What's so great about Charlie Watts, after all?

Exile....That is all..

 

You want to hear the Stones playing in the groove listen to their live shows from 1969. Perfect tempo IMHO.

They seemed to start speeding up on some songs in 1971 but on the 1972 tour it became very noticeable to me.

Still love their live shows post 1969 but that was the perfect tour for me.

 

Here's a real senior citizen laying down some classy drumming. Jimmy Cobb was the drummer way back on Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.... here he is, 90 years old at the time of this 2019 recording.

 

Charlie Watts is great because he's the drummer for the Rolling Stones. I've never noticed anything lacking in his playing in any era. I'm sure he's not perfect but I've never heard a recording of him where I just thought that he was deficient.

 

Maybe people like him for the exact opposite reasons you dislike him....because they feel he's a good drummer? Just thinking out loud here..

 

I am a dull and simple lad
Cannot tell water from champagne
And I have never met the Queen
And I wish I could have all that he has got
And I wish I could be like Charlie Watts

 

I read an interview with someone in the band (I think Wyman) many years ago that stated Keith kept the bands time with Charlie and the rest of the band following. That's dead backward, and the drummer should always be the one keeping time. I hear recordings of the Stones being all over the road time wise, and I believe this to be the case. Keith for sure has his strong points as a musician, but he's never been a particularly good guitar player. Ginger Baker once said Charlie was the best musician in the band, and he might of been right. Also don't anybody ever be fooled into thinking Mick Jagger isn't a great musician. Jimmy Miller also played a fair amount of very good drums on Stones albums.

 

Doesn't it, though? Same goes for Ringo. I mean, how can you call the drummers in such DEFINITIVE rock and roll bands anything but excellent at what they do?

Agree, you can really hear what they bring to the Stones' feast. See above. How could he not be a good drummer? Also, on a practical level as someone mentioned, they would have canned the minute they started getting big, or at any time thereafter, if he wasn't doing a drummer's most important job: making the band sound great!!

My one and only Stones concert experience was on the 1989 tour, outside in the summertime. It had rained the day before, and many thousands danced in the mud. You know why they were dancing? Because Charlie Watts was kicking the hell out of us. I wish I could have bottled how the sound and impact of those drums FELT, no recording has ever captured the actual experience.

Hell yay

(no expert but I know what I like)

 

It’s just my opinion. I don’t think Charlie Watts is a great drummer. He’s good but I prefer other drummers to him.

 

I've thought about this since I posted this, and it now seems clear to me that this is the paradox of the Rolling Stones:

The songs sound complex, but they're actually quite simple; the drums sound simple, but they're actually quite complex.

 

Charlie Watts is a great drummer for The Rolling Stones' musical intentions - to me that is the most important thing. They sound like the way they do because of his chemistry with the other instrumentalists in the band and his inner clock

 

The Stones live are basically impending chaos, Charlies job is to keep it together, a thankless task. Here's some work I think he and Bill were proud of:

 

I never think about the drums when I listen to the Stones. Just the overall sound. Charlie is the perfect drummer for the band, then.

 

I am not enough of a rhythm scientist to defend this proposition but it seemed very true to me in real time last time I saw them, Desert Trip second weekend....that ALL that was needed to get across the essence and feel of the songs and "Stonesness" was Charlie and Mick, the drums contained ALL the propulsion musicality and "rock" of the music.

 

Damn skippy.

 

Charlie Watts? He keeps showing up. That's what's so great about him.

Think about it. Brian was fired (and then, died). Mick Taylor quit. Bill Wyman quit. Keith's gone missing for days at a time. Jagger tests out solo and acting careers.

Despite of all this, Charlie keeps showing up. For 57 years. He never quit. They never fired him. You've got to admire that.

 

Charlie pushes Keith's buttons, they are the engine room. I know some folk can't enjoy the Stones but I'm not one of those. Charlie and Ringo have their own groove, both unique.

 

No offence to anyone, haven’t read the whole thread. But, please, he plays what he plays and that’s all he needs to play. He’s not in an orchestra interpreting others’ works. He just ‘is’, like most pop culture musicians. There’s no paradigmatic paradiddle

 

The only place in the world where people will knock Charlie Watts but defend Pete Best.

 

I've always thought of Watts as being an okay drummer who doesn't do anything flashy to take attention away from any of the guys further up front, and the guys up front like it that way and prefer Watts for that very reason. I do wonder what the Stones would have sounded like with a different drummer, though. What would they have sounded like with a guy like Chad Smith or Alex Van Halen? Or Ginger Baker, Mitch Mitchell, John Bonham, or Keith Moon? What would their studio work have sounded like with Hal Blaine drumming? Since that music never happened, we have no idea. But I can think of drummers who may have made them a better band.

 

I've never thought that. That's what's great about Charlie Watts.

 

That's right, you don't get it. No explanations necessary, you just have to accept your limitations in appreciating musicianship.

 

He fits the band perfectly.

 

No knock on Charlie, but who ever said that you have to be a good musician to play in a rock & roll band?

 

Pete Townshend posts here!!!