Paul Sexton, Author of Charlie's Good Tonight

ABOUT CHARLIE'S GOOD TONIGHT

The fully authorized and official biography of legendary Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, one of the world's most revered and celebrated musicians of the last half century. British journalist Paul Sexton-who has covered the band for more than thirty years-has been authorized to write Watts' biography by his family, who have maintained a low-profile dignity both before and since the drummer's death. The welcome result is CHARLIE'S GOOD TONIGHT: The Life, the Times, and the Rolling Stones: The Authorized Biography of Charlie Watts (Harper; October 11, 2022; $27.99), a frank, affectionate portrait of an iconic musician and singular man. The book also has the approval of the Rolling Stones themselves, with forewords by both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

"Watts was the proof that not all rock stars are created equal, and that clichés are there to be avoided. Such as the one that, in his mind, he was a rock star at all," Sexton writes. "He was the global celebrity who hated attention and once said that he preferred the company of dogs to humans; the car enthusiast who didn't drive; the horseman who didn't ride; the man of wealth and taste who grew up in a prefab; the drummer who toured the world for five and a half decades and spent all of them yearning to be home. The jobbing musician who thought the Stones would be finished in a year and ended up as their pilot light with a whole-life tariff. If you made him up, you would find few believers."

Drawing on exclusive interviews with bandmates and fellow musicians, with family and myriad friends from childhood through his late life, Sexton gives the full measure of the man. From working class beginnings during World War II to the Swinging Sixties when he was recruited for the Stones months after their formation, through the celebrity and debauchery of the 1970s and 80s, weathering band bust-ups and battles with personal demons, Watts remained remarkably even keeled. With roots in jazz, he openly admitted that the Rolling Stones' music was not really his cup of tea, but faithfully kept the steady beat of the band for almost sixty years.

While it offers new glimpses behind the scenes, CHARLIE'S GOOD TONIGHT is not a retread of the legend that is the greatest rock 'n roll band in history, says Sexton. It is a portrayal of the life and times of a "someone whose like we won't see again, who almost seemed to belong in another epoch altogether: a man out of time, but always perfectly in time.

The biography not only draws extensively on Sexton's huge archive with the Stones, but contains countless fresh interviews, including new reflections by Jagger, Richards and Ronnie Wood; Watts' daughter Seraphina, sister Linda and granddaughter Charlotte; former bandmate Bill Wyman; engineer and confidant Glyn Johns; and many more.

ABOUT PAUL SEXTON
PAUL SEXTON is an author and broadcaster whose work has appeared in The Times (London), Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Billboard and numerous other publications, and extensively on BBC Radio

Book Available on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Charlies-Good-Tonight-Authorized-Biography/dp/0063276585/

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