It was 9th January, 1963, when Charlie Watts joined The Rolling Stones. Since then, ask any TRS fan and everyone will agree that Charlie was the most mysterious man among the members of The Rolling Stones and he still is. From owning multiple exotic cars without knowing how to drive to drawing sketches of every hotel room where he used to stay, Charlie is definitely the most intriguing member of the world's greatest rock and roll band.
Only Charlie Watts can express the hesitance to not play famous open concert/festivals. When the Stones played their famous Glastonbury festival in 2013, Charlie had famously said, "I don't want to do it. Everyone else does. I don't like playing outdoors, and I certainly don't like festivals." In an interview for Rolling Stones, when Keith Richards was asked how Charlie Watts can drum for 2 hours straight at the age of 77, Keith chuckled and said, "He's a very secretive man." And he is, from being the quiet member to not doing many interviews unlike the others.
Until recently, he gave Chad Smith, drummer of Red Hot Chilli Papers, in what can be termed as one of Charlie's most casual, free and relaxed, funny interviews, for The Chad Smith Show, on DrumChannel.com. In one part of the interview that is available for free on the website, Charlie is seen talking about his music influences, one of those rare musicians who came up from jazz and took his influence from it more than any other genre, compared to his contemporaries, like Jimmy Page, who was blues influenced. Watts credits Gerry Mulligan's "Walking Shoes" as those influences that sparked the drummer inside him. He recalls how listening to Charlie Parker at the age of 14 years felt like. "I suppose it's like kids hearing Jimi Hendrix. You suddenly think, 'What the hell is he playing?' I heard Bird and I thought, 'That's fantastic. I want to do that in a club in New York."'
Watts does clarify that he never disliked rock and roll literally, for he did used to look up to Elvis's drummer, D.J.Fontana, thereby drawing a line from the early jazz to Louis Prima's jump blues to rock and roll, ""It was all one thing. In those days," he says.
Though he does mention how the style of jazz was always present in the initial years, "Brian and Keith used to play Jimmy Reed all day. It was the same as playing jazz to me. It was another drum thing," mentions Charlie.
But, Charlie does regret that he never learned to play the drums from anybody, it was always what he saw and learned or as he puts it, "If you were playing up there, I would be watching you."
