Drummer Charlie Watts, whose adept, powerful skin work propelled the Rolling Stones for more than half a century, died in London on Tuesday morning, according to his spokesperson. No cause of death was cited; was 80.
A statement from the band and Watts’ spokesperson reads: “It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Charlie Watts. He passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier today surrounded by his family.
“Charlie was a cherished husband, father and grandfather and also a member of the Rolling Stones one of the greatest drummers of his generation.
“We kindly request that the privacy of his family, band members and close friends is respected at this difficult time.”
You can use this video to nerd out on Charlie’s legendarily spartan Gretsch drum kit or his mythological technique: the grip changes, the snare hits closer to the logo than the center, or Steve Albini’s observation that Charlie never hits the snare and the high hat at the same time, which “moves the focus away from the pulse and onto the gait of his playing.” (Steve is unverified, but he starts out by describing Charlie as “the only good thing about the Rolling Stones,” so it’s him.) Or you can thrill to the fleeting and blurry antics of Mick and Keith, who peacock in and out of the frame, first-name-basis pantheon rock stars who nonetheless clearly defer to their far more stoic pantheon rock star drummer. “Charlie Watts has always been the bed that I lie on musically,” Keith notes in his 2010 memoir Life, reviewing 1963 diary entries in which he marvels as his outlandishly stylish new drummer morphs from a Jazz Guy to a Rock ’n’ Roll Guy who still swings with the magnificent swagger of a Jazz Guy.
When the rock icons of our youth, the ones that enabled us to dance in ways that arthritis and other age-related ills now make forever impossible, it's like shattering a mirror of ourselves at that age.
A sexy Peter Pan crashing down mid flight, reminding us that we too are nearing our own descent - our incredibly aged Pied Piper dancing off the cliff ahead of us.
Peacefully - so we are told - surrounded by grand and great grandchildren (instead of hysterical fans) making it impossible to hold fast to that certainty of self. (Could Peter Pan ever have great-grandchildren?)
Not even one murmured "died too young", proves we are definitely on the same road.
-------------------------------- The most dangerous word in the language is "obvious"
Posts: 14392 | Location: PA | Registered: 20 April 2005
Reminds me of Gerard Manley Hopkins' famous consolation to the young Margaret, as she mourns the leaves falling in Autumn - the last two lines especially.
quote:
Márgarét, áre you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! ás the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sórrow's spríngs áre the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It ís the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.
GMH's poems being so syntactically dense, let me debrief readers on subject and object. When Charlie Watts and other should-be immortals fall, we are all Margarets mourning for ourselves.
-------------------------------- The most dangerous word in the language is "obvious"
Posts: 14392 | Location: PA | Registered: 20 April 2005
