In the post-COVID world there are many organizations that come back to life as Maryland and most of the rest of the country, slowly and carefully emerge from this catastrophic pandemic. And perhaps the most welcome of those are the Mid-Shore’s remarkable collection of community theater groups in Chestertown, Church Hill, Cambridge and Oxford. All of whom had to scrape almost two years of indoor performances as local and state shut-down orders were put into place.

The granddaddy of these volunteer-run theater companies, which first appeared on the Oxford Community Center stage in 1981, is the beloved Tred Avon Players. Now going on 40 years old, the TAP has somehow attracted some of the best talent this side of New York City to take community theatre productions to an entirely new level of professionalism.

And that tradition continues as TAP, under the direction of John Perkinson, presents F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby starting on October 28. Using playwright Simon Levy’s highly-praised adaptation, this gripping drama is set in and around New York City during the Roaring Twenties and tells the tragic story of Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire, and his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, a wealthy young woman whom he loved in his youth.

Considered to be F. Scott Fitzgerald’s best work, The Great Gatsby examines America at the peak of the Jazz Age, exploring the ultimate impracticality of the American Dream.approved by the Fitzgerald Estate. The Great Gatsby is produced by John Norton and the cast cast includes Greg Allis as Nick Carraway, Iz Clemens as Daisy Buchanan, Weston Anderson as Tom Buchanan, Alex Greenlee as Jay Gatsby, and Cavin Alexandra Moore as Jordan Baker. Also appearing are Jaclyn Royer, Bob O’Boyle, Herb Ziegler, Lindley Bounds, Matt Rovine, Francesca Rendell, Mara Abrams, Barrie Abrams, and Marianne Petschke.

The Spy sat down with director John Perkinson for a short chat about this remarkable story and how this American classic is the perfect production for TAP’s long awaited return to the stage.

This video is approximately one minute in length. For more information about the Tred Avon Players and purchase tickets please go here

The Zelter String Quartet, Lerman Gold Prize winner of Chesapeake Chamber Music’s ninth biennial international competition, performs at Ebenezer Theatre, the jewel of downtown Easton’s Prager Family Arts Center, Saturday night, Oct. 23.

“Chesapeake Music was our first major competition,” Allan Hon, cellist and spokesman for the Los Angeles-based quartet, said in a phone interview. “It’s our biggest prize so far.” Named for Arnold Lerman, founder of the competition, and his late wife Zena, the award includes a $10,000 prize and the prestige of being judged the best of 50 emerging chamber ensembles from around the world.

The Ebenezer program opens with Mozart’s appropriately celebratory “Hunt” String Quartet, given the award-winning circumstances and the joy of playing live again or attending a live concert. (However, proof of COVID vaccination and masking is still required.) “The Mozart is such a happy piece,” Hon says. “It’s a lot of fun to play.” The group is deciding on two or three Scandinavian folk tunes to carry the concert to intermission. “We call it people music,” Hon says. “No matter what kind of music you prefer, you can enjoy these pieces.”

Concluding with Ravel’s String Quartet, the Zelter musicians get a chance to show why they’ve been critically praised for “seemingly effortless precision” and “harmonic fusion” (L.A. Opus online arts website). “This Ravel is one of my personal favorites,” Hon says. “It’s so textured and gorgeous to the ear.”

Zelter will be performing in the sumptuously restored former sanctuary of Ebenezer Methodist Church constructed in 1858, home to one of three Easton Methodist congregations that merged in 1962 to form St. Mark’s United Methodist. Eight new stained-glass windows on a secular theme have resurrected the former ecclesiastical space into a performing arts temple with tastefully plush amenities. It’s also the new home of Chesapeake Chamber Music, with offices downstairs in the Prager center.

The Chesapeake competition, held every two years, was hampered in 2020 by the pandemic. Although the quest for the prize began, as usual, with chamber ensembles submitting recordings for blind judging, some struggled to find a way to play together safely. The five finalists, chosen from among the 50 recordings, performed virtual 45-minute sets instead of the live-in-Easton festival performances of past competitions. A finalist based in Switzerland was eliminated because quarantining left one of its musicians stranded in Germany past the finals deadline.

Three of the four original members of the winning Zelter String Quartet have been playing together since 2018. At first, they performed for post-graduation course credit at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. “But our goal was always to perform professionally together,” says Hon. One of Zelter’s two violinists moved from California to continue studies elsewhere and was replaced by Gallia Kastner last November–in time to compete for the Lerman prize. Kastner, a master’s degree candidate at Colburn Conservatory in L.A., is the American Youth Symphony concertmaster and has performed as a soloist with both the Chicago and Cleveland symphony orchestras.

Upon her arrival, Kastner joined Kyle Gilner in sustaining Zelter’s two-violin identity. Gilner, who holds degrees from USC’s Thornton School and the Cleveland Institute of Music, studied in masterclasses led by the Schubert Ensemble of London. His return from abroad completed the original Zelter foursome, led by Allan Hon on cello, whose first recruit was violist Nao Kubota, a fellow USC Thornton alum who earned a music master’s degree and a graduate certificate in viola performance.

Hon earned his bachelor’s degree from Rice University in Texas, his master’s from Yale, and a doctorate in musical arts from USC. A multiple competition prizewinner as a soloist, he has performed extensively in Europe and Asia as well as in North America. Each resume of the four Zelter musicians now prominently notes the Chesapeake Chamber Music gold prize.

The quartet is named for Carl Friedrich Zelter, Felix Mendelssohn’s composition teacher and an early influence on his career. Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 1 was the first piece these young musicians–now in their mid-20s to age 30–worked on when they came together.

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts writer and critic now living in Easton.

ZELTER STRING QUARTET

Winners of the 9th Chesapeake International Chamber Music Competition in concert perform Mozart’s “Hunt” String Quartet, Ravel’s String Quartet in F major, and traditional Nordic folk selections, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 23, Ebenezer Theatre, 17 S. Washington St., Easton; $35, $15 livestream through Oct. 30; 410-819-0380, chesapeakemusic.org

The Zelter String Quartet – the 2021 Chesapeake Music International Chamber Music Competition winner – will perform live at the Ebenezer Theater on October 23rd. The concert will also be live-streamed. Their exciting program will include Mozart’s “Hunt” String Quartet No. 17 in B-flat Major, Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major, and traditional Nordic folk music selections, arranged by the renowned Danish String Quartet. “We wanted to present a program with a wide variety of repertoire that would be enjoyable for the audience: something Classical (Mozart), Romantic (Ravel), and something fun and unique that they might not typically hear (Nordic folk music selections),” explained Quartet cellist Allan Hon.

Featured in their program is Ravel’s string quartet – written when the composer was 28 years old. It is one of the best-known and widely performed works in the string quartet repertoire and dazzles with impressionistic “colors” and “textures” that also showcase the composer’s enduring classical sense of form, his modern yet tonal melodies, and an overarching rhythmic vitality. “We also chose to include Danish folk tunes to spice up the program, as these songs are fun, unique, and full of beauty and life. Folk music is the music of the people; it represents the characteristics of different nationalities, regardless of ethnicity or race, and we hope that our audience members might be able to connect with them, whether it be on a musical or a personal level,” continued Allan.

The members of the Zelter String Quartet – violinists Gallia Kastner and Kyle Gilner, violist Nao Kubota, and cellist Allan Hon – not only play music, but also are active on social media. They have Instagram accounts dedicated to sharing their practice through short videos. Allan and Gallia also often enjoy playing video games with their friends, particularly Nintendo games; and they stay physically active, engaging in outdoor activities like hiking and cycling. Moreover, when not practicing or performing, they enjoy photography, cooking, traveling, and exploring new places. Based in Los Angeles, they also enjoy the cuisine culture of the area – especially the exotic – a favorite being boba (aka “bubble tea” made from tapioca).

When asked “What is special to you about the music you will perform?,” Allan responded, “It’s always special to learn (and re-learn) and be able to perform these great string quartet works, because there’s always more to discover with each time you play them and encounter them at different stages in your life – it’s a continuous and fulfilling journey and process.” And what first attracted the quartet members to classical music? Kyle came from a non-classical music family but began playing violin at the age of 13 in a public performing-arts charter middle school. He fell in love with playing in ensembles of all kinds as well as learning and performing the solo repertoire. Gallia at age 4 picked up a violin and began to practice all night. Her passion was to solo in front of an orchestra, a goal which she achieved already at a young age. Nao, who did come from a musical family, was surrounded by classical music since birth and particularly loved chamber music and string quartets. And Allan’s mother was a piano teacher, so he was exposed to classical music at a young age. In elementary school, he went to a music assembly where they showcased different instruments, and he was immediately drawn to the cello and the sound that it produced. He quickly began exploring the cello repertoire, playing in ensembles and orchestras.

Chesapeake Music is proud to present live for the first time the 2021 Lerman Gold Prize Winner – The Zelter String Quartet.

By James Carder

ZELTER STRING QUARTET
October 23, 2021 at 7:30 PM
The Ebenezer Theater, Easton

For ticket information please go here.

Groove wasn’t the only theater company to pick a bad time to open for business. In 2019, the final show of its rookie season was scrapped due to running out of money. (Cambridge-based Groove Theatre is rare, if not unique, among Eastern Shore troupes: Founder/director Talley Wilford pays his actors.) Next, COVID canceled 2020 live theater everywhere, although Groove managed to stage a drive-in “Little Mermaid.” Now, a year and a half after its originally scheduled opening night, Groove Theatre launched its 2021 season with its first adult musical, the rowdy and edgy “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” a 2015 Tony winner.

For people who have felt lost and isolated in pandemic land, this loud, lusty and lovably freakish show may be just the ticket.

As the title character, Mike Sousa plays an uninhibited, unabashed extrovert who deploys flamboyance to conceal Hedwig’s massive and richly earned insecurities. Born Hansel Schmidt, a self-described “slip of girlyboy” from Communist East Berlin, he/she/they borrowed his/her/their mother’s name and passport to travel to Junction City, Kansas, with Luther, soon to husband No. 2. (Drag queen Yitzhak was the first.) Mom finds her son a genital-reassignment surgeon in case Luther is expecting to marry a woman. But the operation is botched, leaving him/her/them virtually sexless with nothing but a scar-tissue mound between their legs.

“Angry Inch” doubles as the name of the band that accompanies the rip-roaring story of Hedwig’s life through 11 songs. Hedwig and Angry Inch are touring in the shadow of Tommy, a rock star they nurtured only to see him leave them all behind. Versatile music director Ray Remesch anchors the band featuring lead guitarist Jimmy Maguire, bassist Ben VanNest and John Stitcher on drums, plus a mysterious character from Hedwig’s past on vocals and piano. The playlist includes a nasty ode to the “Sugar Daddy” and to life as a trans-mutilated “genderqueer.”

Who could blame Hedwig for turning philosophical, claiming to have been inspired by German philosophers to write “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”? (The Rolling Stones classic, of course.) Hedwig also belts out “Origins of Love,” drawn from Greek mythology, principally Aristophanes’ “Plato’s Symposium” speech, positing that there were once three genders of the human race.Costume designer Jess Paguirigan layers Hedwig in combinations of denim, velvety red and diaphanous sequined see-throughs that together call attention to Sousa’s legs, possibly shaved for the role. His delivery of punchlines is slyly wicked and purposefully revealing as Hedwig sheds protective veneers in an emotional striptease until, on “Midnight Radio,” he is left to the barest essentials. He’s joined on stage for this finale by Laura Todd, whose transformative performance would be spoiled by revealing her character’s identity.

Let’s just say that Groove’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” is, by any measure, a triumph in perseverance, both in its message and its charmingly ragged delivery by Groove’s cast, crew, band and director. This is a must-see show, especially if you favor rock and roll. Also, due to pandemic unpredictability, Groove may not stage another grown-up show until spring or summer 2022.

Steve Parks is a retired New York theater critic now living in Easton.

“HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH”

Book by John Cameron Mitchell, music and lyrics by Stephen Trask.

Groove Theatre Company at Dorchester Center for the Arts, 321 High St., Cambridge: 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 8; Saturday, Oct. 9, and 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 10. Tickets: $10-$20, groovetheatre.com

The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra was one of the very few anywhere to complete an entire season of live performances in 2020-21, albeit with strings only. But the current season opener, Thursday night at Easton High School, marked the first time in 18 months that this fine ensemble of professional musicians had an opportunity to play as a full orchestra. They did not disappoint.

The evening also made news as Jeffrey Parker, president of the board of directors, announced that the MSO—the Delmarva Peninsula’s only professional symphony orchestra, has signed a three-year union contract with its talented cast of musicians. “This gives us stability,” Parker said in a brief interview during intermission. “Our musicians know that they’ll have work, not just now but next spring and two seasons after that.”

The opening night concert began with what felt like warm-up exercises. The first piece: Modest Mussorgsky’s Overture to Khovanshchina (The Khovantsky Affair), a prelude to the opera of the same title, was treated by the music director Julien Benicho like a music lesson as he outlined contours of the classical shorts. Running barely five minutes, the overture opens with a tranquil yet intense melody followed by several variations that hint at succeeding stanzas to be sung by the actors. As with most overtures, it ends abruptly, leaving you wishing for more.

The lesson continued with Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, introduced with a joke repeated by Benichou. “When Gershwin asked if he could study with Ravel,” the French composer asked the American how much money he’d earned lately. (The word “tombeau” denotes a memorial piece, a tomb, while Couperin was a 17th-18th musical family.) The Baroque suite in four movements runs about 20 minutes—perhaps another reason the maestro stretched the first half of the program. Ravel dedicated his tombeau to friends killed in World War I. Popular as a selection for summer outdoor concerts, it’s considered easy classical listening. Far from a requiem, it opens with a light call and response led by reeds answered by strings. Subsequent movements bring to mind the Alfred Hitchcock theme IF his TV series were a comedy, leading into darker tones suggesting melancholy and ending with a rousing, celebratory finish.

But it was Beethoven’s epic Eroica that fulfilled the theme of the season opener, “A Heroic Return,” which “pays tribute to all the unsung heroes of the period we have just gone through,” Benichou said, “while the second movement, the Funeral March, pays homage to the victims of COVID-19.” (MSO management paid heed to COVID medical recommendations by requiring all those attending to show proof of vaccination and wear a mask—musicians included.)

Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, which his 3rd (Eroica) preceded by a few years, includes a four-note opening coda, not unlike that which became the most famous notes in the classical repertoire. The response, by a violin section led by concertmaster Regi Papa, is so vigorous that one could work up a sweat playing or conducting its pell-mell pace. While the concert’s first half displayed the orchestra’s musical dexterity, Eroica showed off its muscularity. Bombastic with room for a woodwind break or two, the glorious sound and fury emanating throughout the spacious auditorium declared indisputably that full orchestral music is back, At least in Easton and the Delmarva Peninsula.

Far more somber, the second movement (the Funeral March) opens with strong cello and bass undertones along with mournful woodwinds and horns rising to the solemn occasion, amplified by a timpani heartbeat; or is it distant artillery? In any case, it’s a requiem for a fallen warrior. Beethoven had Napoleon in mind, though he was at the peak of his powers when Eroica was created. Movement 3 broke classical convention of Beethoven’s time by opening with cellos in the lead rather than violins, launching an explosive burst. A bassoon solo calls myriad instrumental parts together for a symphonic conversation, including a spirited scherzo—comedy in musical language—in stark contrast to the preceding dirge.

The final movement begins with a string-plucking tip-toe beat repeated at many times that volume by resounding strings to a crisp march-like cadence echoing earlier movements.

The performance richly deserved the standing ovation by the modest audience, its numbers still limited, perhaps, by COVID and its surging Delta variant. To hear classical music live again, by the Shore’s own professional orchestra, get vaccinated if you are not already, and encourage others to do the same. And we’ll all become conquerors together.

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

 

MID-ATLANTIC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: “A HEROIC RETURN”

Remaining concerts: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 25, Cape Henlopen High School, Lewes, DE; 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 26, Performing Arts Center, Ocean City
Tickets: $45, 888-846-8600, midatlanticsymphony.org All those attending must show proof of vaccination to be admitted.

 

There was a bit of hesitation with volunteer leaders and staff about whether or not to hold the extremely popular Academy Art Museum Craft this year. This summer’s surprise visit of the Delta variant of the coronavirus was an unanticipated bump in the road as AAM trustee Diz Hormel took over this summer as the major fundraiser chair. Diz and AAM staff manager Jennifer Chrzanowski had to think twice before the museum decided to move ahead with plans with what may be one of the most popular crafts shows in the Mid-Atlantic region.

In fact, almost 250,000 people were tracking the craft show last year via social media, and with the help of simple safety measures, including the vaccination of all the artists coming to the Easton museum, and good old common sense, the good news is those folks will not be disappointed. As they say in show business, the show will, indeed, go on.

The Spy sat down with Diz and Jennifer for a short preview of what visitors can expect when the Crafts Show opens its doors during the October 15th weekend. This includes the special preview shopping event for patrons on Friday evening and some innovative ways to keep young children engaged while parents walk through the museum and the Waterfowl Building to find the perfect gifts for loved ones for the upcoming holiday season.

This video is approximately two minutes in length. For more information about the Academy Art Museum’s 2021 Craft Show please go here. 

 The Academy Art Museum is looking for volunteers to help out at the Craft Show. Volunteers get free access to the show all weekend. Click here to sign up: https://bit.ly/CSVolunteer2021

 

2021 Academy Craft Show

Friday, October 15, Preview Shopping Event, 5:30 – 8:30 Pm
Saturday, October 16, 10 Am – 6Pm
Sunday, October 17, 10 Am – 3 Pm

 

Timing is everything in music, especially if you’re the pianist leading a trio bearing your name. But the namesake of the Fred Hughes Trio found that timing is even more crucial when you try to establish a charitable foundation to preserve and promote the art form you love.

Jazz pianist Fred Hughes endeavored to launch Jazz Alive early last year, just in time for COVID to shut down everything from indoor dining to March Madness. So what chance did the debut of a jazz concert series stand? None, the music educator and resident of Royal Oak quickly realized. So, switching nimbly to “lemonade out of lemons” mode, Hughes created an online-only series called Jazz Tales, in which he interviewed and musically collaborated with fellow jazz musicians of note. While the 25 Jazz Tales videos, running an hour and a quarter each, was viewed by a virtual audience from anywhere the Internet is accessible, Hughes made a point of recruiting 130 music students from Easton High and Easton Middle School.

The live concert series had to wait until this year, with the third and final performance on Saturday night, Sept. 18, at the Waterfowl Building in Easton. “We also had plans for an autumn-to-spring series,” Hughes said. “But I’m worried about COVID and the Delta variant. We’ve already had some of our trio concert dates in the fall canceled.” So Hughes will wait and see about more live Jazz Alive.

The novel coronavirus has already put the kibosh, hopefully just temporarily, on Hughes’ goal of forming a peninsula-wide Delmarva Youth Jazz Orchestra. “We wanted to hold auditions last year, but music teachers weren’t even seeing their band students in person. We hope to get auditions started this year if schools can stay open.”

Hughes is eminently qualified for such a mission, having served as a consultant for 25 years to the Maryland All-State High School Jazz Band. “But in all that time, I noticed we had only one kid from the Eastern Shore audition,” he recalled. “With Jazz Alive, we can bring this original form of American music to kids who’ve probably never seen a live jazz concert.”

Although his Jazz Tales video series was aimed, in part, to reach music students who were learning exclusively online, Hughes also reached a broad adult audience. “As we got a lot of comments from jazz fans from all over, I started pitching a weekend in St. Michaels or Easton to people from as far away as upstate New York and southern Virginia. Some of them turned up at our concert series this season.”

The Waterfowl Building was transformed on each of the three nights into a cabaret nightclub with 45 tables seating up to 150 jazz fans. “We’ve drawn about 125,” Hughes says. The series finale featured harmonica virtuoso Hendrik Meurkins, best known for his samba swing style of Brazilian jazz. He was joined by master guitarist Paul Bollenback, described by legendary jazz-blues recording artist George Benson as a “dynamo whose approach to jazz and blues has a uniqueness unto itself.” Completing the trio, Paul Langosch’s all-star credentials include 20 years as bassist for Tony Bennett, performing on 10 of his albums and hundreds of concerts and TV appearances.

Hughes did not perform in his just-concluded concert series. “I want it to be about all the jazz masters I can present,” he says. “It’s not about me.”

Keep up with what’s next on its website, jazz-alive.org

Steve Parks is a retired arts editor and critic now living in Easton.

“A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Except for the sound and fury part, that line might have come from “Much Ado About Nothing.” But it’s from “Macbeth,” written in 1606 and indeed “full of sound and fury,” six years after the Bard penned “Much Ado.”

Thankfully, the Brown Box Theatre Project chose comedy over tragedy for its 10th annual free Shakespeare in the park tour coming to Cambridge Wednesday evening, Sept. 22. The highly polished and professional Boston-based troupe drew a bring-your-own-lawn chair crowd of 150 or so to St. Michaels’ Muskrat Park just as a rising full moon was adding the perfect accent to the splendid scenic design by Abby Shenker. She took full advantage of the location by placing the two-tier period set immediately in front of the park’s gazebo, lending its cupola to the home and garden of Leonata, governor of Messina on the island of Sicily.

Her ladyship is hosting a formal dinner celebrating the return of soldiers from war, formally outfitted in deep purple uniforms with golden epaulets and brass buttons–costume designs by Chelsea Kerl, whose sheer ladies’ gowns are fitting for a midsummer night’s dream occasion. Here, the occasion is a mixer for eligible young ladies and gentlemen, whose repartee turns quickly among themselves and later in mixed company to romance. Some are pro, others stridently con. Played by Chelsea Titchenell with a sense of decorum in knowing what’s best, Leonata is keen on marrying off her daughter Hero and niece Beatrice.

Hero, charmingly naive as portrayed by Debbie Aboaba, falls quickly for like-minded Claudio (Christopher Ho), who, while exuding confidence, is too easily fooled by those with their own agenda. Meanwhile, Hero’s cousin Beatrice (Margaret Clark) finds that her mismatch in Benedick (Cam Torres) disdains the prospect of marriage with equal measure to hers. Together they trade some of Shakespeare’s fiercest lines regarding or disregarding the opposite sex. With Hero and Claudio already engaged, they conspire with Leonata and Don Pedro (Spencer Palitew), a prince and senior officer, to convince Benedick and Beatrice that they are meant for each other. They set up an eavesdrop on conversations making up effusive praise of Beatrice to Benedick and vice versa. The physical comedy, first with Torres and then Clark scurrying up and down the staircase and behind every garden shrub to hear what’s said about their characters, is as rich as it is implausible in that the plot works.

With an impending double wedding, Don John (Drew Cleveland), the prince’s bastard brother, is feeling left out. He recruits Borachio (Abuzar Farrukh) to help convince Claudio that Hero is unfaithful as he mistakes handmaiden Margaret (Emma McGill) for her lady.

Enter the idiot who began telling this tale, the clown constable of Messina given the name Dogberry by Shakespeare. Dressed in garish striped socks over floral print shorts and jacket, Bree Perry lets us know from the top that it’s comedy tonight, tragedy some other time.

We can thank director and Eastern Shore native Kyler Taustin for bringing Brown Box to the underserved, theatrically speaking, Delmarva Peninsula. This romantic farce with a touch of intrigue is just the free ticket we need these days—two hours of nothing heavy to think about as a professional company entertains us. Meanwhile, Broadway has opened again. Let’s hope we can keep COVID at bay and let the good times roll again.

Steve Parks is a retired New York theater critic now living in Easton.

“MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING”
Performed for free by Brown Box Theatre Project on Sept. 22, Loge Wharf Park, Cambridge; Sept. 22, J. Millard Tawes Museum grounds, Crisfield; Sept. 23; Northside Park, Ocean City, Sept. 26. Bring lawn chairs or blankets. Details and online program at brownboxtheatre.org

 

I am in mourning today, though the only black I wear is a Rolling Stones T-shirt that I might well have worn on any day, with its red-tongue logo sticking out to whoever gets in my way. But no one between ages 30 to 80 takes it that way. “Love your shirt,” almost everyone who notices says, reminding me that I’m wearing one of my half-dozen or so Stones T’s that still fit me.

But on this day, I heard from my daughter, who knew I’d break out in tears at the news:

Charlie Watts is dead.

My life as I’ve known it for all but 16 of my 74 years is left without his artistry anchoring the genius of indisputably the world’s most remarkable–certainly longest-surviving–rock and roll band in the history of the world. But his legacy lives on into perpetuity. 

If you don’t know who London native Charles Robert Watts was, my sympathies. But I reserve mine principally for Charlie and his mates, personal and professional, on this sad day when news of Afghanistan evacuations, COVID-19 resurgence, and climate calamities overshadowed acknowledgment of his passing. He is the unsurpassed drummer beloved by generations of Stones fans, of which I am a member of the first generation. 

I got hooked on the Stones with a 1963-64 recording of “Mona (I Need You, Baby)” spun late-night on WCAO 60-AM. What a revelation. Rhythm and blues sung by Brit boys with an accent. But what further distinguished them was the guitar-and-drum syncopation. Brian Jones, who formed the band, didn’t survive its first decade. Now Charlie is the second of this remarkably resilient band to exit permanently.

What I noticed from the beginning is the punctuation of Charlie’s percussion, just a millisecond after guitar riffs that often drowned out the drumbeat of lesser artists. He always seemed to be within an instant of coming in too late on “Satisfaction” and each of their greatest and lesser hits. Especially when played live. Keith Richards, the legendary Stones guitarist, knew to keep his ear or feet attuned to Charlie’s beat. If he could not hear it, he could feel the vibrations from the stage floor rattling his spine. (“Jumpin’ Jack Flash”!)

Charlie Watts, though, was more than a rock-and-roll drumming genius. Married to Shirley since 1964, just after the band covered “Mona,” he was the Stones’ rock–stone, if you will–when other distractions might have dissolved the band led by star-power personalities. Mick Jagger will never be confused with a wallflower, and Keith takes no guff from his songwriting partner. Brian Jones couldn’t handle this dynamic and was found face down in a swimming pool in 1969, the first of serial rock stars who died at age 27. 

But Charlie, along with Bill Wyman, the band’s bassist and archivist, were its elder statesmen. (Wyman retired in 1993, though he still records solo.)

I’m not sure the Stones can survive without Charlie. He absented himself from the current completion of the band’s 2019 tour, which I was thrilled to catch at FedEx Field in Landover, MD. It was–who’s counting?–at least my 25th time seeing them play live. Ironically, that July 3 concert was delayed from Memorial Day due to Jagger’s unspecified heart procedure. The Stones renewed the tour after a year of COVID cancellations. But this time, Charlie announced his absence, likely due to throat cancer that first surfaced in 2004. 

More than a drummer, Charlie Watts, 80 at his death, was an artist who made his mark within and without the Stones. His first love was jazz. Rock was an opportunity. He took advantage of both, producing a catalog of jazz-standards CDs, often with back-up singers from Stones concert tours. And his eye for what might project a Stones concert to a distant stadium- or arena-sized crowd created an accessibility impossible without his visual instincts. 

Charlie was also a collector of vintage cars. He could afford them, of course. But the curiosity is that he didn’t even drive them. Charlie appreciated art and design when he saw it and, undeniably, when he heard its percussive expression.

Though I have never met you in close proximity, Charlie,  I love you. Your former bandmate, Bill, who I have met, sends his love, too, I’m certain. Without you, the Stones would never be who they became and may never be quite the same again now that you’re gone. Your beat will never die. Ever. Rest in peace, anyway, Charlie.

Steve Parks is a retired arts writer and still-active rock fan now living in Easton.