Charlie's Good Tonight
By Paul Sexton
Mudlark/HarperCollins - £10.99
Every time I think, 'I'm going to talk about Charlie Watts,' you realise the essential man wasn't something you put into words. Charlie was a presence, and when you were with him, that was it.
(Foreword – Keith Richards).
In the movie world they talk about the golden era. Ours was Charlie Watts. All the great bands have one thing in common: a different drummer.
(Prelude – Andrew Loog Oldham).
To say this is one of those books which you can randomly read any part of, and be immediately drawn in, is a colossal understatement. But then we are talking about The Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts, he of elegant, besuited and overtly understated – both as a drummer and a human being – (rock'n'roll) world renown.
So said randomness, shouldn't really come as a surprise; and nor should the affection with which he is still embraced by all things of a Stones orientation - as is made clear in the Introduction: ''To be writing about him in the past tense is innately sad, but he would probably have avoided reading this book in any case. I can imagine he might have looked to see which photographs we had chosen of him in his besuited elegance, but that would be it. It is, I hope, a gentle tale of a life well lived and certainly well loved. If you're looking for controversy, you're looking under the wrong Stone.''
Concisely written with a great deal of warmth and informed nuance by Paul Sexton, Charlie's Good Tonight is a terrific read, which really does draw the reader in, regardless of which ever of the nine chapters one happens to be perusing.
For instance, the following from chapter Three's 'Home Thoughts From Abroad,' where Sexton writes: ''In the midst of all that there was the phenomenal 'Honky Tonk Women.' Not even on an album, it was a superb, raunchy summation of all that the Stones were at that point, and by common consent Charlie was rarely better, 'It's got all that blues and black music from Dartford onwards in it,' wrote Keith, 'and Charlie is unbelievable on the track. It was a groover, no doubt about it, and it's one of those tracks that you knew was a number one before you'd finished the motherfucker.'''
How apt. How Keef. And how succinctly Charlie's Good Tonight has since beendescribed in Mojo Magazine: ''As gentle, fascinating and companionable as the man himself.''
That, it invariably is (and a whole lot more besides).
David Marx
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