CHARLIE’S GOOD TONIGHT

Dutiful biography of the late Rolling Stones drummer.

Charlie Watts (1941-2021) came onto the London music scene in the late 1950s, a student of art—a common trope in the era—and, as music journalist Sexton writes, “a nippy right-winger” in soccer and a cricket whiz, “even having a trial for Middlesex.” The deep Briticisms might pose a challenge for some American readers, but anyone with ears can recognize that Watts’ swinging, jazz-inflected sound was central to the sound of the Rolling Stones, the band he joined in 1962 once he extracted a promise from Mick Jagger: “If you can come back to me and say you’ve got a couple of solid gigs a week, I’m in.” He was in for nearly 60 years, though always, like bassist Bill Wyman, of a different cut from many rock stars. Watts remained a student of classical and jazz music, an artist who did much to shape the Stones’ stage look in the big-tour era and a collector of fine things, from American Civil War uniforms to flatware. Sexton is a serviceable storyteller, though he lacks the literary flair of Stanley Booth or Stones guitarist Keith Richards. For longtime Stones watchers, there’s not much news, although Sexton does play up the fact that Watts, famed for never missing a gig, in fact didn’t turn up for one because, he confessed for another book published in 1998, “I got the wrong date.” The author also casts doubt, via Jagger, on whether Watts really punched Jagger out, something Watts blamed on drink and a late-in-the-game drug habit, saying, “in retrospect I think I must have been going through some kind of mid-life crisis.” There’s other juicy stuff here—just not quite enough, and not quite fresh, though plenty appreciative of Watts’ musical genius.

A middling addition to the large library surrounding the Rolling Stones.