Charlie Watkins

Charlie Watkins (28 June 1923 - 28 October 2014) was a British musician, inventor, and entrepreneur best known as the founder of Watkins Electric Music and a pioneer of sound reinforcement systems for rock concerts. Watkins was the first to build PA systems with multiple slaved solid state amplifiers driving various loudspeaker stacks, beginning with the Windsor Festival in 1967.

Early life Watkins was born in London in 1923. He enlisted in the Merchant Navy with his brother Reg, serving during the Battle of the Atlantic. While serving in the Merchant Navy, Watkins began playing accordion, and after returning home following World War II, Watkins played professionally for several years.

Career

In 1949, Watkins and his brother Reg opened Watkins Electric Music, a record shop in Tooting Market, London. Two years later the brothers relocated the shop to Balham and began selling accordions and guitars. Realizing the increasing need for guitarists to be able to amplify their instrument for live performances, Watkins experimented with building amplification systems for acoustic guitars. Encouraged by the popularity of Skiffle music, Watkins designed and introduced the Westminster guitar amplifier in 1954, later followed up by the V-fronted Dominator. The Copicat would become one of the company's most successful products, with various different Copicat models released over more than 50 years. By the end of the 1950s, Watkins' company, now branded with a shortened acronym of WEM, was one of the top 3 companies of the U.K. music trade,

Determined to design an effective sound reinforcement system more powerful than what was available at the time, Watkins had the idea of adding together multiple slaved solid state amplifiers to drive stacks of loudspeakers, resulting in the WEM SL100 slave amplifier. Additionally, he had WEM's designers create a PA mixer with built-in equalization and outputs for the slave amplifiers. In 1967, he approached Marquee Club owner and Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival organizer Harold Pendleton with an offer to design and build a 1000-watt system (far more powerful than any PA system at that time) that would make it possible for the famous festival to expand its audience size significantly. Pendleton accepted, and Watkins delivered the 1000-watt system in time for the event. The PA system was so loud that local residents complained to the authorities, who leveled charges against Watkins and attempted to regulate the volume of the festival. Watkins was later defended in court by the Right Honourable Quintin Hogg, where the case was dismissed.

Watkins' company's kilowatt-range PA systems became standard for British music festivals, including Stones in the Park in July 1969, the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969 and 1970, and the Glastonbury Festival. Watkins also provided the PA system for Janis Joplin's performance at the Royal Albert Hall in April 1969, with the singer announcing to the audience how pleased she was with the sound of her voice that night. He died at his home in Balham in 2014 at the age of 91.