Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today June 2
1941
Charlie Watts is born, the jazz gentleman who held the Stones together for sixty years
On June 2, 1941, Charlie Watts was born in London — the drummer who came to the Rolling Stones from jazz and never stopped regarding them with elegant distance. His restrained swing, always a hair behind the beat, is the rhythmic secret of rock's longest-running band. Impeccable suits, zero scandals and an inimitable groove: the perfect anti-rockstar.
Charlie Watts
The Rolling Stones
2008
Bo Diddley dies, owner of the beat rock borrowed without paying
On June 2, 2008, Bo Diddley died in Florida at 79. His famous 'Bo Diddley beat', an African-rooted pulse turned electric hammer, appears in hundreds of songs from Buddy Holly to the Stones and The Smiths. Also a pioneer of guitar-as-spectacle, he spent his life demanding, rightly, the credits and royalties the business withheld from him.
Bo Diddley
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