The Rolling Stones mega-hit Charlie Watts didn’t play on
The late Charlie Watts was always understated, a musician who much preferred to fly under the radar. Watts was a vital cog in the machine: not only did he excel at playing his instrument, but he also acted as the peacemaker that smoothed any tension between his bandmates. Without him, The Rolling Stones would likely have split years ago and never reached such stratospheric heights.
Watts played his first show with The Rolling Stones in January 1963 at Ealing Jazz Club and officially joined the group less than a month later. Thanks to being part of the same music scene and playing alongside Brian Jones in Blues Incorporated, he’d grown friendly with the band. “It was his band, really,” Watts once said about his first band during an interview with Louder Sound. “He was the one with the passion. Brian also played slide and steel, things that people didn’t play. He’d play like Elmore James. We used to go to dances and he’d be playing [James’s] Dust My Broom. Nobody’d heard of this stuff.”
Although Watts was more interested in jazz than rock ‘n’ roll, he adored The Rolling Stones and once proclaimed: “I don’t really love rock & roll. I love jazz. But I love playing rock ‘n’ roll with the Stones.” Watts didn’t receive the affirmation his talent deserved during his lifetime, but that was how he liked it.
Despite his greatness, The Rolling Stones didn’t always need him, as they proved on ‘It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll (But I Like It)’, which featured Kenny Jones from The Faces instead of Watts. The track also featured Jones’ bandmate Ronnie Wood, who would become a full-time member of The Stones a decade later.
In 2015, Jones explained to Noise11 why he played on the track: “Ronnie Wood, myself and Ian McLagan lived around Richmond Park. I lived on one of the gates called Robin Hood gate, Ronnie Wood lived on Richmond Gate and Ian McLagan lived on Sheen Gate. Ronnie Wood would always call me up as soon as I got one foot into bed. It was quite late. He’d call me up and say, ‘Kenney, we haven’t got a drummer. Can you come around and play on this’. I’d given Ronnie one of my drum kits so the drum kit was permanently set up there in his studio”.
He added: “I went around and this time it was just Jagger in there, Mick Jagger and Ronnie. Ronnie had just got all this outboard equipment, all these new toys to play with in the studio. He was twiddling the knobs which left me and Mick Jagger in the studio, just guitar and drums and that’s how that song came about. Ronnie came in and said ‘keep playing, I just want to put the two of you down’. It was just Mick Jagger and myself, guitar and drums and we did the track. Ronnie Wood came in, pressed the button, picked up the bass and played on it. I thought it was a demo for whatever they were doing. I forgot all about it. The Stones went into the studio later and tried to recreate that song. They couldn’t capture the feel so they ended up using it”.
Fortunately, Watts was nonplussed about Jones featuring on the track when he telephoned The Stones drummer to apologise. He recalled: “When I found out later it was actually me playing on drums on it, I called Charlie up and said, ‘I didn’t mean to play drums on your album’ and he said ‘that’s okay. It sounds like me anyway’. He’s a lovely guy, Charlie. A perfect gentleman”.
In an industry full of ego, Watts was a refreshing exception to the rule. Almost every other person in his position would have been furious about not featuring on a hit single by their own band, but that wasn’t in Charlie’s psyche.
