Charlie was another story. Though a bit of an old grump, Charlie Watts was the one Rolling Stone everyone liked--not just as a rock musician but as a human being. He didn't think much of the Stones' music and hated touring, but he never failed to show up because he was just so damn agreeable. He was kind and fairly diplomatic, a faithful bandmate, husband, and dad, and aside from an extremely brief dance with hard drugs in the mid eighties, a teetotaler. When he died last year, more than one person in my neighborhood actually hung memorial banners on their buildings for the guy. I doubt I'll see anything like that when Wyman shuffles off.
Perhaps his low-key likeableness is to blame, but Charlie Watts was the one Stone who was not the subject of a biography of his own (well, Wyman had to write his own one himself, but that still counts, right?). Paul Sexton is now correcting that with his authorized Charlie's Good Tonight. The drummer definitely deserves this treatment. He was a terrific musician in one of the most famous rock bands of all time. But one does understand why no one was exactly clamoring to tell Watts's story before Sexton. Frankly, there just isn't a ton to tell. Charlie Watts loved jazz. He hated touring. He was indifferent toward the music for which he is best known. He liked horses and collecting things. He was very well dressed. He was not talkative. People liked him. Again and again, these are the things we're told despite Sexton having access to no less sources than Mick, Keith, and Bill, who all clearly love the guy.
I feel like a cynical prick for saying this, but Charlie's Good Tonight is almost too loving. Loving is what you want from a family member, friend, or bandmate, but too much of it and your biography could end up feeling a bit fawning. That may not really be Sexton's fault though. Unauthorized biographies often end up with that tone.
There are a few interesting tidbits in Charlie's Good Tonight, such as that Watts most likely had undiagnosed OCD, that his drug issues might have been just as responsible for the Stones' failure to tour Dirty Work as Mick's decision to focus on his solo career that rankled Keith so, and that jazzbo Charlie really liked The Sex Pistols. There's also a clearer explanation of how Charlie inadvertently provided the title of Between the Buttons than I'd previously read, but such quasi-revelations are rare.
At the risk of handing out a backhanded compliment, it's sort of nice that Charlie's Good Tonight is a bit boring. I didn't actually want to find out that he was a secret sociopath, although Sexton goes so easy on the other Stones, all of whom had serious personality flaws, that even if Charlie had been some sort of kitten strangler, I surmise the author would have glossed over it. Instead, we're left with a nice tribute, a mildly interesting story, and probably the only Stones biography that will ever be written that one might describe as "cozy." You sure wouldn't be able to say that about any of the myriad Brian Jones bios.
