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Charlie Rich was a blues and r&b man. Before Charlie made the transition to full-time musician, he farmed land near Forrest City. Occasionally he put down tracks on his home recorder. One day his wife, Margaret Ann, took those tapes over to Sun Records in Memphis where they were well received. |
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Soon enough, Charlie rolled out of Arkansas and tumbled into Memphis to lay down tracks in the very studio where B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, Junior Parker, Roscoe Gordon, Rufus Thomas, and a whole raft of other great blues and r&b legends were first recorded. Between 1958 and 1963, Charlie’s output included a number of songs that owed a large debt to his bluesy roots. Songs like "Midnite Blues" and "Finally Found Out," and the particularly soulful "Who Will the Next Fool Be." The Groove division of RCA acquired his services for the next two years, where he turned out the white soul classics "Big Boss Man," "River Stay Away From My Door," and "Why, Oh Why." A brief stop at the Smash division of Mercury produced the funky "Mohair Sam." But like a wandering bluesman, Charlie’s kept on moving on. Charlie Rich was an r&b soulman. No matter the musical landscape Charlie’s wanderings happened to take him through, his music was always built on soulful underpinings. Never was this more evident than in 1966 when Charlie’s musical odyssey brought him back to Memphis to record at the Hi label’s Royal Studio, one of the city’s most supremely soulful studios. Best known for Al Green and Ann Peebles, Hi’s studio time during Charlie’s tenure was shared by Willie Mitchell, Ike and Tina Turner, and O.V. Wright. Perhaps this explains why his first album for the label, "Sings the Songs of Hank Williams," is so darned soulful. And if you think it was soulful, his "R&B Sessions" features the first recorded version of Isaac Hayes and David Porter’s soul classic, "When Something is Wrong With My Baby," and a handful of other soul gems. Charlie Rich was an r&b soulman. Okay, so maybe Charlie wasn’t a pure bluesman or a pure soulman. But consider this: didn’t all those legendary bluesman of old have a healthy dose of country licks in their repertoire? |
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