Today, June 2^nd, a drumming legend will be 70 years of age: Charlie Watts, famous as a member of The Rolling Stones but as well an outstanding musician on Jazz and Boogie Woogie. Actually he is the drummer of The ABC & D of Boogie Woogie with Axel Zwingenberger and Ben Waters as pianists and Dave Green as bass player. On March 31^st Wolfgang Thomas was lucky to get a ticket for one of three sold-out concerts in the Vienna Metropol Theater. The afternoon before he had the chance to talk with Watts, Waters and Green.

Reason for the interview was the release of “Boogie 4 Stu – A Tribute To Ian Stewart”, a CD for the former Stones pianist, who died in 1985. Ben Waters recorded it with the help of many famous collegues besides him and Watts and Green: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Wood, and Bill Wyman as well as Jools Holland or PJ Harvey – a cousin of Ben Waters. You may read the extended story about Ian Stewart, the tribute album and the meanings of Watts, Waters and Green about it in the summer-issue of German rock-magazine eclipsed, to be issued in June. The main story of the magazine is on the history of the Montreux Festivals.

Picture: Ben Waters, Dave Green and Charlie Watts with Wolfgang Thomas of Siegener Rock-Museum in Vienna.

On occasion of the 70th birthday of Charlie Watts a show-case in our museum is decorated with items on the famous drummer. You may see for example the 1969 live-LP of the Rolling Stones “Get Your Ya-Yas Out”, the advertisement for this LP out of the “Billboard” magazine, the LP of “Rocket 88”, a band, Ian Stewart founded, the box “from one Charlie”, including a CD and a book (“Ode To A High Flying Bird”), Watts dedicated to one of his jazz idols Charlie Parker. Watts signed these two collector’s items for our LP_Brian_Knightrock-museum as well as his LP “Live At Fulham Town Hall” and the album “In Session With …” by Brian Knight, who belonged to a former band of Brian Jones. The album “Between The Buttons”, out of the French series “L’age d’or des Rolling Stones”, with Charlie Watts on the cover, as well as the original album “Between The Buttons” (1967) are to be seen (picture at the top of this page, alongside 1994 album "Warm & Tender" by The Charlie Watts Quintet) – the paintings on the back side of the "Between The Buttons"-cover were drawn by Charlie Watts.

At least we are proud to present two more rare items: The promotional poster for the box "Qfrom one Charlie" and a concert poster promoting a concert by The Charlie Watts Qunitet at Cologne.