Aug 272021
 

In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by.

Charlie Watts

“Charlie’s good tonight, inn’ee?”

That classic line from Mick Jagger, as heard and lifted from the early Rolling Stones live opus Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!, is a phrase that has always lasted and lingered, not least because it was unmistakably so true. Charlie was always good tonight, his sense of swing a failsafe metronome over the fifty-plus years of the band. A jazz man by preference, his kit dwarfed by the kits of most of his contemporaries, he was forever the lynchpin at the back, always making sure his band was the greatest rock and roll band in the world.
Continue reading »

Apr 192011
 

Tribute albums often sound more like compilations than unified albums. The usual mold of gathering together an eclectic group of artists to either produce their own covers of an artist or play together can make for interesting listening, but results in a rather disjointed affair. Even with a single artist bringing in “special guests” – a standard practice for these sorts of endeavors – the preponderance of different voices can struggle to create a cohesive sound. Ben Waters manages to completely avoid this trap on his new album Boogie 4 Stu: A Tribute To Ian Stewart.

Stewart, often referred to as the “Sixth Stone,” mastered boogie-woogie piano and helped to form The Rolling Stones in 1962. Unfortunately, he did not fit the image created for the band by early manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who demoted Stewart to road manager. Undeterred, he served the band faithfully until his  death in 1985, occasionally contributing piano at Stones sessions and playing with Howlin’ Wolf, Led Zeppelin and Pete Townshend on the side. For the present tribute, boogie-woogie piano maestro Waters assembled a group of Stewart’s friends to record an album of the music Stewart loved. Continue reading »