A handwritten letter from Brian Jones to Charlie Watts in which he attempts to recruit the drummer to join the band that would soon become the Rolling Stones is being auctioned later this year.
The 1962 letter, which comes directly from Watts’s sister and has remained in the family for more than six decades, will be revealed to the public for the first time.
Watts was still working in advertising at the time while playing with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, one of the leading groups in London’s burgeoning rhythm and blues scene. He was initially reluctant to commit to Jones’s fledgling band, which had yet to be named.
The letter comes with its original envelope and is addressed to “Mr. C. Watts” at his childhood home in Wembley. Jones begins: “Dear Charlie, if you consider this letter rather impertinent, please excuse me.”
He goes on to enquire about Watts’s involvement with Blues Incorporated, before making his case for Watts to join his own band.
“We are looking for a good drummer. Already we consider our band far better than Alex’s – we are getting a very tightly-knit sound.”
In a particularly memorable postscript, Jones outlines the band’s existing lineup of two guitars, harmonica, piano and drums, noting their intention to eventually introduce a bass guitar, before offering a rather frank assessment of their current drummer: “Our present drummer is atrocious!”
Despite Jones’s early overtures, it would take another seven months before Watts officially joined the Rolling Stones, in January 1963. By then, bassist Bill Wyman had also joined, completing the rhythm section that would become central to the band’s distinctive sound.
On 2 February 1963, the Rolling Stones performed with their early six-member lineup of Watts, Wyman, Jones, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and pianist Ian Stewart.
The band’s desire to recruit Watts was later recalled by Richards in his autobiography Life, in which he described the lengths to which the musicians were prepared to go to bring him into the fold.
Richards remembered that they had even cut back on food to afford the drummer, declaring: “We starved ourselves to pay for him!”
Sotheby’s said the letter offered “a remarkable first-hand glimpse” into the band’s formative months and its determination to recruit Watts, who would become an integral part of their sound for nearly six decades.
“Few documents bring us as close to the formation of a legendary band as this letter,” said Craig Inciardi, Sotheby’s music and pop culture specialist.
“Written just weeks before the Rolling Stones’ first performance and months before Charlie Watts officially joined the group, it captures the excitement and ambition of a band on the cusp of history.
“Having remained in the Watts family for more than six decades, it stands as an extraordinary first-hand record of the moment Brian Jones set out to recruit the drummer whose distinctive sound would help shape one of the most influential bands in rock history.”
The letter will be on public view at Sotheby’s New York from 2 December to 8 December, with online bidding open from 2 December until the Rock & Pop sale on 15 December. It is estimated to fetch between $70,000 and $80,000 (£52,000-£60,000).
Watts would go on to remain the Rolling Stones’ drummer for nearly six decades, performing and recording with the band until his death in August 2021.
