Written by Patrick Humphries:

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

[www.oxforddnb.com]

[www.oxforddnb.com]

Charlie Watts (1941–2021), c. 1965

Photo by Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Watts, Charles Robert [Charlie] (1941–2021), drummer, was born at University College Hospital, London, on 2 June 1941, the only son of Charles Richard Watts (1921–1981), a lorry driver for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway who was then serving as an aircraftsman in the RAF, and his wife, Lillian Charlotte, née Eaves (1921–1996). At the time of his birth the family lived at 34 Girton Avenue, Kingsbury, London. He had one younger sister, Linda (b. 1944). In 1947 the family moved to a prefabricated bungalow at 23 Pilgrims Way, Wembley, before settling in 1964 in a council house at 4 Holly Grove, Kingsbury.

Watts was educated at Fryent primary school, Wembley, then Tylers Croft Boys' Secondary Modern School, Kingsbury. He was given his first drum kit aged fourteen and was diligent in his practice. At fifteen he left Tylers Croft to train as a commercial artist at Harrow School of Art, following which he worked as a designer with a London advertising agency, Charles Daniels Studios. By the early 1960s the capital was buzzing with groups playing jazz and rhythm and blues, and Watts's first professional engagement came with Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated in 1962. He quickly established himself as one of scene's most respected players.

Charlie Watts was soon held in such esteem that musicians Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards—the fledgling Rolling Stones—who had jammed with Blues Incorporated, couldn’t believe their luck when he threw his hand in with them, but only after they guaranteed him a £5 weekly wage. His first gig with the Rolling Stones (by then also including Bill Wyman on bass guitar) in January 1963 led to a lifetime playing with the band. He and Wyman were regularly hailed as rock's most reliable rhythm section. Throughout their career, the Rolling Stones relied on touring to promote their music, an element that Watts always disliked. A strict timekeeper in real life as well as when drumming, he also found fault with the band's lax discipline when it came to recording. The drummer ruefully reflected to David Hepworth on BBC television when asked his thoughts on working with the Stones, ‘Well it's not really work is it? It's work five years and twenty years' hanging around!’ (Whistle Test, BBC2, 3 July 1986).

Following a flood of hit singles, including seven number ones in the UK, the Stones soon emerged as the Beatles' only rivals during the dazzling British pop scene of the 1960s. Band manager Andrew Loog Oldham had cunningly promoted the Stones as pop's bad boys, their loutish behaviour at odds with that of the family-friendly ‘Fab Four’. Watts remained above the controversy, always immaculately turned out, prompt at rehearsal and steadfast in his timekeeping. Observers often found him the outsider in the rebellious Stones camp. It was, however, a misnomer. For Richards, the Stones were always ‘Charlie's band’. In his autobiography, the Stones' guitarist attested, ‘Charlie Watts has always been the bed on which I lie musically’ (Richards, 118). The band relied on the drummer to keep the Stones steadily locked on during their thousands of concerts for over fifty years.

Charlie Watts's drumming was central to the Stones' sound during their ‘imperial phase’ from 1968 to 1972, embracing the LPs Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street, albums not only seen as the Stones' best, but among the greatest ever releases in rock's history. Never a flamboyant performer, Watts was nevertheless integral to the group's success both in the studio and onstage. Offstage he stayed far from the limelight, and it was only posthumously that the full extent of his collecting became apparent: as well as a collection of classic drum kits, he built up a priceless section of vintage cars (even though he never learned to drive) and of American Civil War memorabilia, as well as a book collection which included first editions of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Agatha Christie, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

On 14 October 1964, at Bradford register office, Watts married a former art student, Shirley Ann Shepherd (b. 1938), daughter of Ronald Leonard Shepherd, plasterer, and his wife, Edith. Charlie and Shirley Watts had one daughter, Seraphina (b. 1968). He cherished his life with Shirley, and admitted, ‘staring at a suitcase the night before a Stones tour is my idea of Hell!’ (Desert Island Discs, 25 Feb 2001).

Fellow drummer, Melody Maker journalist Chris Welch, forged a bond with Watts: ‘We talked drummers, and bonded over “Big” Sid Catlett, who Charlie said was his favourite’ (private information, interview, 5 July 2018). Other drummers outside the rock orbit who found Watts's approval were Art Blakey, Evan Jones, Chico Hamilton, and Gene Krupa. Indeed, it was to the jazz world that Watts defected when not required for his ‘day job’ with the Stones. ‘I would love to have been born in the era when jazz was the thing’, he told E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg. ‘I wish I could have been around when it was a struggle to get in the door, when jazz musicians were the stars … I always wanted to be a black New Yorker. You know, the sharpest one on the street’ (Weinberg with Santelli, 158). Over the years, Charlie was recognized as ‘the sharpest one’ for his clothes sense, frequently appearing on the year's ‘best dressed’ lists in style magazines.

While best known for his half-century as the drummer with the Rolling Stones (frequently hailed as ‘the greatest rock and roll band in the world’), Watts's real love lay in the music of American jazz. During the Stones' lay-offs, he put together groups to play his favourite style of music: a quintet, ten-piece, orchestra, and big band. Record sales were modest, and while undeniably a rich man's indulgence, there was never any doubting Watts's commitment to the music. In the late 1970s he began performing with the ad hoc Rocket 88 alongside long-time Stones pianist Ian Stewart, the group favouring old-style boogie woogie. With the Charlie Watts Orchestra, material was drawn from the ‘golden age’ of 1930s jazz, the repertoires of Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington. Watts eschewed the stadia he was familiar with from years with the Stones, favouring venues like Ronnie Scott's Soho club, Fulham town hall, or New York's Ritz Club.

It was nevertheless with the Rolling Stones that Watts's name will be indelibly linked. Never missing a gig between 1963 and 2019, while Jagger remained the cynosure, and Richards the archetypal rock guitar hero, it was Watts at the back laying down the beat for those Stones anthems. He never took the band's rebel links too seriously, even on the infamous 1969 American tour which ended in the tragedy of Altamont. Charlie's wife, Shirley, felt: ‘It's just a tour, after all, just a group of people going around getting up on stages and playing music for kids to dance’ (Booth, 136).

During the 1980s the Rolling Stones stayed apart for seven years, but the reconciliation between Jagger and Richards came about in no small part thanks to their drummer. The Times's David Sinclair wrote, ‘Charlie fits the role well, they all respect Charlie, none of the band has a bad word to say about Charlie, he's the peacemaker, the Nelson Mandela of the band’ (private information, interview, 22 Aug 2018). On their return, the Stones played to ever growing audiences, outlasting all their peers, and cementing their reputation as the rock world's greatest attraction. It was Watts with his designer's eye who also played a large role in creating the group's increasingly elaborate stage sets and lucrative merchandising opportunities.

Despite a spell of ill health, Watts never missed performing with the Rolling Stones over fifty-six years. His final appearance came in August 2019, in Miami, Florida. Having previously lived for seven years at Foscombe House in Gloucestershire, he and Shirley lived for more than forty years at Halsdon House, a seventeenth-century manor house with a 600 acre estate in Dolton, Devon, where Shirley bred horses. His death at the Royal Brompton Hospital, Chelsea, of complications of squamous cell cancer on 24 August 2021 came as a shock. The tributes flooded in from peers, admirers, and the legion of fans who had grown up listening to him powering the Rolling Stones. His wife, Shirley, died in December 2022. They were survived by their daughter, Seraphina.

Sources
B. Wyman, with R. Coleman, Stone alone: the story of a rock’n’roll band (1990)
M. Weinberg, with R. Santelli, The big beat: conversations with rock's great drummers (1991)
A. Loog Oldham, Stoned (2001)
D. Lowenstein and P. Dodd, eds., According to the Rolling Stones (2003)
K. Richards, Life (2010)
S. Booth, The true adventures of the Rolling Stones (2012)
S. Egan, The mammoth book of the Rolling Stones (2013)
R. Cohen, The sun & the moon & the Rolling Stones (2017)
P. Humphries, Rolling Stones 69 (2019)
The Times (25 Aug 2021)
Daily Telegraph (25 Aug 2021)
The Guardian (25 Aug 2021); (11 Dec 2021)
Last word, BBC Radio 4, 27 Aug 2021, www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000z1k9, accessed 10 February 2025
New York Times (30 Aug 2021)
P. Sexton, Charlie's good tonight: the authorised biography of Charlie Watts (2023)
private information [Chris Welch, David Sinclair] (2025)
b. cert.
m. cert.
d. cert.
Archives
Film
Charlie Watts—my life as a Rolling Stone, BBC2, 23 July 2022, www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0cgmxq6, accessed 10 February 2025
documentary, performance, and interview footage, BFI NFTVA
Sound
Desert island discs, BBC Radio 4, 25 Feb 2001, www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009493z, accessed 10 February 2025
Likenesses
photograph, with the Rolling Stones, 1960, Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS.com/Mary Evans Picture Library
P. Townsend, bromide print, with the Rolling Stones, 1963, NPG
T. O'Neill, digital R-type colour print, with the Rolling Stones, 1963, NPG
T. Clark, chromogenic print, 1963, NPG
P. Townsend, half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘I wanna be your man’ by the Rolling Stones, 1963, NPG
half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘I just want to make love to you’ by the Rolling Stones, 1963, NPG
C. Woodgate, half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘Walking the dog’ by the Rolling Stones, 1963, NPG
M. Ward, chromogenic print, with the Rolling Stones, 1964, NPG
N. Parkinson, bromide print, with the Rolling Stones, 1964, NPG
I. Wright, bromide print, with the Rolling Stones, 1964, NPG
half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘Around and around’ by the Rolling Stones, 1964, NPG
half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘It's all over now’ by the Rolling Stones, 1964, NPG
G. Mankowitz, half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘The Rolling Stones song album’, 1964, NPG
half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘Rhythm & blues album’, 1964, NPG
G. Mankowitz, bromide print, with the Rolling Stones, 1965, NPG
G. Mankowitz, digital chromogenic print, with the Rolling Stones, 1965, NPG
G. Mankowitz, enlarged contact sheet, with the Rolling Stones, 1965, NPG
half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘The last time/Play with fire’ by the Rolling Stones, 1965, NPG
half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘(I can't get no) Satisfaction’ by the Rolling Stones, 1965, NPG
half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘Record songbook’, 1965, NPG
photograph, c.1965, Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images [see illus.]
G. Mankowitz, chromogenic print, with the Rolling Stones, 1966, NPG
half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘19th nervous breakdown’ by the Rolling Stones, 1966, NPG
J. Schatzberg, half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘Have you seen your mother, baby, standing in the shadow?’ by the Rolling Stones, 1966, NPG
G. M. Webster, half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘A flagrant misuse of the English language’ by the Rolling Stones, 1966, NPG
photograph, with the Rolling Stones, 1967, Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS.com/Mary Evans Picture Library
photograph, 1967, Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS.com/Mary Evans Picture Library
P. Stone, modern bromide print, with the Rolling Stones and photographers, 1967, NPG
M. Cooper, chromogenic print, with the Rolling Stones, 1967, NPG
two photographs, with the Rolling Stones and others, 1968, Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS.com/Mary Evans Picture Library
two photographs, with the Rolling Stones, 1968, Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS.com/Mary Evans Picture Library
M. Joseph, Iris print, with the Rolling Stones, 1968, NPG
D. Wedgbury, resin print, with the Rolling Stones, 1968, NPG
M. Joseph, chromogenic print, with the Rolling Stones, 1968, NPG
photograph, with the Rolling Stones, 1969, Photoweb X/Action Press/ZUMAPRESS.com/Mary Evans Picture Library
photograph, with daughter, 1969, Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS.com/Mary Evans Picture Library
half-tone reproduction, with the Rolling Stones, sheet music cover for ‘Honky tonk woman’ by the Rolling Stones, 1969, NPG
P. Gidal, black and white film, ‘Heads’, 1969, NPG
P. Webb, colour print, with the Rolling Stones, 1970s, NPG
P. Webb, resin print, 1971, NPG
P. Webb, three resin prints, with the Rolling Stones, 1971, NPG
L. Lewis, chromogenic print, with the Rolling Stones, 1973, NPG
photograph, with the Rolling Stones, 1973, Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS.com/Mary Evans Picture Library
photograph, with the Rolling Stones, 1977, Keystone Press Agency/Keystone USA via ZUMAPRESS.com/Mary Evans Picture Library
photograph, with the Rolling Stones, 1978, Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS.com/Mary Evans Picture Library
photograph, with the Rolling Stones, 1979, Keystone Press Agency/Keystone USA via ZUMAPRESS.com/Mary Evans Picture Library
three photographs, with the Rolling Stones and Václav Havel, 1995, CTK Photobank/Mary Evans Picture Library
photograph, with the Rolling Stones, 1998, TASS/Mary Evans Picture Library
B. Foskett, photograph, 2001, National Jazz Archive
obituary photographs

Wealth at death
£29,622,739 net: probate, 11 May 2022, CGPLA Eng. & Wales



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2025-06-24 12:46 by bv.

Brian Jones also has an entry, but you need a subscription:

[dnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-1005838" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.oxforddnb.com]

"Watts's first professional engagement came with Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated in 1962. He quickly established himself as one of scene's most respected players."

From the ODNB's Ginger Baker entry (you don't need a subscription for this one):

"In August 1962 Baker joined Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, taking over the drum stool from Charlie Watts who reputedly said, ‘I can’t be working when Ginger is out of a job’ (private information). Baker later recommended Watts to Brian Jones for his drumming role with the Rolling Stones. Blues Incorporated, with Baker on drums, played regularly at the Ealing Blues Club and the Marquee in Soho."

[www.oxforddnb.com]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2025-06-24 14:24 by slane82.

Awesome

Does anyone know more about this or where to find more?

"During the 1980s the Rolling Stones stayed apart for seven years, but the reconciliation between Jagger and Richards came about in no small part thanks to their drummer. The Times's David Sinclair wrote, ‘Charlie fits the role well, they all respect Charlie, none of the band has a bad word to say about Charlie, he's the peacemaker, the Nelson Mandela of the band’ (private information, interview, 22 Aug 2018)."

I was under the impression that Ronnie was the major peacemaker between the two.

~"Love is Strong"~

Quote
slane82
"Watts's first professional engagement came with Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated in 1962. He quickly established himself as one of scene's most respected players."

From the ODNB's Ginger Baker entry (you don't need a subscription for this one):

"In August 1962 Baker joined Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, taking over the drum stool from Charlie Watts who reputedly said, ‘I can’t be working when Ginger is out of a job’ (private information). Baker later recommended Watts to Brian Jones for his drumming role with the Rolling Stones. Blues Incorporated, with Baker on drums, played regularly at the Ealing Blues Club and the Marquee in Soho."

[www.oxforddnb.com]

The August 1st gig mentioned at the end of the article was one of the first gigs Ginger played with Blues Incorporated.



Jazz News, 25 July 1962

never heard an official cause of death before. Always thought it was heart related.

I looked up squamous cell cancer; it says "often caused by prolonged exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun or tanning beds."

I dont picture Charlie as a tanning bed kind of guy.

Great article, it’s 8 UK single no1’s in the UK for the Stones though

"Charlie Watts's drumming was central to the Stones' sound during their ‘imperial phase’ from 1968 to 1972..."

Never heard their heyday years called "the imperial phase" before. I kind like that...

I didn't know Oxford maintains such a book. Charlie loved history, collected old books (I identify, my musty old treasures include a 2nd American edition Origin of Species, and a 1st edition 1st printing Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I found a bit trashed out and unrecognized for only $3), and he took pride in his old-school English-ness. I think Charlie would probably be very pleased with this entry in Oxford's assemblage of bios of British notables.

It's already been almost four years Charlie's been gone...and six since he last performed. That seems hard to fathom, but then I've only been to one post-Charlie show so that might be just me.

Quote
Pietro
"Charlie Watts's drumming was central to the Stones' sound during their ‘imperial phase’ from 1968 to 1972..."

Never heard their heyday years called "the imperial phase" before. I kind like that...

Same. That is an interesting choice. "Imperial" here in a British context meaning world-conquering, I would say, as '68 - '72 was when the lads became acknowledged as the World's Greatest Rock n Roll Band. There's a parallel, how an unlikely, drizzlely little island nation managed to corral the biggest, most far-flung empire in the history of the world. Later, not all that long after the British Empire proper was lost, a band of five unlikely twentysomethings go out and conquer popular music globally. So, okay, "imperial." That was pretty much why a Stone got knighted, after all.

And if it wasn't for England's own "imperial phase" I certainly wouldn't be here right now, with Stones music to enjoy, much less in my U.S. state named for, of all things, their 16th Century queen's purported, weirdly hyped, (maybe overstated) sexual status. (Wtf?)

I do, in fact, hail Britannia! Britannia has, at times, ruled the waves, both ocean and "air-".

Thank you, keepers of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. May Charlie Watts and the Rolling Stones be celebrated forever

****
I'm down in Virginia
with your Cousin Lou



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025-07-03 18:52 by TheBluesHadaBaby.