Rock Steady

Charlie’s Good Tonight: The Authorised Biography of Charlie Watts

by Paul Sexton (2022, Mudlark, 344 pp. paperback)

Jump in…

• Ploughing his own Furrow
• Less is More
• Charlie Watts’ Sock Drawer
• Bang on Time & Out of Time
• From Pre-fab to Dorset Estate
• Elsewhere

Ploughing his own Furrow

I don’t usually read rock biographies. The people in the entertainment and music industry are rarely interesting to me. Learning about their indulgences or often chaotic lifestyles is more likely to detract from than to add to the memories of the soundtrack to the music of my youth. And it’s not like I even listened to the Rolling Stones much, and never owned their records. In our house, with 3 older sisters in the 1960s, we would more likely get excited about the new Beatles single on the radio. (I vividly remember the first BBC Radio play of Hey Jude, and later the mind-expanding experience of hearing Sgt. Pepper.)

But after watching a TV documentary that highlighted just how different Mr Watts appeared to be compared to his bandmates, I was intrigued by this eccentric life. And this fascinating and well-researched book provides a lot more detail of just how singular and interesting the Stones’ drummer was. While Jagger and Richards were living the archetypal notorious high life (“sex and drugs and rock and roll”), Charlie Watts was ploughing his own furrow. Offstage, he lived to the beat of a different drum, while onstage he provided the rock-steady beat that held The Rolling Stones together.

Less is More

How does a shy introvert become a global superstar? Well, according to Paul Sexton, who knows the Stones and was privileged with stories and information from Charlie Watts’ family, the answer was … reluctantly! In the early days of the band, they came to find him, for his already solid reputation. But the music that Watts loved and was know for was jazz. He would give it a year, then he expected it would fizzle out and he could then return to the jazz clubs. He had a very simple jazz kit – as simple an unflashy as it could be – and that would be what he used through the decades of touring the multi-million dollar juggernauts that were the Rolling Stones‘ world tours.

Charlie Watts’ Sock Drawer

What originally drew my attention in that TV documentary was some of the quirks of Watts on tour. He spent many months at a time living away from home, in endless hotel rooms. While the others were out tearing up whatever city they were in, he would leave the stage as quietly as possible, return to his hotel room and stay there. He needed his simple routines: laying out his Saville Row clothes and hand-made shoes meticulously. His socks would be folded carefully in a drawer in perfect order, separated by tissue paper.

And then, for his own pleasure, he would sketch his bed and other objects in the room. He started in art school, and drew all his life. There were many sketchbooks showing every bed he ever slept in. Another fixed daily point in his itinerant journey would be phoning home to speak to his wife Shirley. They had been students together at art college and defying all expectations of rock marriages, they celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary together. Whenever he could he would retreat to family life and enjoy their dogs and horses at home.

Bang on Time & Out of Time

In terms of his formality, his meticulous dress sense and his collecting habits, he has more in common with the an 18th century English gentleman on the Grand Tour, than a rock idol on a relentless World Tour. His private persona was “a man out out of time”, while as a musician he was very much “in time”, providing a bedrock rhythm to 60 years of the Stones‘ music that was admired his peers. It made him a drummers’ drummer.

From Pre-fab to Dorset Estate

Those old-fashioned ways came with values of reliability and punctuality. One of the much-repeated stories about Charlie Watts is that in his long career he only every missed one gig. Sexton explores the story and finds out that even that was because of a genuine mix-up over dates, not a result of his behaviour.

This is an affectionate and well presented biography of an eccentric man, in the best sense. His life did not revolve around the same pre-occupations of many. He was content to be different, and be his own stylish and self-contained self. It brings out the unexpected and less-seen side of an artistic and sophisticated man. He was part of a huge global brand, while managing somehow to protect his privacy. And it’s a story of a lad from a post-war Wembley pre-fab who ended his days fabulously wealthy, able to indulge not only his expensive and wide-ranging collecting habits, but also to surprise and treat his friends with his generosity too. It’s that story of a nice quiet guy with an extraordinary job, and learning about his fascinating life and times has had a lasting effect on me: my sock drawer will never be the same!*

(* true!)

Elsewhere on the shelf

• The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can’t Do Without It, by Philip Ball (2010, Bodley Head, 452 pages) – a terrific book about the science and psychology of music. But he unaccountably forgets to mention going to school with my lovely musical wife, Linda!
• Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music, by Amit Chaudhuri (2021, Faber, 258 pages) – a very singular book, which recounts the author’s life and classical Indian musical training. It is an immersive experience, introducing the complex world and culture of Indian music, in contrast to western rock.
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain (2012, Penguin, 334 pages) – the psychology of those who don’t speak the loudest, and so are rarely heard; those who need their own space and so are rarely seen. They (we) matter too.