[Deathwatch] Noble 'Thin Man' Watts, musician, 78

[Deathwatch Central]

Noble 'Thin Man' Watts; influential jazz-blues saxophonist; 78

By Jim Abbott
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL

August 28, 2004

His nickname fit, but anyone who knew saxophonist Noble "Thin Man"
Watts will tell you that his given name is more appropriate.

Mr. Watts, an influential rhythm & blues and jazz saxophonist who died
Tuesday in DeLand, Fla., at age 78, always carried himself with a regal
bearing.

"I'd compare him with Duke Ellington," said Marvin Rooks, a host of
"Smokestack Lightnin'," a long-running weekly blues show on WUCF-FM.
"You looked at him and said, 'This guy is really cool.' Just a real
gentleman and a consummate musician."

Mr. Watts had been in a nursing home in recent months, coping with
emphysema and pneumonia. In February, he wasn't well enough to attend
the memorial service for Bob Greenlee, the musician and producer who
performed with Mr. Watts in the Midnight Creepers blues band and
revitalized the sax man's career in the late 1980s by releasing albums
on independent King Snake Records in Sanford, Fla.

Mr. Watts, born in DeLand, raked leaves as a boy at Stetson University
to pay for violin lessons. Later, he played trumpet and saxophone,
instruments that his mother gladly bought him to keep him from
indulging his curiosity about boxing.

His musical ability led to a college career at Florida A&M University,
where he played in the original edition of the school's renowned
marching band with a pair of future jazz legends: saxophonist
Cannonball Adderley and his brother, cornetist Nat Adderley.

The experience transformed Mr. Watts from someone with raw talent into
a trained musician. His career as a trumpeter ended because he blew
high notes with such force that he strained the muscles in his face.

"Going in, he didn't have as much formal training as the rest of us,"
Nat Adderley told The Orlando Sentinel in 1987. "He got by on talent.
He expanded his musical knowledge by learning to read music, by
learning chord progressions and harmony and composition. He's a
well-trained musician."

In the 1950s, Mr. Watts established his professional reputation in New
York, where he played with the house band at Sugar Ray Robinson's club
in Harlem, with Lionel Hampton's orchestra and on rock 'n' roll package
tours with Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and others.

His booming tenor sound influenced a range of saxophonists, including
King Curtis and Bruce Springsteen sideman Clarence Clemons.

Mr. Watts released a series of singles on Baton Records, scoring his
biggest hit with the instrumental "Hard Times (the Slop)" in 1957.
Another single, "Jookin'," made enough of an impression on a young Bob
Greenlee that he was astonished years later to see Mr. Watts wasting
his time playing lounge music in Central Florida.

"He's one of the greatest friends I ever had," Mr. Watts said of
Greenlee earlier this year. "I was in bad shape, and he revived my
career. I give him credit for keeping blues alive here because it would
have been dead if it hadn't been for him."

Since his return to the blues, Mr. Watts had been recognized as a
musical icon. He performed less frequently in recent years, though he
did headline a DeLand concert three years ago to celebrate his 75th
birthday. He received an honorary doctorate in 2000 from Stetson
University in DeLand.

In May, the African American Museum of the Arts dedicated an
amphitheater named after Mr. Watts in his hometown.

Mr. Watts is survived by his wife, June; son, Robert Hill of Manassas,
Va.; daughter, Natalie W. Brown of DeLand; sister, Constance Brenson of
Orlando; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.