Away from crazy life
WattsAlways staying away from the crazy life his peers lived, he remained for more than half a century the unflappable metronome of the band while fueling their passion for jazz.
With his impassive face and unanimously recognized talent for binary rhythm, he offered the perfect onstage counterpoint to the frenzied swaggering of Mick jagger and the electric antics of the guitarists Keith richards and Ronnie Wood.
And while his friends went through “divorces, addictions, arrests and crazy fights”, according to an inventory compiled by the British newspaper Mirror, the quiet Charlie Watts he lived a serene life with Shirley Shepherd, his wife of 50 years, and their daughter Seraphina, on their Arabian thoroughbred breeding farm in Devon, England.
“During fifty years of chaos, the drummer Charlie Watts represented the calm amidst the Rolling Stones storm, both on and off stage, “wrote the Mirror in 2012.
However, the musician was not totally impervious to the band’s addictions: In the 1980s, he underwent rehab for heroin and alcohol.
But “it was a very short time for me,” he explained. “I just gave it up, it wasn’t something for me,” confesses the taciturn musician.
Passion for jazz
Born June 2, 1941 in London, Charlie Watts He came to music through jazz animated at age 13 by his neighbor Dave Green with whom he would later form the quartet “The A, B, C & D of Boogie-Woogie”.
Fully self-taught, he learned to play by ear, watching the musicians in London jazz clubs.
“I never went to a school to learn to play jazz. That’s not what I like. What I like about jazz is the emotion,” explained the musician who during his career with the Rolling Stones, continued to play jazz in parallel and recorded several albums with the Charlie Watts Quintet and with the group Charlie and the Tentet Watts.
But first he studied art and worked as a graphic designer at a large advertising agency.
When he joined the Rolling Stones in 1963, they were just a small, fledgling band.
“It was a blessing,” Keith Richards said. “The first drummer I started with 40 years ago is one of the best in the world. With a good drummer, you are free to do whatever you want,” he added.
Watts was named the twelfth greatest drummer of all time by Rolling Stones magazine.