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Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts Drops Out of U.S. Tour After Medical Procedure

“For once, my timing has been a little off,” Watts jokes. Longtime band associate Steve Jordan to fill in for Watts on entire tour

The Rolling Stones announced that drummer Charlie Watts will not be a part of their upcoming No Filter tour of U.S. stadiums after undergoing an unspecified medical procedure. Longtime Stones associate Steve Jordan, who is a member of Keith Richards’ side project X-Pensive Winos, will be taking his place.

“Charlie has had a procedure which was completely successful, but his doctors this week concluded that he now needs proper rest and recuperation,” a rep for the band said in a statement. “With rehearsals starting in a couple of weeks it’s very disappointing to say the least, but it’s also fair to say no one saw this coming.”

In a statement, Watts joked that “for once, my timing has been a little off.” “I am working hard to get fully fit but I have today accepted on the advice of the experts that this will take a while,” he added. “After all the fans’ suffering caused by Covid, I really do not want the many Relief Society fans who have been holding tickets for this tour to be disappointed by another postponement or cancellation. I have therefore asked my great friend Steve Jordan to stand in for me.”
Watts isn’t the founding drummer of the Stones – they played with Tony Chapman and Carlo Little during their first few months together in 1962 – but he hasn’t missed a gig since joining in January 1963. He’s the only member besides Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to appear on every single studio record. (There are a handful of songs, including “Shine a Light,” “It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” where he’s not drumming, but it’s a very rare occurrence.)

Watts was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2004, but he survived after undergoing two operations. “I thought I was going to die,” he told the BBC in 2011. “I thought that’s what you did. You get cancer and waste away and die. I had another operation to take the lymph nodes out and radio therapy, which was six weeks long. Now it’s five years clear.”

In 2018, he told NME that he never thought about retiring. “I’ve thought that the band might stop a lot of times,” he said. “I used to think that at the end of every tour. I’d had enough of it – that was it. But no, not really. I hope [when it ends] that everyone says, ‘that’ll be it’. I’d hate for it to be a bloody big argument. That would be a real sad moment. But to say this is the last show wouldn’t be a particularly sad moment, not to me anyway. I’ll just carry on as I was yesterday or today.”

“It is an absolute honor and a privilege to be Charlie’s understudy and I am looking forward to rehearsing with Mick, Keith and Ronnie,” Jordan said in a statement. “No one will be happier than me to give up my seat on the drum-riser as soon as Charlie tells me he is good to go.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... r-1207707/


If you've been following, the Stones delayed their No Filter U.S. tour when Jagger needed surgery to put a stent in his heart. Jagger, the vegetarian, the guy who regularly exercises, who guards his health and always has. He's just turned 78.

More recently, Ronnie underwent treatment for a second occurrence of cancer. He's just turned 71.

Keith. Well, Keith is Keith.

When the tour was delayed on account of Jagger's health issues, I watched an interview with Charlie. In that interview, he said if the Stones stopped touring altogether, he would be happy because all he wanted was to be with his wife at home.

I get that Jagger (who took over as CEO of the Stones decades ago, who keeps the books so to speak) wants to finish the tour to satisfy fans. They really aren't doing the tour for money though of course they profit from the tours, and well. They have more money than god and they know it. They want to get out there, engage the relationship with fans, receive the applause, the excitement, but that's not all they want.

And it's time to stop touring. They need to finish the tour and stop.

I've heard more than one of them in interviews say that what they would really like to do as a band, is play smaller venues just like where they started. Smaller clubs, smaller audiences, where they can actually see the faces of their fans and interact in a more intimate setting.

There's no reason why they can't do that. There's also no reason why they couldn't live stream. I'd pay money to watch and listen to them jam in the back yard or on the beach or in a pub or in an old empty church building. I'd pay money to watch them live stream an acoustics session.

There are plenty more where I come from.

Steve Jordan who is sitting in for Charlie is a worthy substitute. He has the chops to drive the band no question about it.

Steve Jordan Groove
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njuZ-lSz-8I

But if they were to continue indefinitely with Steve Jordan in place of Charlie (let's say Charlie drops out), it would be, in my view, like the E-Street Band replacing Clarence Clemons. There IS no replacement for Clarence Clemons.

And there really is no substitute for Charlie Watts. Charlie just turned 80 years old in June.

I hope he stays home and ultimately drops out of the band to be with his wife like he wanted. I hope they wake up and smell the coffee burning on the stove and stop touring.

~ A hard core Stones fan.

They could do the Beacon again or other similar size capacity venue and film it. I covered this on the old thread. Under 3K seat venue.

One of the best things I've ever seen them do.

Shine a Light - Official Trailer [HD]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX5QLgCMA7A


Well, Jagger doesn't need advice from me. That is for sure.

Charlie Watts, longtime drummer for the Rolling Stones, dies at 80
By Hilary Clarke

Updated 1:19 PM ET, Tue August 24, 2021

(CNN)Charlie Watts, the unassuming son of a truck driver who gained global fame as the drummer for the Rolling Stones, has died. He was 80.

''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," his spokesperson said Tuesday in an emailed statement to CNN.

"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 this difficult time.''

The band had announced earlier this month that Watts would miss the band's upcoming "No Filter" tour through North America after undergoing a medical procedure for an unknown condition.

Watts became part of the Stones' longtime foursome alongside singer Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards and bassist Ronnie Wood, anchoring the band's blues-rock sound from his drum kit for more than 50 years.

Always a reluctant rock and roll star -- his true love was jazz -- Watts was born in 1941, when Hitler's bombs were still falling over London. He grew up in the west London suburb of Wembley.

From a young age, Watts was passionate about drumming. He would "rap out tunes on the table with pieces of wood or a knife and fork" before his parents bought him a drum kit when he was 14, his mother said. He went on to study graphic design at the Harrow School of Art.

His first job was in advertising and, in his spare time, Watts wrote and published a children's book about jazz legend Charlie Parker called "Ode to a High Flying Bird." The preface read: "This story was compiled by one Charlie to a late and great Charlie."

At the same time, Watts played in a band with Alexis Korner, the founding father of the British blues scene, in Ealing, west London, where the late Stones member Brian Jones, Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton were also guest musicians.

In 1962, Jones formed the Rolling Stones with singer Jagger, pianist Ian Stewart and guitarists Keith Richards and Dick Taylor. Watts turned down the group's first offer for him to join, finally conceding and playing his first gig with them in January 1963.

In 1964, the Stones reached No. 1 on the British pop charts with their cover of Bobby Womack's "It's All Over Now."

The Jagger-Richards songwriting team created its first bona fide classic, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," in 1965. The band enjoyed a string of hit singles well into 1966, including "Paint It Black," "19th Nervous Breakdown," "Get off My Cloud," "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby," and "Lady Jane."

The group maintained enormous popularity for decades with classic albums like "Aftermath" (1966), "Sticky Fingers" (1971) and "Tattoo You" (1981), and with massive stadium tours that took them all over the world.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/24/entertai ... index.html

Well, damn.

thank you Jersey Girl for the small memorial which you have made with these post. It is sad to see him go.

Sad news.

It IS sad. I know we don't know the person that was Charlie Watts. Not the real person. His loss is deeply felt by his wife and children, his band mates, and other mates who love him, have been his friends, and have actually known the man.

But I don't like the feelings that I sometimes feel in life that...that can never happen again.

I've loved the Stones ever since I laid eyes on their bad boy looks and suggestive (?) presentation. I've always had an affinity for the bad boys who push the limits and I'll just leave it at that.

I saw the Stones for the first time back in 1966 when an Italian boy asked me to go. He paid for the tickets and we were so young that my mother had to drive us to and from Asbury Convention Hall. It wasn't really a date-date. But it kind of was. It was SO exciting to be there! My first ever rock concert! If I am not mistaken (and I bet I have the ticket stub stuffed in an old wallet in one of my memory boxes) the Moody Blues and the Who were the opening acts.

Who knew, right?

And then in 2019 I got to see them again. I never in my life imagined that I would be able to do that. This time I took the offspring and it was SO much fun to be there with them. I ***LOVED*** the concert so much even though I was firing into panic attacks the entire time on account of the fact that I was in a medication withdrawal at the time but that didn't stop me from loving the experience.

It was SO good to be there dancing barefoot in the stadium on a hot summer's night. Being totally ME. Everyone there was of one mind. That doesn't happen very often, you now. 60k people or so, all living in harmony at the same time because they are for the same shared purpose. The smell of weed wafting through the place and at one point looking down the row at the offspring who were taking hits off an old hippies joints. OMG. Who in their life thought they would ever see that as a parent, right? The blending of the generations!

I mean, you're there. You do what you do at a Stone concert. And I know that I should have taken that hit when it was offered to me.

But it was GLORIOUS! I'll never forget the sheer clarity of the sound system. Never!

I've been sad all day long, tearful at times, because I know that can never happen again. Not without Charlie.

It can't happen that way.

Charlie first. And then the rest. It can't happen that way ever again.

8:10/19 “Street Fighting Man” & “Let’s Spend The Night Together” The Rolling Stones opener at Denver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuEw4JExBkw

I used to play the drums, and in some ways Charlie Watts plays drums the way Keith Richards plays guitar: Not flashy, It is always in service to the song. He had a jazz background. Think about the drums at the beginning of "Honkytonk Women". He sets in all up with 4 strokes of the sticks. But I'd bet dollars to donuts that 40 years ago, the idea of Keith, Mick and Charlie just being ALIVE, let alone playing together, would have seemed impossible. A longer and stranger trip than the Grateful Dead.