Overview

Sympathy for the Drummer: Why Charlie Watts Matters is both a gonzo rush capturing the bristling energy of the Rolling Stones and the times in which they lived and a wide-eyed reflection on why the Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band in the World needed the world's greatest rock 'n' roll drummer. Across five decades, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has had the best seat in the house. Charlie Watts, the anti-rock star an urbane jazz fan with a dry wit and little taste for the limelight was witness to the most savage years in rock history, and emerged a hero, a warrior poet. With his easy swing and often loping, uneven fills, he found nuance in a music that often had little room for it, and along with his greatest ally, Keith Richards, he gave the Stones their swaggering beat. While others battled their drums, Charlie played his modest kit with finesse and humility, and yet his relentless grooves on the nastiest hard-rock numbers of the era (Gimme Shelter, Street Fighting Man, Brown Sugar, Jumpin' Jack Flash, etc.) delivered a dangerous authenticity to a band that on their best nights should have been put in jail. Author Mike Edison, himself a notorious raconteur and accomplished drummer, tells a tale of respect and satisfaction that goes far beyond drums, drumming, and the Rolling Stones, ripping apart the history of rock'n'roll, and celebrating sixty years of cultural upheaval. He tears the sheets off of the myths of music making, shredding the phonies and the frauds, and unifies the frayed edges of disco, punk, blues, country, soul, jazz, and R and B the soundtrack of our lives. Highly opinionated, fearless, and often hilarious, Sympathy is as an unexpected treat for music fans and pop culture mavens, as edgy and ribald as the Rolling Stones at their finest, never losing sight of the sex and magic that puts the roll in the rock the beat, that crazy beat! and the man who drove the band, their true engine, the utterly irreplaceable Charlie Watts.

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9781493047734

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Reviews

Charlie Watts lays it down, and the others follow. He is the Law. This book explains why.--Clem Burke, Blondie Of all the books on the Rolling Stones, this is my favorite -- Edison hits all the sweet spots and gets to the heart of what the Stones are all about. Required reading for any Stones fan.--Bun E. Carlos A great voice of authority and knowledge, dispensed with free-wheeling fluidity. Super entertaining, and right on.--Katherine Turman, coauthor, Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Heavy Metal A wild ride through six-plus decades of music history, vividly demonstrating why there would be no Rolling Stones without the great Charlie Watts. An illuminating and massively entertaining book.--Dan Epstein, author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s Mike Edison's libertine prose swings and hits like Charlie Watt's right hand. Bouncing from dusty anecdotes to deft music critique, he builds an unassailable case for the distinction of Watts, not only in the Stone's hegemonic rock but also in the pantheon of modern drummers.--Meredith Ochs, Author, Rock-and-Roll Woman Sympathy for the Drummer is so much more than an incisive appreciation of Charlie Watts, it is an effusively infectious tribute to art in all of its myriad forms. Edison's insights into the Rolling Stones are backed up by a fluent scope of cultural historicity, and peppered with an array of no-nonsense broadsides. Compelling evidence to convince even the most non-partisan reader that Charlie is indeed the WORLD'S GREATEST ROCK'N'ROLL DRUMMER!--Jim Sclavunos, (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) It's not hard to fathom why a former editor of both Screw and High Times magazines would find writing about the Rolling Stones, one of the most dissolute champions of sex and drugs, right in his conceptual wheelhouse. But Edison takes a unique approach by focusing his investigation on Charlie Watts, the woefully underappreciated lynch pin of the Stones sound. This book is a delightful look at the Stones through the eyes and the beats of their most reticent member. Finally someone gave this drummer some.--Larry Ratso Sloman, Author, On The Road With Bob Dylan Charlie Watts is the backbone of the Rolling Stones. In this affectionate yet unflinching biography, Mike Edison shows how integral his jazz sensibility makes them a true band: keeping time, creating space, and hitting the crash cymbal at just the right moment.--Lenny Kaye, Guitarist, Author, You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon An imaginative consideration of the Rolling Stones, one which will let you hear utterly familiar tracks with entirely fresh ears.--Ira Robbins

Charlie Watts lays it down, and the others follow. He is the Law. This book explains why.--Clem Burke, Blondie Of all the books on the Rolling Stones, this is my favorite -- Edison hits all the sweet spots and gets to the heart of what the Stones are all about. Required reading for any Stones fan.--Bun E. Carlos A great voice of authority and knowledge, dispensed with free-wheeling fluidity. Super entertaining, and right on.--Katherine Turman, coauthor, Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Heavy Metal A wild ride through six-plus decades of music history, vividly demonstrating why there would be no Rolling Stones without the great Charlie Watts. An illuminating and massively entertaining book.--Dan Epstein, author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s Mike Edison's libertine prose swings and hits like Charlie Watt's right hand. Bouncing from dusty anecdotes to deft music critique, he builds an unassailable case for the distinction of Watts, not only in the Stone's hegemonic rock but also in the pantheon of modern drummers.--Meredith Ochs, Author, Rock-and-Roll Woman Sympathy for the Drummer is so much more than an incisive appreciation of Charlie Watts, it is an effusively infectious tribute to art in all of its myriad forms. Edison's insights into the Rolling Stones are backed up by a fluent scope of cultural historicity, and peppered with an array of no-nonsense broadsides. Compelling evidence to convince even the most non-partisan reader that Charlie is indeed the WORLD'S GREATEST ROCK'N'ROLL DRUMMER!--Jim Sclavunos, (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) It's not hard to fathom why a former editor of both Screw and High Times magazines would find writing about the Rolling Stones, one of the most dissolute champions of sex and drugs, right in his conceptual wheelhouse. But Edison takes a unique approach by focusing his investigation on Charlie Watts, the woefully underappreciated lynch pin of the Stones sound. This book is a delightful look at the Stones through the eyes and the beats of their most reticent member. Finally someone gave this drummer some.--Larry Ratso Sloman, Author, On The Road With Bob Dylan Charlie Watts is the backbone of the Rolling Stones. In this affectionate yet unflinching biography, Mike Edison shows how integral his jazz sensibility makes them a true band: keeping time, creating space, and hitting the crash cymbal at just the right moment.--Lenny Kaye, Guitarist, Author, You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon An imaginative consideration of the Rolling Stones, one which will let you hear utterly familiar tracks with entirely fresh ears.--Ira Robbins Proof positive that one can be both edgy and erudite, lowbrow and literate, and take joy in the unbridled pleasures of the id without sacrificing the higher mind. --PopMatters

Author Information

Mike Edison is the former editor and publisher of the infamous cannabis magazine High Times. His books include the celebrated memoir I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, and the sprawling social history of sex and free speech on the newsstand, Dirty! Dirty! Dirty! Edison is also a noted musician who spent much of the 1980s and 90s seeing the world from behind a drum set, opening for bands as diverse as Sonic Youth, Sound Garden, and the Ramones. He has written extensive liner notes for, among others, Iggy Pop, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. He is proof positive that one can be both edgy and erudite, lowbrow and literate, and take joy in the unbridled pleasures of the id without sacrificing the higher mind. (PopMatters.com). Edison lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Please visit him at www.mikeedison.com.

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