Charlie's gone

[Philellinas]

A small tribute on my audio blog for those of you who know where to find it. Michael

If you don't want to tell us where the hidden treasure is, Michael, I don't need to know that it is there. It sounds as though the initiates will have the map.

[NormanD]

I can understand Michael's hesitancy in publicising his blog - there was some ill-judged misunderstanding, on a previous occasion, about his motives for posting . I'd have felt the same too.

You can go here, Phil http://bootsalesounds.blogspot.com/

Thanks for all this.

[Alan Balfour]

By any chance does anybody know what's happening concerning CG's autobiography?

[Nigel w]

I can understand Michael's hesitancy in publicising his blog - there was some ill-judged misunderstanding, on a previous occasion, about his motives for posting . I'd have felt the same too.

You can go here, Phil http://bootsalesounds.blogspot.com/

Mmm. Would rather not have had our attention drawn to this.

Evidence that even Charlie lost the plot in the awful 80s, playing records by Culture Club and Tears For Fears. And the dreadful, unlistenable track he then plays by Andy Summers and Robert Fripp is even worse - and he announces it as ''marvellous''.

Hard to believe that our most trusted barometer of good taste could have ever put out a programme of such rubbish...

It's funny, because in my mind I only remember Charlie playing wonderful music that was timeless and memorable. I had banished from memory that he had ever broadcast such bad shows as this!!!

[judith]

We all have our moments. Is this one of yours?

[Nigel w]

We all have our moments. Is this one of yours?

I don't know, Judith. As a listener to Charlie's shows since the 1970s, I'm sure I must have heard the programme in question at the time.

So either:

a) I didn't realise the music of Culture Club/Tears for Fears/Fripp and Summers was awful and I was suckered into believing that the nasty 80s din of tinny synths and unsubtle drum machines was wonderful.

or (more likely, as I never liked or bought a single record by the people named above)

b) I had deliberately shut out of my mind the fact that my dear friend ever played such horrible records!

[NormanD]

Does anyone else remember "Single File", a Friday evening show on Radio London around 1975? It was a weekly round-up of a selection of recently released 45s, hosted by Charlie. I'm sure Charlie took the name from a similar feature in the monthly "Let It Rock" magazine, that he was also heavily involved with.

The prog often played a selection of really lousy music, but at least there was the opportunity to slag it off, and slip in some better stuff that might also have featured on Honky Tonk. I'm sure that Charlie definitely disliked Abba's "Mamma Mia", and made a comment along the lines of regretting voting 'yes' in the referendum to join the EEC. Another big lapse of judgement on Charlie's part (not liking Abba, that is).

[AndyM]

Never had Charlie down as an Abba fan, to be fair, though 'Mamma Mia' is one of their weaker hits.

Conversely, I'm heartened to hear he saw the good in Culture Club.

[Jonathan E.]

. . . Evidence that even Charlie lost the plot in the awful 80s, playing records by Culture Club and Tears For Fears. And the dreadful, unlistenable track he then plays by Andy Summers and Robert Fripp is even worse - and he announces it as ''marvellous''.

Hard to believe that our most trusted barometer of good taste could have ever put out a programme of such rubbish...

It's funny, because in my mind I only remember Charlie playing wonderful music that was timeless and memorable. I had banished from memory that he had ever broadcast such bad shows as this!!!

But among Charlie's great qualities was his enthusiasm — he was filled to the brim with the spirit of music. I can't say I liked much of that stuff from the 80s even at the time — but Culture Club weren't bad at all in my book — and since then Charlie drew attention to plenty that I didn't hear all that much in at first listen. And perhaps he got into a bit of narrow and deep groove since 2000 — I say that on the evidence of the Sound of the World comps. He also dissed music that I appreciate, which I found irritating — so we're just individuals, liking what we happen to like. I don't think there's quite the objective view of the "plot" possible that is sometime hoped for. Yes, even by me with my admittedly peculiar opinions. We all know that sometimes it's better to agree to disagree, don't we? Especially over musical taste. Still, I sort of understand what you mean.

[Adam Blake]

I never met anyone with a greater enthusiasm for music than Charlie. He was always so friendly to me whenever we met and I used to hate my nervousness that prevented me from being able to get as deep into conversations as he was obviously up for going. I was overawed, not because he was famous or anything like that, but because he was just so knowledgeable about music that I found him intimidating. I well remember one time, though, talking to him at length about what happened in the 80s. It turned out we had both given up on following pop/rock at around the same time, about 1983. I had made a conscious decision to immerse myself in jazz and blues whereas he had begun his exploration of what would soon be called World Music. He never looked back whereas I looked back all the time and still do. Charlie made me feel ashamed of my musical parochialism. Or rather, his open-mindedness made me feel like that as he himself was always encouraging me to witter on about Jimi Hendrix or The Beatles if that was what I wanted to do. He always listened... That's how I came to be here: a discussion of what Jimi Hendrix's song "Spanish Castle Magic" was about (a nightclub in New Jersey). Charlie wanted me to put it up on his forum. I said that surely it would be out of place on a World Music forum but he insisted that it was precisely the kind of thing that he liked to see being discussed. The minutiae. Who produced what, who played on what, who influenced whom, where it was recorded, how. He wanted to know everything about music. If he found something worthwhile in 80s pop then it was because he looked and listened harder.

[Jonathan E.]

. . . a discussion of what Jimi Hendrix's song "Spanish Castle Magic" was about (a nightclub in New Jersey). . . .

Around these parts, it's said that nightclub was in Seattle, Washington.

Ahh, well, more minutiae.

[howard male]

Adam wrote -

I was overawed, not because he was famous or anything like that, but because he was just so knowledgeable about music that I found him intimidating.

But in my experience he was also charmingly brilliant at playing this down, for example pointing out that – like me - he’d also come a cropper on more than one occasion with world music’s headmistress, Lucy Duran, getting a fact wrong or a musical instrument mispromounced.

As for the 80s, I’m proud to say I wasn’t having any of it, even at the time. I spent that decade surviving on Tom Waits, Thomas Mapfumo, and a passing obsession with acquiring a lot of old Nina Simone albums - just waiting for the thunder of over-reverbalised drums to pass, so I could come back out into the open.

[will vine]

Does anyone else remember "Single File", a Friday evening show on Radio London around 1975? It was a weekly round-up of a selection of recently released 45s, hosted by Charlie.

Yes I remember it well and still have the prize 45 I won on one edition of it - "Looking Thru' the Eyes of a Fool" by Roy Wood. He always managed to sneak some very good records.

[Martin Owen]

One one Sunday morning Charlie played the Osmond Brothers Crazy Horses as the quiz record of the week -eclectic or what? I am slightly ashamed to say I won an Amos Garret album that week.

[David Flower]

One one Sunday morning Charlie played the Osmond Brothers Crazy Horses as the quiz record of the week -eclectic or what? I am slightly ashamed to say I won an Amos Garret album that week.

cue for one of my favourite stories. I was chatting with Joe Boyd somewhere and talk of guitar solos ensued. I asked him (silly question to ask Joe) if he knew Amos Garret's solo on Midnight at the Oasis by Maria Muldaur, one of the gorgeous solos of all time.
"I produced it" came his reply. Touché or what!

very much looking forward to his world music book by the way. Soon out I think