Here’s the second installment of a series lauding “brilliant, understated rock stars we ought to recognize more often – the frequently underappreciated who create the classic sounds we associate with the more self-promotional members of their bands, or whom we never pay attention to at all…” The idea is to build out an entire band of them – guitar, drums, bass, vocals and keyboards. Part I is available here.
Drums: Charlie Watts
I know… How can Charlie Watts be underappreciated? He’s a member of the world’s greatest – and most famous – rock and roll band?
Exactly. And that’s a lot of why Watts is overlooked. In the immediate orbit of people like Jagger, Richards and Brian Jones, who wouldn’t have been lost in the shadows? And Watts has always been immensely private – a gentlemen who simply beat the skins as Mick duck-walked the stage and Keith and Ronnie traded riffs, staggering, stoned, mugging through cigarette smoke.
That Watts has been recognized more as “rock star” than a technician – celebrated more for the company he’s kept than the skill he brings to the drum kit – is a criminal, sinful oversight. Because in fifty years of playing, the man has never missed a beat, never played anything off tempo. …Well, maybe a few times, but never so badly you’d remember. Never so beyond salvage he couldn’t make you quickly forget.
As I noted at the start, however, his band, their fame – the forty years of Kleig light glare on Mick and Keith, the death of Brian Jones, Altamont and all other scandals and drama that have cemented the Stones in our culture – is but a part of what’s overshadowed Watts. The other part of it, perhaps the bigger part, is that Watts is almost too good a drummer… too tight for his often sloppy band, so precise he almost slips into the background.*
Consider his early competition, the drummers we still view as masters. Keith Moon never saw a space he couldn’t fill, or a fill he couldn’t embellish. Same went for Mitch Mitchell. Bonham and Ginger Baker took over songs, became the gravity guiding everything around them. Watts never took the lead. He played an ensemble part, with tight economic fills you might not even have noticed, or if you did, thought were rote, mechanical… I’m not a student of the drums, so I can’t say how complex they were. But this much I’ve learned of art in general – that something might look or sound simple is rarely proof it is. More often than not what you’re hearing is the skill to make the difficult appear easy. Or simply flawless execution. Both describe Watts’ work:
The tempo shift between the verse and chorus show an amazing discipline. Watts stops on a dime and segues into an entirely different time sequence – one at odds with the previous rhythm – then shifts back seamlessly.
Machine gun fills holding the center, making an otherwise enthusiastic, but utterly hookless song interesting.
Watts driving an almost heavy metal-like dirge, sledgehammering beats atop notes like Bill Ward in early Sabbath records.
Against his usual style, Watts doing a sloppy, fat stomp topped with cascades of crashing cymbals.**
The subtle rolls behind the beats at the start of this song are genius – an ideal finishing touch, or accompaniment, to the greatest riff in the history of rock music. You might never have considered the importance of those sounds, consciously even noticed them, but without that filler, the song would have had just a bit too much dead air between the early guitar notes.*** It’s the little touches that always make the difference.
And if you doubt Watts can still play nearing 70, here he is in 2006, slamming through “Live With Me,” a tune built around a relentless drum beat (yeah, Christina Aguilera’s guesting in it, but it’s a smoking version of the tune, and she adds some welcome vocal heft).
Part III to follow.
___________________________________
*Mick Taylor, a ridiculously talented guitarist who elevated the Stones’ sound from Let it Bleed through It’s Only Rock and Roll, is frequently cited as the only virtuoso player in the band’s history. Absolute bullshit, and proof of two things: (1) the veracity of the argument Watts has been underappreciated; and, (2) that the music press’s taste is in its mouth.
**If I were old enough or responsible enough to concern myself with writing a will, this is the song I’d demand in lieu of a eulogy. Should I one day crash the Canyonero into a bridge abutment at 80, a victim of steering with my knee while talking on the cell phone, chugging a coffee and struggling to read some highly urgent business-related gibberish on a half-crumpled fax lying on the dashboard, when you click here that’s what you’ll hear.
***That Watts can turn 180 degrees in the middle and play the “Tito Puente” or “Latin jam” section of the song as well, if not better, than any drummer Santana ever had, shows his almost limitless range.#
#Yes, the Tito Puente link is gratuitous, and pointless. Possibly more pointless than a footnote to a footnote. Except that I follow a rule – every time Puente is cited, he must be linked.
You’re dead right on “Sway.” I think it’s one of the Stones’ most under-appreciated songs–his drumming at the 2 min. mark and beyond is sensational. It really accentuates Mick’s “HEY!HEY!HEY!NOW!” yelling thing right there and just keeps getting better. For some reason, I’ve played that song for some of my friends, people I considered classic rock aficionados and they had absolutely no idea what record it was off of. I guess it’s overshadowed by everything else on side one.
I also love the drums on “Stray Cat Blues,” probably my favorite Stones song. It really doesn’t get enough play, getting overshadowed by “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Street Fighting Man” on Beggar’s Banquet, but Watts is on his game. Even if he is more of a “technical” drummer than Keith Moon or John Bonham, I think his technique is absolutely flawless in this song. I think this song showcases Mick, Keith, Brian Jones and Charlie Watts in absolute top form. “Monkey Man” is another great one–really succeeds because of CW’s drumming.
Re: the Santana comment, I might be making an argument different from yours, but 19-year old Michael Shrieve’s drum solo from the Woodstock version of “Soul Sacrifice” is one of the best, if not the best, I’ve ever heard. Not too long, never boring. I would provide a link, but judging from this project and your writing about music in the past, I’m sure you’ve seen that about 200 times since your college and law school days.
Love the idea–excited to see who you’ll pick for bassist. I think my choice would be Entwistle, but only because I’m a Who fanatic and I never felt the Ox got enough cred in the company of Moon, Townshend, and Daltrey.
PL: That “Soul Sacrifice” is insane. To piggieback on your comment on when I saw it, I watched someone do damn fine versions of it live in college, on a riser in the fraternity living room. Some say that’s poor music for a sorority mixer. I wasn’t one of those people. Chicks dance to anything on enough Banker’s Club vodka, and that song has groove. That’s a tune to fuck to. So is “Stray Cat Blues.”
Entwistle’s too well respected. If I had a quarter for every person who’s demanded I listen to Quadrophenia simply to hear the mad bass lines in the thing, I could buy a decent case of beer.
Watts has always been there to service the song, not to bloat it. Ask any drummer in any big rock band and watts will always be on their list of best drummers right next to likes of bonham, baker, and peart; albeit it for very different reasons.
PL: Peart’s a freak. The “Rhythm Method” live is nuts.
Aha, so that’s why my comment on the last one was never approved. I guessed correctly.
My recommendation for the bassist: Carl Radle.
PL: Underappreciated, no doubt. But too obscure, too dead.
“frecognize” 1st sentence
PL: Got it. Thanks much, as always.
Been reading your posts on music for awhile, very enjoyable. Two things:
1) I feel like Aguilera is the one ex-tween pop-star diva that doesn’t need any apology. She can sing circles around a lot of people. As an added bonus, she doesn’t seem to be a total train-wreck.
2) How many are gonna be in the SOOO? I figure you’ve got a singer & bass at least, but are you gonna throw in a rythym/second guitar, multi-instrumentalist, organ, or harmonica player? As a harmonica player myself, I’d nominate Big Walter (if you’re willing to go back that far). He was a great sideman, and never got the pub that Little Walter or the other Chicago players did. If you want more contemporary pick, maybe Paul Butterfield. I’d say Gregg Allman for Organ, but I doubt he’d qualify as overlooked.
PL: Some lunkheads and purists will get immediately turned off by something with a pop diva in it, even though, as you note, she has chops elevating her far above that generalized category.
Guitar/vocals/bass/rhythm/keyboards/drums
Butterfield’s a good choice, but perhaps too obscure, and too long deceased. I assume you’re familar with the brilliant East West live record. If not, buy it: http://www.amazon.com/East-West-Live-Paul-Butterfield-Blues/dp/B0000034D7/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1274718750&sr=1-1
I remember reading somewhere that from 1970 onward, Charlie didn’t fuck a single groupie – out of commitment to his wife. If you consider the amount of women Mick, Keith etc. must’ve gone through, the guy stands out even more. I think John Paul Jones was in a similar position. The two are definitely comparable on some levels. Both overshadowed by the rest of their respective bands, and utterly brilliant.
PL: I assume you’ve checked on JPJ in Them Crooked Vultures: http://www.amazon.com/Them-Crooked-Vultures/e/B002UM65UA/ref=ntt_mus_dp_pel
And by “welcome vocal heft” you, of course, mean “big round titties” right?
PL: What else?
Of course, of course. Them Crooked Vultures was decent – Dave Grohl’s a hell of a drummer. His playing on Songs for the Deaf was amazing. I never dug the Foo Fighters, but as a drummer the guy’s brilliant. My only beef with JPJ – All My Love. Unless I’m mistaken, Jones is responsible for that horrible fucking song.
PL: Ahhh, but if the song had never existed, Ween would never have been able to do this brilliant parody of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54uG7VoLvWQ
Speaking of Ween… That is one brutally underrated band.