'Our current drummer is atrocious': Brian Jones's letter begging Charlie Watts to join the Rolling Stones is to be auctioned
The Rolling Stones, whose founder Brian Jones wrote to Charlie Watts in June 1962 urging him to join, with a postscript mocking his then-current drummer as "atrocious.
A handwritten letter from Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones to Charlie Watts, sent in June 1962 and held by Watts's family for more than six decades, is to go under the hammer at Sotheby's New York on 15 December. The letter, unearthed by the late drummer's sister, is estimated to fetch between $70,000 and $80,000 at the Rock and Pop sale.
Jones addressed the letter to Watts's childhood home in Wembley, urging him to leave Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated for his 'far better' band.
The letter predates the band even adopting the Rolling Stones name; Watts eventually joined in early 1963 and remained a Stone until his death in 2022.
Jones signed off with a cheeky postscript: 'Our current drummer is atrocious!'
