Outandabout-Magazine-Oct-issue-191

14 | OUT AND ABOUT COSTA BLANCA
JOHN CURTIS
Hello and welcome once again to
The All Time Greats page. In the
light of the recent sad news about
Charlie Watts I thought I would say a
few words about the now late and
irreplaceable quiet man of The
Rolling Stones. In all their
notoriety when did you
hear that Charlie Watts had
caused any trouble???!
On many occasions
Charlie has been called
one of, if not the, greatest
rock drummers of all time.
Having spent the last 60 of
his total of 80 years as a key
member of, again many say, the
greatest rock band of them all I do not
see this as flattery. Charlie was, yes, very
much the quiet man of the band. His journey
into rock drumming had actually started
with a love of jazz which is something
he retained all his life actually leading
and drumming with a number of
jazz bands. In the early 60s this
inevitably branched into R &
B and it was moving in those
circles in London that he came
to meet Brian Jones and the
other members of the band
that became The Rolling
Stones. Charlie was in fact
the last of the “main five” to
join in 1963. Away from the
group he led a very private life
that was totally different from the
kind enjoyed by most rock stars. With
the band his drumming was steady, solid and