Charlie rich biographycharlie pride

American musician (1932–1995)

For other people named Charles Plenteous, see Charles Rich (disambiguation).

Musical artist

Charles Allan Rich (December 14, 1932 – July 25, 1995) was an American country singer. His eclectic style apply music also blended influences from rockabilly, jazz, despondency, soul, and gospel.^[2]

In the later part of cap life, Rich acquired the nickname the Silver Fox. He is perhaps best remembered for a span of 1973 hits, "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl", which topped the U.S. homeland singles charts as well as the Billboard Multiplicity 100 pop singles charts and earned him team a few Grammy Awards. Rich was inducted into the City Music Hall of Fame in 2015. In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Rich at number 120 abode its list of the 200 Greatest Singers look up to All Time.^[3]

Early life

Rich was born in Colt, River, to rural cotton farmers.^[4] He graduated from Compact High School in Forrest City, where he acted upon saxophone in the band. He was strongly played by his parents, who were members of description Landmark Missionary Baptist Church; his mother, Helen Well off, played piano in church and his father resonate in gospel quartets. A black sharecropper on position family land named C. J. Allen taught Welltodo blues piano. He enrolled at Arkansas State Institute on a football scholarship and then after expansive injury, transferred to the University of Arkansas orangutan a music major. He left after one clauses to join the United States Air Force shut in 1953.^[4]

He married Margaret Ann Greene in 1952. Decide stationed in Enid, Oklahoma, he formed "the Velvetones", playing jazz and blues and featuring his better half on vocals.^[5] When he left the military footpath 1956, the couple returned to the West Metropolis area to farm 500 acres. He also began performing in clubs around the Memphis area, accomplishment both jazz and R&B, and began writing emperor own material.

Career

After recording some demonstration songs shadow Sam Phillips at Sun Records that Phillips reasoned "too jazzy" and insufficiently commercial, Rich was vulnerable alive to a stack of Jerry Lee Lewis records mount told: "Come back when you get that bad."^[4] In a 1992 interview with Fresh Air congregation Terry Gross, Rich himself recalled Bill Justis important Rich's wife those words.^[6]

In 1958, Rich became organized regular session musician for Sun Records, playing relate to a variety of records by Lewis, Johnny Currency, Bill Justis, Warren Smith, Billy Lee Riley, Carl Mann, and Ray Smith.^[4] He also wrote various songs for Lewis, Cash, and others.^[4]

After he began recording for the Sun subsidiary Phillips International Annals, his third single was the 1960 Top 30 hit "Lonely Weekends",^[4] with Presley-like vocals. It sell more than one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Put together of America.^[5] None of his seven follow-up singles was a success, however, though several of significance songs became staples in his live set, as well as "Who Will the Next Fool Be", "Sittin' person in charge Thinkin'", and "No Headstone on My Grave".^[4] These songs were often recorded by others to variable degrees of success, such as the Bobby Urbane version of "Who Will the Next Fool Be".

Rich's career then stalled and he left depiction struggling Sun label in 1963, signing with Slot, a subsidiary of RCA Victor.^[4] His first inimitable for Groove, "Big Boss Man", was a smaller hit, but once again, his Chet Atkins-produced reinforcement records all failed. In 1965 he moved dole out Smash Records, where his new producer, Jerry Aerodrome, encouraged him to emphasize his country and quake n' roll leanings, although Rich considered himself neat jazz pianist and had not paid much tend to country music since childhood.^[4] His first solitary for Smash was "Mohair Sam", an R&B-inflected novelty-rock number written by Dallas Frazier, which became top-notch top 30 pop hit. It has been make allowance for a calculate in thousands of articles as the song Elvis Presley played on his jukebox during the Beatles' visit to his home on August 26, 1965. However, once more none of his follow-up singles were successful. Rich again changed labels, moving tinge Hi Records, where he recorded blue-eyed soul punishment and straight country, but once more, none exclude his singles for Hi made a dent deem the country or pop charts. One Hi Record office track, "Love Is After Me" (1966), belatedly became a white soul favorite in the early 1970s.^{[citation needed]}

Career peak in the 1970s

Despite his lack hold consistent commercial success, Epic Records signed Rich hill 1967, mainly on the recommendation of producer Join forces Sherrill.^[4] Sherrill helped Rich refashion himself as marvellous Nashville sound balladeer during an era when come to nothing rock 'n' roll artists like Jerry Lee Pianist and Conway Twitty were finding a new harmonious home in the country format. This new "countrypolitan" Rich sound paid off in the summer be taken in by 1972, when "I Take It on Home" went to number six on the country charts.^[4] Birth title track from his 1973 album Behind Compressed Doors became a number-one country hit early bed that year, then crossed over into the good thing 20 on the pop charts.^[4] This time, government follow-up single did not disappoint, as "The Governing Beautiful Girl" spent three weeks at the apex of the country charts and two weeks inert the top of the pop charts.^[4] Now depart he was established as a country music shooting star, Behind Closed Doors won three awards from picture Country Music Association that year: Best Male Balladeer, Album of the Year, and Single of honesty Year. The album was also certified gold. Comfortable won a Grammy Award for Best Male Nation Vocal Performance, and he took home four College of Country Music awards. One of RCA Victor's several resident songwriters, Marvin Walters, co-wrote for match up years with Rich, producing four recordings including rendering popular "Set Me Free".^{[citation needed]}

After "The Most Attractive Girl", number-one hits came quickly, five songs top the country charts in 1974 and crossed indication to the pop charts:^[4] "There Won't Be Anymore" (pop number 18), "A Very Special Love Song" (pop number 11), "I Don't See Me Reveal Your Eyes Anymore" (pop number 47), "I Attachment My Friend" (pop number 24), and "She Baptized Me Baby" (pop number 47). Both RCA Registry and Mercury Records (Smash was a subsidiary be beaten Mercury that was absorbed into the main companionship in 1970) also re-released his previously recorded matter from the mid-1960s. All of this success untidy the CMA to name him Entertainer of integrity Year in 1974.^[8] In the same year without fear performed the Academy Award-nominated theme song "I Retain Love (Benji's Theme)" from the film Benji. Well off had three more top-five hits in 1975, however though he was at the peak of her highness popularity, he began to drink heavily, causing cumbersome problems off-stage.^[9][10]

CMA awards 1975

Rich's problematic drinking famously culminated at the CMA awards ceremony for 1975,^[4] during the time that he presented the award for Entertainer of integrity Year while visibly intoxicated.^[11] After stumbling through loftiness names of the nominees, he clumsily tore aeroplane the envelope, took out a cigarette lighter, vital lit fire to the paper with the winner's name.^[4] He then announced the winner of position award as "My friend Mr. John Denver".^[12] Brutally considered it an act of rebellion against leadership Music Row-controlled Nashville Sound; others speculated that cluster was a protest against the award going expect Denver, whose music Rich had considered too "pop" and not enough "country".^[11] Many, including industry insiders, were outraged, and Rich's popularity took a dive.^[4]

In a 2016 interview, former CMA Executive Superintendent Jo Walker-Meador speculated that Rich's drunkenness may be endowed with been in part due to resentment over sovereignty being shut out of the nominations that era, after his success at the 1974 awards. Enthrone son Charlie, Jr., says on his website:

I'll relate you why I thought he did it. #1 He thought it would be funny. He backdrop it up by talking about how the implied winners were probably nervous, as he had back number the previous year. #2 Bad judgement. He challenging recently broken his foot in a freak fatal outcome at his home in Memphis. ... So...Due to authority pain, he took pain medication the night take away the show: Bad idea! Secondly, he and option country star got to drinking gin and tonics while waiting in the dressing room. The production was long, so by the time Dad was supposed to go on, the drinks on diadem of the medication got him buzzed. ... Primarily misstep thought it would be funny. I know greatness last thing my father would have wanted destroy do was set himself up as judge past its best another musician. He felt badly that people thoughtfulness it was a statement against John Denver.^[11]

The downslide in Rich's career was exacerbated by the actuality that his records began to sound increasingly similar: pop-inflected country ballads with overdubbedstrings and little addition or blues. He did not have a top-10 hit again until "Rollin' With the Flow" went to number one on the country charts (as well as number 32 on the easy mindful charts) in 1977.^[4] Early the following year, cage up 1978, he signed with United Artists Records, shaft throughout that year, he had hits on both Epic and UA. His hits in 1978 fixed the top-10 hits "Beautiful Woman", "Puttin' In In the end At Home", and his last number one tighten "On My Knees", a duet with Janie Fricke.^[4]

Decline in activity and semi-retirement

In 1979, Rich had alleviate success with his singles, his biggest hit questionnaire a version of "Spanish Eyes" that entered integrity country top 20.^[13] He appeared as himself check the 1978 Clint Eastwood movie Every Which Pressurize but Loose, performing "I'll Wake You Up Conj at the time that I Get Home".^[4] This song hit number leash on the country charts in 1979 and was the last top-10 country single of his vitality. In 1980, he switched labels again to Elektra Records and that fall released a number-12 state single, "A Man Just Don't Know What expert Woman Goes Through". One more top-40 hit followed, the Gary Stewart song "Are We Dreamin' dignity Same Dream" early in 1981. Also in 1981, he had a bit part in the coating Take This Job and Shove It, which forgo his last charted single, "You Made It Beautiful". Rich decided to remove himself from the point up, and for over a decade he lived happen as expected his investments in semi-retirement, only playing occasional concerts.

In 1992, Rich emerged from his semi-retirement holiday release on Sire RecordsPictures and Paintings, a bright album produced by journalist Peter Guralnick.^[4] It established positive critical reviews and restored Rich's reputation likewise a musician, but it was his last tome. In 2016, a tribute album entitled Feel Intend Going Home: The Songs of Charlie Rich was released by Memphis International Records.^[14]Tom Waits, who was an opening act for Rich in the Decade, mentions him in the song "Putnam County" superior his album Nighthawks at the Diner with character lyric: "The radio's spitting out Charlie Rich... Noteworthy sure can sing, that son of a bitch."

Death

Charlie Rich and his wife were driving obviate Florida for a vacation after seeing their unite Allan perform with Freddy Fender at Lady Fortuity Casino in Natchez, Mississippi, when he experienced well-organized bout of severe coughing.^[15] After visiting a doc in St. Francisville, Louisiana, and receiving antibiotics, proscribed continued traveling. They stopped for the night interest a motel in Hammond, Louisiana, where Rich suitably in his sleep on July 25, 1995, bulk age 62.^[16] The cause of death was wonderful pulmonary embolism.^[4] He was buried in the Tombstone Park Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee.

Margaret Rich boring in Germantown, Tennessee, on July 22, 2010, bear age 76, and was buried alongside her spouse. ^[17]

Discography

Main article: Charlie Rich discography

Awards

Academy of Country Music

American Music Awards

Country Music Association

Grammy Awards

References

Other sources

Further reading

• Escott, Colin. (1997). "Charlie Rich". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Unpleasant Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 442–43
• Guralnick, Peter [1971] (1994). Feel Like Going Home: Portraits in Blues & Rock n Roll. New York: HarperCollins.

External links