Who Knew the King was a Rocker?
How Charles learned to appreciate rock music, and even play the drums
When King Charles and music come to mind, the automatic association is with classical composers—Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, Wagner, Elgar, Parry. What few people realize is that in the 1980s and 1990s, Charles, then the Prince of Wales, was a fan of rock and roll—at least when it wasn’t too loud. Rock music concerts allowed him to raise money for his signature charity, the Prince’s Trust, which he had started in 1976 to provide education and training for disadvantaged young people. It was the idea of Diana, Princess of Wales, to tap into popular culture to help publicize the work of the trust. As a result, rock music formed a rare common bond between the couple in the early years of their marriage.
He wore earplugs during high-volume concerts
In 1982, Charles sponsored the first Prince’s Trust benefit concert. It took place on July 21st at the Dominion Theatre in London and raised $110,000. The purpose was to highlight young musicians trained with the assistance of Prince’s Trust grants by having them perform onstage with rock stars including Phil Collins, Pete Townshend, Kate Bush, and Jethro Tull. Two years later, the concert moved to the Royal Albert Hall, where Diana and Charles—who wore earplugs during high-volume concerts—bonded with Phil Collins and his wife Jill.
Over the following years Charles developed a genuine appreciation and even a fondness for rock music. I first heard about this little-known chapter of the King’s life from Jill Collins when we met in September 2012 in Los Angeles, where I was giving a talk about my biography of Queen Elizabeth II, Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch. Jill and I sat together at lunch, and she described the unlikely friendship that she and Phil—by then her former husband—had with Charles and Diana, who was a devotee of Collins’ music.
“He couldn’t understand how Phil could remember all the lyrics”
Charles showed Phil and Jill Collins his informal side as well as his sense of wonder about music that had never been part of his background. “At the Prince’s Trust concerts I would be behind him or next to him in the royal box,” Jill recalled. “He asked about Phil, how he would go on tour, how he would keep what he did in his head. He was fascinated by Phil, and he couldn’t understand how Phil could remember all the lyrics of all the songs. He couldn’t get over that.”
Jill recalled that Prince Charles wrote “long letters to Phil,” and that once after a Prince’s Trust concert he was even writing one in the car. Because she was an American, Jill sidestepped protocol. “I didn’t know much about Prince Charles. I was twenty-four, and not raised in England. I gave people hugs,” she recalled. “I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do that, and he reciprocated.” When she called him “Charles” instead of “Your Royal Highness” and kissed him on the cheek, “he was fine with that, too.” “The first time I met Diana,” Jill recalled, “I curtseyed, and she said, ‘Don’t bother.’”
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