Lots of tributes focus on Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones drummer. But have they stopped to consider what he was wearing?

Watts, who died last week at the age of 80,  always said he was a jazz drummer but while that sounds strange coming from the drummer in the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band, it’s not as far from the truth as you might otherwise think. In fact, he took more than just a certain relaxed style of playing from jazz, he picked up early on the fact that jazz players always dressed better than their scruffy rock counterparts.

Watts’ style journey as well as his musical one began with the 1960s R&B band Blues Incorporated, the members of which all dressed in suits. He could almost always be seen, both onstage and off in a well-cut three-piece.  As his career took off, he started to frequent London’s famous mecca of bespoke clothing, Savile Row, eventually amassing a collection of suits that numbered 200, with linings inspired by his collection of vintage automobiles.

Watts was born in 1941 to working-class parents in Wembley, northwest of London, England. He was obsessed with jazz from an early age, starting with traditional jazz becoming a fan of Buddy Rich and Max Roach, and later expanded his interests to include the be-bop of Charlie Parker. Like so many of his fellow travelers at the time, Watts was a product of the British-art school  system that bred so many rockers. Once in the Stones, he became interested in the blues of Black American musicians such as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Elmore James but he always seemed more removed from these influences than the rest of the band. It wasn’t just his musical taste that set him apart. At the time, the Stones cultivated an image of dirty street urchins, like something out of a Dickens novel. Watts was having none of it.

Throughout six decades in the hotseat, Watts was invariably impeccably dressed. He was often seen wearing a three-piece double-breasted suit (and a tie!) from Savile Row outposts  Huntsman and Chittleborough & Morgan and even at his most casual, favored a polo instead of a t-shirt. His bandmate, guitarist Brian Jones, may have dressed more outlandishly but no one else in the band, not even Mick Jagger, had more style. Watts dressed conservatively but with class and panache. You might find an overcoat worn with a tailored suit or a v-neck sweater over a crisp custom dress shirt and a tie. His shoes were shiny black wingtips or pennyleather loafers, never sneakers. In short, classic menswear, which like Watts will never go out of style.

Watts’ public life was as steady as his beats. While he briefly dabbled in heroin during the  ‘Some Girls” sessions in 1978, he says he was  lucky enough not to have become addicted. He’d sooner enjoy a quiet night at a jazz club than party with celebs at Studio 54, was by all accounts exceedingly polite, and he remained married to the same woman for 50 years.

When the news broke of his passing, my own wife (of 20 years) said that you never really even notice the playing of the really good drummers. While that may be true, you sure as hell notice when they stop.