# The band that defined American music, according to Charlie Watts: “That to me is America”

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/the-band-that-defined-american-music-according-to-charlie-watts-that-to-me-is-america/
- Published: 2026-10-27T17:25:10+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-27T18:51:24+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/charlie-watts-band-defined-american-music/
- Topics: Entertainment, Music

## Key points

- Charlie Watts called Charles Mingus’s music the sound of America.
- He saw Mingus’s 13-piece orchestra at Birdland.
- Jazz helped shape Watts’s restrained approach and the Stones’ music.

## Summary

Charlie Watts regarded jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus as the sound that best represented America, recalling that he went to see Mingus’s 13-piece orchestra at Birdland during the Rolling Stones’ first US tour. His view reflects how jazz, alongside blues and country, shaped the band’s musical imagination and Watts’s own restrained, responsive drumming.

Mingus’s music combined improvisation with control, treating musical lines as part of a conversation between players. The article connects that approach to the Stones’ later work, including the country influence in “Dead Flowers”, the blues of “Midnight Rambler” and the jazz-tinged passage in “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”; it also quotes Keith Richards on the camaraderie of playing together.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.