drummers of his generation,” Doherty said.
Mr. Watts had announced he would not tour with the Stones in 2021 because of an undefined health issue.
In 2004, Mr. Watts was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent successful treatment and remained in remission. He resumed touring with the Stones as well as solo projects.
The quiet, elegantly dressed Mr. Watts was often ranked with Keith Moon, Ginger Baker and a handful of others as a premier rock drummer, respected worldwide for his muscular, swinging style as the band rose from its scruffy beginnings to international superstardom. He joined the Stones early in 1963 and remained over the next 60 years, ranked just behind Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as the group’s longest-lasting and most essential member.
Mr. Watts stayed on, and largely held himself apart, through the drug abuse, creative clashes and ego wars that helped kill founding member Brian Jones, drove bassist Bill Wyman and Jones’ replacement Mick Taylor to quit and otherwise made being in the Stones the most exhausting of jobs.
A classic Stones song like “Brown Sugar” and “Start Me Up” often began with a hard guitar riff from Richards, with Watts following closely behind, and Wyman, as the bassist liked to say, “fattening the sound.”
The Stones began, Mr. Watts said, “as white blokes from England playing Black American music” but quickly evolved their own distinctive sound. Mr. Watts was a jazz drummer in his early years and never lost his affinity for the music he first loved, heading his own jazz band and taking on numerous other side projects.
He had his eccentricities — Mr. Watts liked to collect cars, even though he didn’t drive, and would simply sit in them in his garage. But he was a steadying influence on stage and off as the Stones defied all expectations by rocking well into their 70s, decades longer than their old rivals the Beatles.
Mr. Watts didn’t care for flashy solos or attention of any kind, but with Wyman and Richards forged some of rock’s deepest grooves on “Honky Tonk Women,” “Brown Sugar” and other songs.
Jagger and Richards at times seemed to agree on little else besides their admiration of Mr. Watts, both as a man and a musician.
Richards called Mr. Watts “the key” and often joked that their affinity was so strong that on stage he’d sometimes try to rattle Mr. Watts by suddenly changing the beat — only to have Watts change it right back.
Jagger and Richards could only envy his indifference to stardom and relative contentment in his private life, when he was as happy tending to the horses on his estate in rural Devon, England, as he ever was on stage at a sold-out stadium.
To the world, he was a rock star. But Mr. Watts often said that the actual experience was draining and unpleasant, and even frightening. “Girls chasing you down the street, screaming ... horrible! ... I hated it,” he told The Guardian newspaper.
From childhood, Mr. Watts was passionate about music. He fell in love with the drums after hearing Chico Hamilton and taught himself to play by listening to records by Johnny Dodds, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and other jazz giants.
He worked for a London advertising firm after he attended Harrow Art College and played drums in his spare time. Mr. Watts’ career took off after he played with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, for whom Jagger also performed, and was encouraged by Korner to join the Stones.
Mr. Watts wasn’t a rock music fan at first and remembered being guided by Richards and Brian Jones as he absorbed blues and rock records, notably the music of bluesman Jimmy Reed. He said the band could trace its roots to a brief period when he had lost his job and shared an apartment with Jagger and Richards because he could live there rent-free.
“Keith Richards taught me rock and roll,” Watts said. “We’d have nothing to do all day and we’d play these records over and over again. I learned to love Muddy Waters. Keith turned me on to how good Elvis Presley was, and I’d always hated Elvis up ’til then.”
Mr. Watts was the final man to join the Stones; the band had searched for months to find a permanent drummer and feared Mr. Watts was too accomplished for them.
In an interview with “the Mirror in 2012, he spoke of the Stones’ success, saying: “I knew there was something special very early on. Most bands start very enthusiastically and gradually audiences drop off. This lot was totally different. We were never unpopular, the band’s audience grew and grew, and that is the phenomenon really.’’