Charlie Watts on the mend

Mick Jagger says Rolling Stones' drummer Charlie Watts is in good health after winning his battle with throat cancer.

Jagger said: "He's had all these treatments and he was pronounced free and clear. So we're very glad about that."

He also revealed he and Keith Richards are writing songs for a new Stones album, reports Rolling Stone magazine.

Jagger, 61, said: "The thrill is the same. You never really know what's going to happen."

The Stones' last album of original material, Bridges To Babylon, was released in 1997.

Jagger and British teenage singer Joss Stone are expected to release their remake of Cilla Black's 1966 hit Alfie as a single before Christmas.

The song is included on the soundtrack of the upcoming Jude Law remake of the Michael Caine movie which also includes three new songs written and performed by Jagger and Dave Stewart.

The songs are Old Habits Die Hard, Blind Leading the Blind and Let's Make It Up.

Jagger laughed off comparisons of himself to Jude Law's character in the movie: "The Alfie character, who doesn't want to commit, is a character that's come up again and again in literature over the last three or four hundred years.

"I think it's a stock character, a character inside all young men - and young women. There aren't any playboys anymore. They wrap themselves around trees in badly driven sports cars. I've always been very business-minded."
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