Charlie Rich - Behind Closed Doors

everyone should read guralnick's profile of charlie.... actually there are two profiles. one is in the book "feel like going home" and the other is in...i forget. they are incredibly poignant.

under his high school yearbook photo it read "charlie 'stan kenton' rich"!

And sorry if 'arrogance' sounded a bit harsh. I didn't think it was arrogance that you didn't like it, more that you thought it wasn't even worthy of comment (good or bad). I still think it's a remarkable record.

Amateurist, the other profile is in Lost Highway.

This thread makes me want to play a lot of Charlie Rich this weekend.

(doomy piano note)
(slight charlie growl)
Lord I feel like goin' home
(bee deedle deedle deedle dee piano begins)
I tried and I failed
(more)
And I'm tired and weary
An' everything I done was wrong
(beedle deedle deedle dee, particularly sad)
And I feel like goin' home
(slightly bright beedle deedle)
Lord I tried to see it through
(darkness, hard beedle deedle)
but it was too MUCH
(again, slightly ironic, perhaps)
for me
And now I'm comin' home
to you
(sad sad beedle deedle)
I feel like goin' home
(88s restate the case)
Cloudly skies are closin' in
(beedle deedle)
And not a friend
around
to
help me
From all the places
I have been
(beedle deedle)
Now I feel like goin' home
(heavenly-bound beedle deedle dee)
Lord, I feel like goin' home
I tried and I failed
And I'm tired and weary
Everything I done was wrong
(regret beedle deedle)
And I feel like goin' home
(almost jaunty beedle deedle dee-dee)
And that's it.

And that IS it.

apologies.

Guralnick's chapter on him in Feel Like Going Home (for which, Charlie wrote the song) still amazes me every time I read it.

http://s63.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=20WIJGMRBOG0R32FZQ8V5NW6JC

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000002AB1/qid=1137093681/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/103-0227664-5327031?s=music&v=glance&n=5174

The lyrics alone to that song are like, wow. Charlie Rich has pummeled me into even greater inarticulateness than usual.

Whatever. sub-lime'ness, n. the state or quality of being sublime.
-- Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Deluxe Second Edition. (My favorite.)

I have "Memphis & Arkansas Bridge" but on vinyl. Maybe I'll kill some more time and transfer.

http://s44.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=08Z1HNPH5R8PL19ZNZYLGMGB6X

If you dig, it looks like both Boss Man and Very Special Love Songs are available as a twofer on Edsel (a reissue from '05 that should have been on my list):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/tracks/B0007MAQVY/103-0227664-5327031?%5Fencoding=UTF8#disc_1

And if there's one demo of Rich and piano, there's got to be more--that shit needs to be released.

And thanks to Edd for putting the bug in our ear.

anyway, went back and listened to those Sherrill/Rich records, and they're certainly a cut above the usual '70s Nashville gloppy shit. Rich's voice almost always makes it all really interesting. Just think what could have happened had Rich gotten on Blue Note or some jazz label; just think about him backed by Duke Ellington...he wouldn't have made as much money but I bet he would have been far less melancholy, and maybe still alive today...

Not so sure Charlie would've benefited from straight jazz/Blue Note kinda treatment, he was a true fusion artist intuitively blending styles, his easy listening tendencies figure as imporantly as his jazz and blues leanings (along w/the realism/sentimentality schism in wife Margaret's lyrics). Though an album of Charlie Sings Standards w/a big band sounds enticing on paper in practice it could turn out like his "legendary" Stax sessions which left me kinda cold. Long story short, I think CR's Billy Sherrill period is better than credited, arguably his peak esp. those initial 3 albums: Big Boss Man, Set Me Free, The Fabulous Charlie Rich.

I've never heard SILVER LININGS (a post-'74 gospel album that Guralnick thinks is great), but in general anything Sherrill produced on him from that year onward - BEWARE, BROTHER, BEWARE!!!

The Feel Like Going Home demo can be bought from iTunes or Amazon. It's on an out-of-print comp called FLGH, The Essential Charlie Rich. No better way to spend 99 cents.

Silver Linings is awesome.

There's also some great stuff on that older Bear Family comp of his Sun Records recordings. A lot of it is just plain nuts, especially stuff like "Popcorn Polly." It seems like whenever Rich tries to write a straight forward teen hit, he can't help but take it some oddball directions. One of those guys who sound nice and conventional on the surface, but when you peel it back is profoundly weird.

at the end of the day, it's really all about that slow walkin', fast talkin', good lookin' Mohair Sam...

Nice 'N' Easy, damn, that's a sexy tune.

That CMA clip is on youtube now...Charlie was Fuuuuuuuuuuuucccckkkked Up...the cut to Glen Campbell after it's over is priceless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krZmHCQ3l9o

The whole show is up as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDyPmBlon0Y

that clip is awesome. but poor dude who had to keep that timpani roll going for 25 seconds.

thnaks for posting is all i can type thru tears of laughter

kanye rich

The man is so desperate, he's casual: Music Sounds Better With Two talks about Charlie Rich (and musical isolation) - http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/endless-quest-charlie-rich-most.html

It Ain't Gonna Be That Way the Complete Smash sessions is pretty essential methinks.
Some of his early 70s stuff had me wondering if he was a conscious influence on Nick Cave, Tindersticks and a few others.

The most recent Oxford American music issuue has a great Rich piece:

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2014/jan/07/issue-83-dear-charlie/

That Oxford American article is fantastic. Mind-blowing to think he didn't start singing until he was 22. Would be on my short list for favorite singers.

In 1966, when Charlie Rich was at a nadir in his career, Sy moved him to Hi Records, a small-time local studio, and Natalie brought Isaac Hayes in so Charlie could take a shot at one of his songs, “When Something Is Wrong With My Baby.” As Natalie recalls, the backing band was composed of legendary session players from Stax and Hi—the Memphis Horns, Andrew Love and Wayne Jackson, along with Tommy Cogbill on bass and Willie Hall on drums. Hayes sat next to Charlie at the piano and taught him the song before they recorded it in one take. For “Pass on By,” Sy Rosenberg himself blew a meandering trumpet solo in the background.

The Hayes track was never released

As I said way up thread, one of the most versatile pop musicians ever. Him and Ray Charles, anyway. Going to hunt down that Oxford American issue today.

I need to see that too

https://i.imgur.com/ai9WUg6.jpg

ILX shall now be split into three warring factions.

Never forget that one time a decade or so ago when the only working thread was for a Canadian Zeppelin clone.

I don't remember that

but lol

Can't open it now but wonder if it will link? https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=20850

Nope.

In any case found cached version and no evidence therein. Believe we lost seventeen days of history at the time.

Well at least a few people might discover Charlie Rich, that's a plus.

Well I make it alright.

Who Will The Next Poxy Fule Be?

Behind Closed Threads

I'm listening to The Essential Charlie Rich as we speak :O

the titular song of this album was used in an advert by the scottish executive raising awareness regarding domestic abuse and has been forever ruined for me due to the association

Wait they used “behind closed doors” rather than “have a heart” for an abused dog campaign?

Ugh sorry not abused dog. I think I did I mistaken that for a US commercial

Ugh sorry not abused dog. I think I did I mistaken that for a US commercial.

avoid the final dud, "pictures and paintings," a horribly misguided attempt at respectability.

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, September 23, 2003 1:38 PM (eighteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

holy shit was i wrong about this album 19 years ago. it's a stone cold masterpiece.

this on the p&p version of "feel like going home" is dead on:

The failure is still there in his voice, but by the end, when the choir comes in, it's almost like he's being borne aloft. Like he's been forgiven for all the failure and he's on his way to the Lord despite it all. It's a song that never fails to move me, and it moves me all the more because it stirs contradictory emotions.

his last song on his last album, damn.

"Life's Little Ups and Downs" is one of the best vocals ever.

Just to say his piano playing on P&P is gorgeous. I'm still partial to his earlier material but happy to have a reason to pull out P&P for first time in years.