In his 2019 book, Sympathy for the Drummer: Why Charlie Watts Matters, Mike Edison described the late Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts, as being “something like the straight man in a British sitcom, the sympathetic glue between the druggy, heavily armed, piratelike guitar player and the gender-bending lead singer.”
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| Watts, Richards, and Jagger in 1987 |
One night in 1984, Watts got so fed up with that gender-bending lead singer that he slugged him in the jaw. Here’s Keith Richards’ account of that incident:
We were in Amsterdam for a meeting, Mick and I weren’t on great terms at the time but I said c’mon, let’s go out. And I lent him the jacket I got married in. We got back to the hotel about five in the morning and Mick called up Charlie. I said, “Don’t call him, not at this hour.” But he did, and said, “Where’s my drummer?” No answer. He puts the phone down. Mick and I were still sitting there pretty pissed – give Mick a couple of glasses, he’s gone – when about 20 minutes later there was a knock at the door.
There was Charlie Watts, Savile Row suit, perfectly dressed . . . I could smell the cologne! I opened the door and he didn’t even look at me, he walked straight past me, got hold of Mick and said “Never call me your drummer again!”
Then he hauled him up by the lapels of my jacket and gave him a right hook. Mick fell back onto a silver platter of smoked salmon and began to slide towards the open window and the canal below.
And I was thinking, this is a good one, and then I realized it was my wedding jacket. And I grabbed hold of it and caught Mick just before he slid into the Amsterdam canal. It took me twenty-four hours after that to talk Charlie down.
That’s by far the most famous story about Charlie Watts, and Mike Edison thinks he knows why people love it so much:
I think everyone likes to hear that the world’s most urbane drummer, an accidental rock star with a reputation as an old-school gentleman, was not to be f*cked with.
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Tim Ries is a jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and university professor who has accompanied the Rolling Stones on several of their tours.
Between stops on the Stones’ A Bigger Bang tour in 2005, Ries recorded a number of his arrangements of Jagger-Richards songs, which were released later that year on an album titled The Rolling Stones Project.
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| The Rolling Stones Project album |
The album includes two arrangements of “Honky Tonk Women.” One sounds a lot like the original which is not surprising given that Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, and Charlie Watts played on it.
The other version – which is today’s featured recording – is a modern jazz arrangement that features Ries on sax, Larry Goldings on organ, and Watts.
Charlie Watts started out as a jazz drummer, and jazz remained his true musical love throughout his life. His drumming on the two versions of “Honky Tonk Women” on the Ries album couldn’t be more different.
Click here to listen to the Ries-Goldings-Watts recording on “Honky Tonk Women.”