Charlie Watts

[Boatboy24]

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/charlie-watts-rolling-stones-drummer-dead-dies-1235047778/

 

[ceeaton]

I saw that this morning. I read that he had a few run-ins with drugs in the late 70's early 80's. He said it was just a "mid-life crisis", no big deal, LOL.

 

[ibglowin]

Married for 57 years to the same woman all while being in a rock and roll band. Amazing drummer and amazing life as well.

 

[jswordy]

I was never a huge Stones fan but it is always sad to see a rock icon go. I suspected he might die when they announced he would not be on the US tour. My wife and I were talking last night about how strange it is to see these rockers in their mid-70s still touring on hits they had in the 1970s!

 

[Jim Welch]

A few run ins with drugs? I’d bet dollars to donuts he and his band mates did drugs ALL the time in the 60s, 70s, 80s…
I went to many many rock concerts and drugs were part of the lifestyle for better or worse. Of all the rockers I saw one and only one always gave an anti drug message at the very end of his performance and that was Ted Nugent. Saw him in 75, 77, and 78 iirc and all 3 times the very last thing he said before the lights went out for the final time was “Don’t do drugs!….that’s right, you heard me right, don’t do drugs!” Then lights out! No kidding.
I saw the Stones twice and they put on a good concert both times.
Mr Watts along with the rest of the band became highly successful in his mid 20’s or so. I’d say being highly successful at what you do for 55 or so years is a life well lived drugs or no drugs! RIP

Edit:Imagine if Mozart had lived to 80!…

 

[winemaker81]

Watts supposedly went cold turkey from drugs in the 80's. Keith Richards did an intervention for him. Bizarre, right?

Thinking of no drugs, Jethro Tull, fronted by Ian Anderson, was also known for no drugs.

 

[jswordy]

Jagger's 78 – and about to tour America.

"Hey, did ya know I saw the Stones?"
"Cool!" (thinking it was back in the day) "When did you see them?"
"Last night!"

 

[Old Corker]

Long time Stones fanatic. First saw them in '75 in Cleveland and it is still the best show I've ever seen. Watts famously shunned the rock star lifestyle for most of the six decades he kept the beat for the greatest Rock and Roll band of all time.
He has now let out one of their biggest secrets. They are not immortals after all.

 

[Wayne Freeman]

Long time Stones fanatic. First saw them in '75 in Cleveland and it is still the best show I've ever seen. Watts famously shunned the rock star lifestyle for most of the six decades he kept the beat for the greatest Rock and Roll band of all time.
He has now let out one of their biggest secrets. They are not immortals after all.

That's interesting. I saw them at the Gator Bowl on what was probably that same tour, and it was the worst thing I've ever heard**. J. Geils with Chaka Khan were the opening act and they were tight but the Stones came on and it was like Amateur Night. They were so "loose" (if that's the right word), each song was unrecognizable until Mick started singing, even during "Satisfaction", which probably has the most recognizable intro of any song in history (with the possible exception of Beethoven's 5th). But not that afternoon. Couldn't tell whether Keith was having fun improvising or lost his set list and didn't know what he was playing.

**Until David Sylvian at the Fillmore sometime in the early 2000s