So how did I arrive on the tune for this post? (And why not just stick with “HYSYMBSITS?”) “Mixed Emotions” was the first song to pop into my head when I heard the news. And, yeah, by my second year, and when I was doing the morning show, you were likely to hear something like “Have You Seen Your Mother…” on the air as well. But I very likely threw at least one Stones record in every show, usually from that already-worn copy of Hot Rocks or Through the Past, Darkly that I would drag with me from home in a carrying case with other “secret weapon” LPs. The official rule of the station was “play two new releases per hour,” and there I was suggesting that Debbie Gibson should count. On my first day in the studio in college at WLRA, I largely stuck with what I knew in terms of music. The Rolling Stones were part of my radio career starting on Day 1. (That may be its own post for another day.) I was more than likely the only person at Andrew High School driving around with “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In the Shadow” on a mix tape, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. By junior high school, when I’d spend my Saturday nights camped out listening to the “oldies show” on WCLR in Chicago, with blank tapes loaded to build my music collection, I started learning the basic hits, like “Satisfaction” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” As high school wore on I picked up a few stray singles and a copy of the Hot Rocks LP, which was a required item in a south suburban record collection. So I didn’t discover that whole world of music until later on. There were no Rolling Stones records, not even a 45. Almost every one of the American Beatles LPs were in their collection, a couple of Beach Boys, some Dylan – and a few scattered others. My parents were clearly Beatles People, based on the records that I inherited from them.
I get a strong sense that pop fans in the 1960s (and remember – I barely made it into the decade) were either Beatles People or Stones People. When a man plays drums with the same band for 58 years, that career is fairly well documented, and there’s little that I can add to that litany except my own perspective. There is nothing that I can add about Watts that you won’t find anywhere else, except for maybe a few personal anecdotes.
He had beaten cancer once, but decided that the rigors of the road – and his ongoing battle with lung cancer – superseded the desire to tour with the boys one more time. Just last week Watts decided that he would not be taking part in the Rolling Stones’ tour this fall. Charlie Watts, the drummer for the greatest rock and roll band ever, has died at the age of 80.
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