Charlie Watts posing for a portrait in 2016.Credit:AP
I like to imagine that he’d ironed it himself. Probably wearing slacks and braces over a crisp white singlet. He would have been listening to some crackly old jazz program he’d found on the wireless in his hotel room while vaguely wishing he was back home in England with his wife,Shirley,and his beloved cars and horses.
Charlie Watts was the first drummer I ever consciously listened to. No disrespect to Ringo,but John never drew attention to the bloke behind him like Mick did,just afterLittle Queenie onGet Yer Ya Ya’s Out. “Charlie’s good tonight,i’n’ee?” became shorthand praise for any act of percussive genius among my amateur muso mates.
He was good in a different way to the singers and guitarists and go-to great drummers of his generation – Ginger Baker,Keith Moon,John Bonham – precisely because he was never so flamboyant. Never garish or violent;no grand gestures or fuss. All straight-backed British dignity and ruthless discipline.
Watts with his Rolling Stones bandmates in 2016. From left:Mick Jagger,Watts,Keith Richards and Ron Wood.Credit:AP
That all stemmed from his first love. Jazz was the kind of music that didn’t give a damn how you cut your hair or shook your butt. Slightly older,more dapper and cultured than the peacocks of the dawning rock age,Charlie was a vital anchor to a world that seemed more measured in every sense of the word;less crude and egocentric,more inclined to keep his mouth shut than play the fool.
My drummer friend Ash Davies – I had to call a fellow fan to process the great man’s passing – tells me Charlie was turned on by Chico Hamilton and Kenny Clarke,two American bebop dudes who never messed,at least in public,with capes or supermodels.
Ash raves,as drummers will,about Charlie’s impeccable swing and groove and his unique fills. The bomb he put underMidnight Rambler. The spine-cracking intro toStart Me Up. “He never strayed from the four-piece traditional jazz kit,” he tells me. “Two crash and ride[cymbals],high tom and floor tom… he never deviated from that. That’s another thing I love about him. He was so purist about it. That was his sound.”