“Outside of the band, you know, we used to hang around quite a lot and had interesting times,” Jagger remarked of Watts, who died on Aug. 24, 2021, at 80 from an unidentified illness.
Mick Jagger remembers him on the first anniversary of Charlie Watts’ death.
In a video uploaded across social media platforms on Wednesday, Jagger paid tribute to the late Rolling Stones drummer with a slideshow containing photographs of Watts and soundtracked by the renowned rock band’s 1974 classic “Until the Next Goodbye” and a voiceover message from the singer.
“I mourn Charlie because he had a tremendous sense of humor,” Jagger, 79, said of Watts, who died on Aug. 24, 2021, at 80, after an unidentified illness.
“We used to hang out outside the band and have some wild times. We loved sports. We’d go to football games and cricket matches and have hobbies other than music.”
“But, of course, I miss Charlie very much,” he continued.
“Thinking of Charlie today,” Jagger wrote in the caption.
The Rolling Stones completed their Sixtyth Anniversary Tour earlier this summer. Following the No Filter Tour, which concluded last year, European concerts marked the second set of shows without Watts on the drums.
Steve Jordan filled in as a drummer on both tours. Don McAulay, Watts’ veteran drum tech, placed his drum key in the exact spot Watts used to.
“Don McAulay, Charlie Watt’s ten-year drum tech, respects Charlie by placing his drum key where Charlie always did before each show. Charlie, happy birthday; we miss you “The band posted a video of McAulay on Twitter.
The remaining Stones have spoken freely about their grief at Watts’ death, and Jagger even raised a glass to the drummer on stage before their first gig without him in September 2021.
“What he provided was this lovely sense of swing and swerve that most bands dream they could have,” the singer told Rolling Stone the following month. “We had some pretty good chats about how everything happened with the band over the last few years. It’s a great loss for all of us. It’s extremely difficult.”
Nevertheless, Richards told CBS Sunday Morning in March 2021 that Watts’ death had come as a “surprise” to the band.
“He’d had a bout with cancer a year or so before and beaten it. He just received a double whammy, “According to Richards. “May God bless his soul.”
Watts’ music lives on, as the Stones revealed to the Los Angeles Times in October 2021 that they’d recorded new songs with him on drums before his death.
“Let me say this: you haven’t heard the last of Charlie Watts,” Richards added.
