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He played his drums, he didn’t beat on them.” Ry Cooder, who played guitar with Watts, Jagger, and Bill Wyman on their 1972 Jamming With Edward! album, told Rolling Stone, “Didn’t Mick once declare, ‘We back up Charlie,’ or words to that effect? Amen! I remember Charlie’s bag was loose, relaxed, swinging. Steve Winwood said, “I met Charlie in 1965 when we toured with the Stones on a package theatre tour, I had the pleasure of playing with him on several occasions since then, and he was very supportive and a thoroughly nice man.īesides that he was a brilliant drummer with his own special technique and definitely throughout the years was the defining groove of the Rolling Stones.” And in the best of humor…my God you were one hell of a sharp dresser!! With SO much respect…and support to your family There is now you, to keep the two and four, and MORE!! You will be missed by so many… Love and respect.” Mick Fleetwood penned an open letter/tribute to Watts on behalf of himself and Fleetwood Mac, writing, “I, like so many, are sad today… However, knowing there are no words, still I’m driven to say to you… ‘You, in life, had style!!’ You as a player were above and beyond!! You are my dream come true!! No one could drive a band like you!! Most of all, again, the meaning of style comes to mind… For sure… in simply everything you did!!!Family took such focus in your life…in an often-unfocused world you lived in. It has been the honor of my life to have played with him in studio and in concert over the last 40 years, and to have called him a friend. On stage, I would stare at his face and marvel at his ability to be the coolest cat among the coolest cats around. His timing and beat was always impeccable, his touch delicate yet stabilizing, powerful. There has been no man more effortlessly elegant and more beautiful than Charlie Watts.

The Stones’ longtime keyboardist, Chuck Leavell, said, “I am devastated at the passing of one of my heroes, one of my peers.

When you master great time, you achieve timelessness.” He was the motor driving the Stones down the tracks. Those two quirks gave Charlie his unique feel. “He used an old-school jazz stick grip and also did not hit his hi-hat with his right hand when he hit that backbeat with his left. “We’ve lost one of the prime architects of the backbeat to rock & roll, from the Sixties until now,” says the Doors’ John Densmore, who calls Watts “one of the great timekeepers” of the music. Charlie Watts was the heartbeat of the Rolling Stones.” His secret - the same as Ringo - is heartbeat. Tributes from Watts’ rock & roll peers and admirers have already started to come in, with Graham Nash telling Rolling Stone, “Without question, Charlie Watts was one of the greatest drummers in the world. We’d still be running around trying to find an amp, 30 years later.” “If I had led the Rolling Stones, they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. “I’m big on letting people do what they want, which doesn’t make for good bandleaders,” he told Rolling Stone in 1991. His battle with drugs and alcohol in the mid-Eighties was, like many things about the man, largely private. Unlike born road warriors such as Keith Richards, Watts often seemed uninterested in touring and gave the distinct impression the Stones was a job more than a calling or a lifestyle choice. Watts also famously remained faithful to Shirley Shepherd, his wife since 1964, which set him somewhat apart from his excessive, hard-partying bandmates. His dapper dress sense - Vanity Fair elected Watts to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame - was ultimately more in line with the jazz he loved and sometimes played than rock & roll.

“With rehearsals starting in a couple of weeks, it’s very disappointing to say the least, but it’s also fair to say no one saw this coming.”Īnd yet, Watts was very different from the rest of the Stones. “Charlie has had a procedure which was completely successful, but his doctors this week concluded that he now needs proper rest and recuperation,” a rep for the band said in a statement at the time.

Watts’ death comes several weeks after it was announced that the drummer would not be able to perform on the Rolling Stones’ No Filter Tour of U.S. “He passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier surrounded by his family.” The statement referred to Watts as “one of the greatest drummers of his generation” and closed by requesting that “the privacy of his family, band members, and close friends is respected at this difficult time.” “It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Charlie Watts,” it read. Watts’ publicist confirmed his death in a statement. Charles Robert “Charlie” Watts, the Rolling Stones’ drummer and the band’s irreplaceable heartbeat, has died at age 80.