Bill Wyman’s birthday yesterday makes it as good a time as any to get some earlier Stones stuff onto the blog. These are from Charlie Watts’ 70th birthday, June 2, 2011. I know nothing about playing the drums, but I always thought Charlie was the perfect drummer for the Rolling Stones — flexible, solid, content to be in the background. And he always seemed to have some sort of cool jazz or blues project going on the side.
Haiku powered by Charlie’s wattage
Today’s the birthday
Of Charlie Watts, Stones’ drummer
Renaissance beat man
Rock traces its roots
To folk, country, mostly blues
But how about jazz?
Jazz caught Charlie’s ear
“Flamingo” and “Walkin’ Shoes”
He lusted for drums
Before his first kit
He hacked off a banjo’s neck
Drummed on its body
Soon he played skiffle
‘Round London street corners, joined
Alexis Korner
Keith and Mick showed up
Blues Incorporated group
Morphed into the Stones
Whatever a song
Needed, Charlie knew the beat
Time was on his side
The Stones, the rolling
Circus, creative chaos
Charlie was the rock
Pick any Stones hit
Listen to Charlie’s drumming
It will be just right
For instance, it’s there
On “19th Nervous Breakdown”:
Sticks, cymbals, big toms
He didn’t forget
His first love, either, once formed
A jazz orchestra
Boogie-woogie lived,
Too, in his great pickup group
Rocket 88
With Stones and without,
He’s played it all, and he marks
One more year on time
And on “Moonlight Mile”
Charlie Watts proved he drums to
A different dancer
Bill Wyman’s birthday yesterday makes it as good a time as any to get past Stones stuff onto the blog. From the anniversary of the release of a great album.
May 12, 2011, haiku
Exile on Main Street
Released 39 years back
On a dark May day
The Stones were exiled
To France and LA, fleeing
Britain’s back taxes
Music deep in blues
Vocals buried in mixes
Murky, layered, drugged
Country, calypso
And soul sank into the songs
Blurring the picture
Musicians drifted
In and out, heroin shot
Through Keith Richards’ veins
The dissolution
And delays bugged unstoned Stones —
Mick, Bill and Charlie
Despite everything
The beast was corraled, not tamed,
Baffling to many
Dice tumbled, joints were
Ripped, hips shaken, a light shined
And Keith got happy
A time of excess,
Restless music, “more is more”
Captured brilliantly
And the Voice critic
Robert Christgau got it right:
“Fagged-out masterpiece”
Greg's Hack-u 