BIRTHDAY WISHES: Charlie Watts was born today in 1941 in London, England. For more than five decades, Charlie Watts has been a prominent figure in the world of rock and roll as the longtime drummer of the Rolling Stones. Charlie Watts grew up in Wembley near London as the son of a truck driver. Around the age of 10, Watts discovered jazz and blues music; Miles Davis and John Coltrane were two of his early influences. Watts’ earliest records were jazz recordings. He remembers owning 78 RPM records of Jelly Roll Morton, and Charlie Parker. He started playing music on his own a few years later, converting a banjo into a snare drum. Watts parents gave him his first drum kit in 1955 enabling him to practice drumming along with the jazz records he collected. After completing secondary school, he enrolled at Harrow Art School (now the University of Westminster), which he attended until 1960. After leaving school, Watts worked as a graphic designer for an advertising company called Charlie Daniels Studios, and also played drums occasionally with local bands in coffee shops and clubs. In 1961 he met Alexis Korner, who invited him to join his band, Blues Incorporated. At that time, Watts was on his way to work as a graphic designer in Denmark, but instead accepted Korners offer and returned to London in February 1962. Watts played regularly with Blues Incorporated and maintained a job with the advertising firm of Charles, Hobson and Grey. It was in mid-1962 that Watts first met Brian Jones, Ian Stu Stewart, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards, who also frequented the London rhythm and blues clubs, but it wasnt until January 1963 that Watts finally agreed to join the Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones scored their first No. 1 hit in the United States in 1965 with Satisfaction. A string of other successful songs quickly followed, such as Paint It Black and Ruby Tuesday, and the wildly successful career of the Worlds Greatest Rock & Roll Band was firmly established. By the 1980s, Watts found time to pursue projects outside the Rolling Stones. He returned to his first love, jazz, by forming a number of different groups, including a 32-piece band called the Charlie Watts Orchestra. Around that same time, Watts worked with early Rolling Stones member Ian Stewart in the band Rocket 88. In the early 1990s, Watts released several albums with another group, the Charlie Watts Quintet, including a tribute to Charlie Parker. He joined forces with drummer Jim Keltner for 2000s Charlie Watts/Jim Keltner Project, which covered a broad spectrum of musical styles. In 2004, he put out an album as Charlie Watts and the Tentet, another jazz ensemble. In June 2004, Watts was diagnosed with throat cancer, despite having quit smoking in the late 1980s, and underwent a course of radiotherapy. He received treatment and made a full recovery. Watts is also noted for his personal wardrobe. The British newspaper, the Telegraph, has named him one of the Worlds Best Dressed Men. In 2006, Vanity Fair elected Watts into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame, joining his style icon, Fred Astaire. Today, Watts continues to record and play with the Rolling Stones and expects to stay with the band until Mick Jagger or Keith Richards decides to retire. Last year he and the Stones embarked on their 50 and Counting tour, which refers to the bands five decades in the music business. When off the road, Watts now lives in Dolton, a rural village in Devon, where he and his wife of 48 years, Shirley, own an Arabian horse stud farm. Charlie Watts was recently voted one of The 50 Greatest Drummers of All Time by the readers of Modern Drummer Magazine. A famous anecdote - During the mid-1980s, an intoxicated Mick Jagger phoned Watts hotel room in the middle of the night asking, Wheres my drummer? Watts reportedly got up, shaved, dressed in a suit, put on a tie and freshly shined shoes, descended the stairs, and punched Jagger in the face, saying, Dont ever call me your drummer again. Youre my f***ing singer!
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 01:50:54 +0000
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