Charles Robert Watts

Charles Robert Watts was born in Bloomsbury, London, to a lorry driver father. Trained as a graphic designer at Harrow Art School, Watts played jazz drums in London rhythm and blues clubs with Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated before joining Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Brian Jones in The Rolling Stones in January 1963.

While Jagger and Richards provided flamboyant rock stardom, Watts was the band's quiet anchor and heartbeat. Influenced by jazz greats Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, and Elvin Jones, Watts played with a signature understated backbeat—famously pulling his stick back off the hi-hat on the two and four snare beats—that gave the Stones their irresistible, swinging bounce on "Paint It Black," "Honky Tonk Women," and "Gimme Shelter." A devoted husband married to Shirley Shepherd for 57 years, Watts abhorred rock-and-roll excess, loved breeding Arabian horses, played in his own Charlie Watts Quintet, and designed the Stones' record sleeves and stage sets. In 1989, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones.