The drummer Charlie Watts knew was out of his league: “I can’t copy that”
Every great band has a juxtaposition at its core. This constant friction, the push and pull between the components, produces creative sparks and a unique sound. While The Beatles are the prime examples of this, their hedonistic peers from the capital, The Rolling Stones, offer another substantial piece of evidence that artistic differences, when balanced properly, are the key to success. With the ‘Jumpin; Jack Flash’ outfit, this centred on the distinction between drummer Charlie Watts and his bandmates.
Watts was always the enigma of The Rolling Stones. Not only did his reserved, ice-cool nature counterbalance the outlandish antics and stage presence of his bandmates – particularly that of figureheads and creative leaders Mick Jagger and Keith Richards – but musically, his context was much different from theirs.
While Jagger, Richards, Brian Jones and Bill Wyman were blues, R&B and rock ‘n’ roll aficionados, Jones had been a devotee of jazz since a young age. Although he might have also honed his approach when playing in Blues Incorporated and across London’s R&B clubs, his great love was always jazz, and the likes of Charlie Parker, Jelly Roll Morton, and Thelonious Monk made the greatest impression. They represented the pinnacle of artistic refinement to him.
Watts exuded this aura, too. While The Rolling Stones would happily maraud across the stage, fighting and flirting with everything in their path, Watts was reserved and restrained in his delivery. Never missing a beat and absolutely never overplaying, Watts learned from the greats in the jazz world and applied them with military precision to rock music. It would leave very few drummers out of his reach.
Accordingly, his swinging style was informed by the jazz drummers of the genre’s peak, such as Max Roach, Chico Hamilton, Elvin Jones, and Joe Morello. However, out of them all, Buddy Rich was the one he coveted more than any other. Famed for his traditional grip, shaking hi-hats and heavy use of the toms, these were three features Watts would make part of his arsenal.
Like Rich, Watts would also place tempo and expressive feeling at the forefront of his playing, and not overbearing technical flair like some of the genre’s other pioneers. It allowed him to serve the song and make a name for himself, going toe to toe with the styles of his bandmates, providing the backbone of The Rolling Stones. This status can be heard in everything from the effervescent groove of ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ to the rolling energy that comprises 1971’s Sticky Fingers.
Interestingly, despite lauding Rich’s “amazing” history on numerous occasions, and particularly his “remarkable” work with Charlie Parker for Verve Records, Watts, in the expected humble form, maintained that he could never match the heights of his ultimate hero.
He once admitted: “The placement of his notes! The timing of it then and there was just staggering. I just listen to Buddy’s music. I can’t copy that. I think you get to a point where you watch something just to enjoy it. I don’t think it’s really done so that you’re supposed to feel, ‘Oh, he’s the most wonderful drummer.’ I think the whole lot is what’s more enjoyable.”
Rich has been considered by many to be one of the foundational sons of rock drumming as we know it today. Regularly held up by Watt’s contemporaries as perhaps the definitive player, working alongside Gene Krupa, Rich can be considered a pillar upon which the percussive world has been established in a more modern tone.
Although Watts asserted that he could never “copy” the influential force of Buddy Rich’s playing, he did a fine job funnelling his most important facets into his work. A master of groove and innovative use of the cymbals, Watts instilled a rock-solid foundation in The Rolling Stones, giving the more unrestrained talents of his bandmates the room to flourish. It’s this inherent contradiction that made the band tick.
