I guess this is how it is, getting older, you start losing people that are part of your life’s soundtrack.

And now Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones’ legendary drummer has died.

Watts’ passing was announced in a statement by his publicist, Bernard Doherty, which 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, as 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 the difficult time.”

Originally trained as a graphic artist, Watts started playing drums in London’s rhythm and blues clubs in the early 60’s where he met Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards and later joined the Rolling Stones in 1963.

For a band as flamboyant and rebellious (especially in their younger years) as the Stones, Watts was a quiet figure, an impeccably dressed gentleman with a drumming style that owed more to jazz than it did to the band’s rhythm and blues roots. And his side projects with the Charlie Watts Quintet were all about jazz.

In 2006, Watts was elected into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame and that same year, Vanity Fair elected him into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame.

Music critic Robert Christgau called Watts was “rock’s greatest drummer,” and no matter your take on that, he was certainly among the best. In 2016, he was ranked 12th on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Drummers of All Time”

As the New York Times coverage so perfectly stated, “Reserved, dignified and dapper, Mr. Watts was never as flamboyant, either onstage or off, as most of his rock-star peers, let alone the Stones’ lead singer, Mick Jagger; he was content to be one of the finest rock drummers of his generation, playing with a jazz-inflected swing that made the band’s titanic success possible. As the Stones guitarist Keith Richards said in his 2010 autobiography, Life, “Charlie Watts has always been the bed that I lie on musically.”

I had the occasion to work with Stones in a previous career before American Craft Beer, first when they toured the states in the 80’s and later as a record rep when they signed with Virgin Records.

And even with what limited contact I had with the man, I was struck by his quiet professionalism and unassuming kindness.

Amazingly the Rolling Stones will still be embarking on another tour this fall, Steve Jordan was named as Watts’ substitute for the run. But it won’t be the same without their drummer of 60 years… It will never be the same.

R.I.P. Charlie Watts (1941 – 2021)