{"id":49006,"date":"2021-08-24T18:15:36","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T18:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=49006"},"modified":"2021-08-24T18:15:36","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T18:15:36","slug":"oh-charlie-could-play-the-drums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=49006","title":{"rendered":"Oh, Charlie could play the drums"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By John Kanelis<\/strong> \/ johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

I am entering a state of mourning over the news I have just received.<\/p>\n

Charlie Watts, a serious rock \u2018n roll legend, has died at the age of 80.<\/p>\n

Those of us of a certain age grew up with Charlie and his band mates. Perhaps you\u2019ve heard of the Rolling Stones. Even though The Beatles were my\u00a0favorite<\/em>\u00a0band while I was growing up, I also grew to love the Stones.<\/p>\n

Charlie and his pals \u2013 Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, the late Brian Jones and Bill Wyman \u2013 set the table nicely for a lot of us as they rocked out hard. Jones died tragically; he was replaced for a time by Mick Taylor, who then was succeeded by Ronnie Wood. Wyman, the bassist, retired and the Stones never have officially \u201creplaced\u201d Wyman with a fifth band member.<\/p>\n

But Charlie kept the beat. He did so without a lot of flash. Nor with what I would call a lot of \u201crock \u2018n roll faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

He just played them drums, man.<\/p>\n

Charlie was thought to be a reluctant rock star. He didn\u2019t make a lot of headlines the way, oh, Jagger and Richards have done over many decades. Charlie was married to the same woman for more than 50 years. As near as I can tell, he didn\u2019t partake in a lot of the hot-blooded nonsense normally associated with the Rolling Stones.<\/p>\n

He just played the drums.<\/p>\n

I have attended one Rolling Stones concert. That was in 1994 at the Cotton Bowl at the Dallas Fairgrounds. My son procured two tickets. We had seats on the floor of the stadium about 30 rows back from the stage. I want to relate a brief tale about the setup of that show that tells you a bit about what Charlie Watts meant to those of us who enjoyed watching and listening to the Rolling Stones.<\/p>\n

Bryan Adams was one of the opening acts. Adams performed all of his hits. He rocked the stadium hard. His drummer sat behind this monstrous set containing all kinds of percussion instruments: various drums, chimes, cymbals \u2026 all that stuff. When the Adams set finished, the stage crew rolled the drummer\u2019s set off the stage.<\/p>\n

Then they brought out Charlie\u2019s drum set. If memory serves, it had a snare, a tom and a base, along with two cymbals and a \u201chigh-hat.\u201d That\u2019s it, man! The crowd wanted to\u00a0see<\/em>\u00a0Charlie play the drums. We didn\u2019t want to just\u00a0hear<\/em>\u00a0him as he sat behind some monstrous percussion assembly \u2026 right?<\/p>\n

After a few minutes, the stage went dark, it filled with smoke and then we could hear the drums starting to pound.<\/p>\n

The lights came back on and there was Charlie \u2013 along with the rest of the Stones \u2013 launching into \u201cNot A Fade Away,\u201d one of the Stones\u2019 earliest hits.<\/p>\n

Charlie could play them drums. I will miss him terribly.<\/p>\n

Note: This blog was published initially on KETR.org.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

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By John Kanelis \/ johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com I am entering a state of mourning over the news I have just received. Charlie Watts, a serious rock \u2018n roll legend, has died at the age of 80. Those of us of a certain age grew up with Charlie and his band mates. Perhaps you\u2019ve heard of the Rolling … Continue reading Oh, Charlie could play the drums<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9764,6157,4749],"class_list":["post-49006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment-news","tag-rock-n-roll-music","tag-rolling-stones","tag-the-beatles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49008,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49006\/revisions\/49008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}