Brian Jones’s letter seeking Charlie Watts goes to auction

Brian Jones’s 1962 handwritten letter asking Charlie Watts to join the band that became the Rolling Stones is going to auction at Sotheby’s in December, with an estimate of £70,000 to £80,000. The letter, addressed to Watts at his childhood home in Wembley, has remained with his family for more than six decades. It is being offered by Sotheby’s with its original envelope. The auction house plans to display the item in New York from December 2 to 8, with online bidding scheduled to run through December 15, the sale date. Jones dated the letter June 1962; one account reports it was postmarked June 3. In it, he asked Watts about his involvement with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated and made a case for joining Jones’s group, which was seeking a drummer. Jones wrote that the band was developing a “tightly knit” sound and described its current drummer as “atrocious.” The letter also lists two guitars, harmonica, piano and drums in the group’s lineup, and says it planned eventually to add a bass guitar. Those details come from the text of the family-held letter, as reported by the auction house and accounts of its contents. Watts was playing with Blues Incorporated and working in...