ROLLING STONES: Charlie Watts Interview - 1966

what sort of them do you think little pot business pop music and head up American youth I think I think we've shattered America as far as show business the word show business doesn't mean much I'm sure you see 10 10 years ago they had Frankie laine tour in England there's a big is a big thing and when you've got he was filling theatres and everything when you've got sort of local boys doing it it puts a different much different light on a method really is and when it happens it's happen the reversing over in America as well we've gone over there it's just ordinary people really you know it's it's very strange so there is no longer I don't think there's a professional cult but there's not a show business cult there's still people that believe it I don't think negs that there is a thing Barbara Streisand is probably the newest example of showbiz and I don't think people I think America swallow her for being show biz Americans love show biz but that she hasn't been the big thing here because she is too much of a showbiz thing I think but I think an American show business they for having this appeal of being the best in the world in show business this sort of thing they've created some of the best they really have but I think what the biggest thing that British Groves have done is starting with the Beatles and they have proved that that there really isn't anything in it although there may well be but it isn't it isn't what people see on the stage as it's not a gold and glisten in life that the people when they think of Frank Sinatra they think that that's that's what it is really when they don't think of him with a headache don't think glamour of it and they sort of feel that anybody could sort of be a success yeah maybe I'm looking at it for me from an Englishman's point of view you know maybe they do see us as glamorous gold studied people but I mean I'm sure they don't in England kids kids don't I think there's a lot of American kids that don't also you know the it's very strange how do you think you think there's any comparison there between this sort of acceptance of yourselves and pop music how does it compare to the sort of legends and the acceptance of real jazz you know the real jazz musicians of the New Orleans go there again what jazz is Italians but I mean the sort of the sort of jazz people that you liked and you the music new copy the rhythm and blues people in the beginning I mean their music as a sort of religion wasn't it deep something that David except yes but it's also it was a it was was not considered an artful that's all that it in the sense that people who played it were not were not really very good musicians apparently they really were just Negroes playing the trumpet and people like Louis Armstrong and people like that have made that into an acceptable thing as great as he is he still made jazz an acceptable thing you see it's it's very strange because that's another facet of America that you can't really understand is the Negro because our music we're selling our music back to American boys who knew probably never even heard of the people who we copied after the from this was in the beginning but I suppose influences yes we're selling our influences back our way of doing it maybe it's more acceptable the way we do it although I can't very well answer a lot of about that because I just I'm just part of the thing you know I don't actually create the songs or anything but you know I think the beat is you know in it when you get a version of long tall Sally by the Beatles sold half a million records and you've got Little Richard's which is 10 times better selling 300 copies although it was a hit record I know but I mean that sort of thing then it it's just remodeling or not a thing I'm making it acceptable and it's only acceptable because the Beatles have done it the same thing with us I would probably sold more records or some something like they literally think something like little red roosters and Howlin wolf ever thought but it all we did was just doing it through our version of Howlin wolf introduced them and yet it's sold you know I don't it's very funny thing I suppose it's a wrap in there guy but it's not just that it is the wrapping of the mass media but don't understand Russia in other words they're wrapped by television oh yeah yeah the mass media kit yes you see yeah well the mass media I mean what have your television then I call it television you call it math need television is is going to have something that's entertaining that I sent this nice to look at although it doesn't have to do but that's what they they put on it and so Howlin wolf singing a a song is not very acceptable as far as selling a record goes' some good-looking white boy thinking about the same song but it's got a totally different meaning when he sings to them anyway do you think any do you see anything sort of sinister cinesín you know all it well in the mass media no in in the sort of development of all this sort of to be influence and power that young people have and so on no not true you think I think I think that it can get a bit sad at times but and I can't really answer that you'll have to scrub that Christian that's right yeah but yeah I mean we were talking about showbiz you know that sort of it how do you think being a success like this has influenced you as opposed why no longer thing unfortunately about spending fire town it really is the only difference is made to me if something is five-pound and I like it I buy it but it really probably isn't worth five pounder that might be to me I know this is you've got a hundred different answers for this because if it's worth it to me then I should have it but I really don't think about spending five pound a hundred pound I do but not five pound do you think it's changed your attitude to people no I think he's changed people's attitude to me I don't think it's my I think that whereas whereas whereas before I would sit in a cafe or well you know when I was working I go to dinner with a crowded I don't and you had all had a thing whereby you had a lunch and voucher and softens to spend but now if I had a luncheon Bassianus up and suspend it would be such a ridiculous thing in people's eyes for me to go in a place and say I'll have food cheese sandwiches with mustard and pickle and that it would be they would single worse over in what's he doing it's only is probably only doing this to meet people or something I don't know I get that feeling maybe it was a silly thing but it really has changed people's attitude to me success because it hasn't changed me I don't I'd I can't really answer that because it's me when I probably think I'm gold but another people's eyes I'm probably very flash was on it but I don't know it really as far as my outlook on things it hasn't changed it's helped me accept a lot of things and appreciate a lot more things success made list because I didn't think about them before success really what the way I'm talking about is money not adulation or anything because I really don't consider that anything but successful money of course enables one as you said to do things need people have more power and various different ways and that sort of thing and it does open one's eyes yeah well this is it you sell me when I ring up for a taxi and someone says we can't get round the air for four hours and you say okay why and he said where was it from and you say where you live they say oh right everything mister watch we see and there be a taxi there within 30 minutes where some bloke who's probably you know but I suppose that I just it's nice in a way because I can if you sit back you can accept a hell of a lot which is not very nice thing to do I don't think but there again it's not very nice so people get coming up to you saying your record still one isn't it I mean it is sort of so ridiculous that you can't so you just say yes never going out no I think that it's just changed other people's you know one always imagined the person to live inside of crackling everything's true if that's the worst thing and if people change their attitude to you in I went under tile with the other day oh now you see it's an extraordinary place because it will also get it theirs and they got their little streets have you been in there yeah they've got little streets down there and they call it tiles strengthen they've got their own little street tiles street you know they've got their own shops and they keep the girls could have where is this there this is an Oxford Street who opened it he has pop groups there they pop groups that's the only reason I nice 78 hours at a time 78 hours at a time and the kids go in and they come from work and they have a manicure for half a fan and a face pack master and they've got record shop with shoe shops and if they all in this sort of cabin plays under the ground in Oxford Street but there's nothing sort of just you know they're just they're happy you know they've got their own sort of thing it's really a sort of religion really doesn't laugh no it won't last long because soon as the kids get old enough it won't last any time yeah but the bit more kids yeah and they're create something completely new and ridiculous and people to say outlandish how can you have shoulder in it well they're going to create next I don't know unless someone like Elissa unless a thing like I don't know I don't really know what you mean clothes and things like that or you mean music because only music I don't know because unless a big thing happens like happened here four years ago the groups became very popular in that it will will just get very boring and the top groups to make hit record be just like it is now I think but not forever but I mean as long as they care to recall as well what how do you see your own music in your end of developing in the future développé I don't know I think it's getting better I mean I used to when Mick and Keith were through I mean these are the people you should be talking to really about this because I don't as I say right but when I first used to do making key songs they were just demonstration discs and you know they weren't very good never sort of all right but they're really very good now thing with make easy key three good right some very lovely tune a Mick Mick tends to write very very lyrics about things that happen everyday which is nice yeah yeah very ever they they may stay may date very quickly some of them but they're very nice because they were sort of about smoking more than 15 cigarettes a day could you'll catch cancer and you see in five years time when they've researched on cancer and let's hope they found the cure then it will be also a very old hat but it's rather like some of these george and chronicles where they criticize everything that's what he's doing really it just criticizing things through songs it's the only way it's an it but it's a slightly more interesting it works sometimes sometimes you think how did he put that word in whatever what the hell is that doing there but it works most of time is it it tends to be not like that thing about the mothers little help it's a very funny thing it's bit sinister but it's very and it's quite true but the only thing is if it works better in America than it does here because why well it's it's a song we're not many people over here take pills like they do in America there's nothing to be scared of as people think it's just one of actually just comments on things it's just nice yeah which is which is a nice thing you know what about painted black painted black well that's just another way of saying me goes buggered off and I'm left on my own and I see the world black which is being said umpteen million times you know I don't think that's particularly wild in its approach it's just the what the words are pretty abstract and that and but other than that it's quite a straightforward story but something were quite involved which is nice and I think they're just going to get more like commentaries I saw with the with a sound behind them which I mean this is what Bob Dylan's doing really now with his cracking about the sound behind the word how much do you think sex pleasure party second suit said and I said I don't know because I know I'm really quiet a bit naive about things like that because I don't really I don't really think of it I should imagine as far as meets concerned a lot because he I mean Mick is the frontal peace of all and like with the Beatles you know every one of them it's the whole thing the who you know it's it's all very I think it must play a part but there again I thought I should have thought the Beatles wouldn't get anyone if you're gonna look at it like that you'd think the builders would never get anyone out to see them anymore since they were nearly all married but I mean there you are you see so I really can't answer that in it properly I meant really connect to a sort of psychological impact of the impact of music I don't know I don't know I think it's more the person who singing it really I mean you could sing about sexual intercourse all night long and it really wouldn't draw any effect but if that if the person who's singing it is there's got one of those phases that women like or you know then it's going to be a big success you see that's the best the funny thing about it it really is only your face which makes this sort of life to me a bit shallow well it's all very silly you know it didn't silly I mean it's it's sort of obvious things like having a wash really because they just sort of ebb they sort of obvious things that go through people's mind like you been you must eat or something so I mean the suppose the sex thing is just an obvious thing which no one ever talks about but it must be there but it just knows the eggs me a bit

Channel: Jamming Edward

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Keywords: Charlie Watts, The Rolling Stones (Musical Group)

Id: Erqj_mCk9r8

Length: 17min 14sec (1034 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 07 2015