Sympathy for the Drummer

Why Charlie Watts Matters

By: Mike Edison

Narrated by: Mike Edison

Bloomsbury presents Sympathy for the Drummer, written and read by Mike Edison.

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&B—the soundtrack of our lives.

Highly opinionated, fearless, and often hilarious, Sympathy is 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.©2019 Rowman & Littlefield (P)2020 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

FANTASTIC!!

Great story and obvious passion from the narrator/author. A nice drum history lesson, as well.

Charlie Watts gets some well deserved recognition.

I loved it!
I am a rock N roll info geek and enjoyed all the back stories with the surrounding bands, people studios, times, places, facts of that kind.
The reading is a bit fast when you are trying to take it all in.
I grew up buying most of those records as a kid and played drums 🥁 teaching myself and having a blast!
And it bears repeatin C.W. was an amazing, awesome mortar that held The Stones together ❤
Without Charlie there wouldn't be a band of that caliber

Arrogance, pretense and a hideous narration

There are good narrators and not-so-good narrators, narrations where the voice infuses eloquent subtleties and those that are overproduced with unnecessary music and effects. rarely do I hear one where I simply wanted to punch the reader right in the schnozzola. This author is filled with attitude and pretense, poorly formed opinions, and braggadocio. He makes judgments of musicians that are way out of line. This self-proclaimed “rock’n’roll renaissance man” who edited Screw Magazine and High Times styles himself hip beyond measure. Predictably, his observations on the art of rock are filled with drug and sex references that might charm a wannabe rocker or 12-year old.

His points are often reduced to “fuckin’ this or fuckin’ that’ or ’goddam this or that to emphasize that “'I’m as cool as my subject” bona fides. Attitude in rock and roll criticism is a thin line that he falls off and stumbles on to an embarrassing degree. I’d say he is a dime-store Lester Bangs but that would be a compliment. He’s more like a penny arcade version. It is attitude without art.

Some of his worst judgments concern pitting the Beatles against the Stones, an old and tired game. “The Beatles weren’t part of any counterculture - they came adult approved . . wholesale embrace of product … shaking their mop tops . . . cracking a few jokes for the Queen of England.” He claims that the Beatles lacked “a mojo” in other words “no pretty boy handling the mic like a hot cock”. “ In his hyperbolic opinion, the Stones were authentic sexy bad boys and that makes them superior rockers. Does that make Charlie more ‘authentic’ than Ringo? It a tired and woefully unnecessary. The Beatles changes music and Charlie knows that, too.

There is a perilous white insensitivity to discussions of black music as in the repeated and dated use of the word “negro” (“primal negro eroticism that Mick and Keith mainlined at least until the drugs took over). I imagine regressing to the traditional use of that word, skirting a more politically savvy term, is part of being hip and ‘in the know’. That is the kind of attitude that makes this so exasperating. He passes judgments from some lauded place of startling ignorance.

But to give him credit where it is due there are songs worth revisiting based on his descriptions. The history, particular the roots of lesser-known drummers, is interesting. A clever turn of phrase like the description that of Kiss - “a band so ugly they had to cover their faces with Spackle and great paint [with] more sexual conquests than Wilt Chamberlain and Satan combined” is accurate - but it begs the question “who cares”.

I got some information from the book but after a life spent as a professional musician (and drummer), I find this kind of fan perspective infuriating. Anyone who has put hours into the craft and the work, who has absorbed and experienced the world of popular music and its roots the nuggets will drown in arrogance and pretense.

Drummers matter

I loved listening to the passionate history of drumming, and the full worshipful adjective rich adulation of the albums/periods of the phenomenal Rolling Stones, but unnecessarily critical of The Doors. Lol.. Love.

A MUST LISTEN

Mike Edison loves his work and it shows in spades!! This book wasn't long enough!!! He brings Charlie and The Stones to life with every line. This is not for the faint of heart. Edison has the throttle pushed to the limit and it makes for a fun ride.