Charlie Rich was only 62 years old when he died, but he managed to cram in so much music in that time. Massive fame came to him fairly late, with the “countrypolitan” phase of country music, where a more sophisticated i.e. urban vibe – less dusty boots, more flashy cowboy boots, came into vogue. He was the primary countrypolitan singer, and his two massive hits – “Behind Closed Doors” and “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” still get regular radio play. But … the “countrypolitan” thing limits him and limits our ideas of what he did. Digging into his catalog – dating back to his days at Sun Records – is a very gratifying and illuminating experience, and you can’t really understand Rich without it. He brought in innovations, he brought into country music different strands – jazz, in particular – torch-song jazz – but also blues and soul – which really hadn’t been done before, at least not the level he did it. Nobody was really putting jazz and country together. And it still isn’t really done. But he did it.
And his VOICE. It’s one of my favorite voices ever. It’s smooth and gorgeous, with deep rich tones, and filled with feeling. It’s a voice that can do anything.
Like most of the guys who came up in the ’50s, through Sun Records, and other little labels, Rich grew up dirt poor, and grew up in a religious household. His dad sang gospel, his mother played the piano, and Rich learned how to play the piano, the saxophone, etc. He actually went to college on a football scholarship and then joined the Air Force. So already this is a little different from, say, Carl Perkins or Dale Hawkins. Or Elvis. Or any other of those guys. He had a wider experience of the wider world. He played in little bands, and he wrote his own music. He wasn’t a wild rockabilly boy. He was a man, he was steeped in jazz, which he played in music clubs around Memphis.
Like most Memphis musicians, he gravitated to Sun. Phillips wasn’t crazy about the sound. He loved Rich’s voice, but mellow smooth-jazz-country wasn’t his vibe. He liked rough, raw rhythm & blues, raucous rockabilly. (Phillips had his limitations. He really only liked one thing. He couldn’t even HEAR it if it wasn’t the thing he liked. Roy Orbison was driven to distraction by Sam Phillips trying to turn him into something he wasn’t. Phillips didn’t like ballads, it wasn’t his thing. Roy Orbison loved them. Conflict.)
Still, though, Phillips recognized – and was moved by – the overall talent of the man.
“Charlie Rich had the intuitive instinct to feel, see and hear pain, disappointment, happiness and joy and somehow transmute it into music. I don’t know anyone who has ever written or sung in a way that depicted more of the humanity of man, with greater melodic beauty, than Charlie Rich.”
— Sam Phillips
Rich ended up being a session musician for Sun, but it is so worth it to dive into all of Rich’s Sun recordings (and also the recordings he did for Phillips International Records, a subsidiary of Sun). It was the late-50s, 1960 … Sun/Phillips had been tapped out by Elvis, and new things were happening to diversify the operation. I prefer these early recordings to the “countrypolitan” phase, which was – by design – slick and polished. Rich’s Sun stuff is mostly just him and the piano, light arrangements around him, everything to highlight his rich moody deep voice. They’re to die for.
I mean, hell, he recorded “Lonely Weekends” at Sun. It was a hit, his first hit.
He also recorded the great “Unchained Melody” at Sun. You can hear the influence of soul and also the jazz sound of those soft drums. I love his piano-playing, too. The dreamy opening and closing, the mood of a dark nightclub with a jazz trio, and it’s 3 o’clock in the morning.
Rich thought of himself as a jazz pianist/singer, not a country/rock singer. It was a weird time for him. There was no place for him, really. Not in 1960, that’s for sure. The “trends” were so strong, and he did sound a little bit like Elvis, but he didn’t have Elvis’ restless-youthful-sexpot-ness. He was a MAN.
Like, listen to this: “Who Will the Next Fool Be”, recorded at Sun:
It’s so beautiful. Jerry Lee Lewis recorded this one when he moved into his country-star renaissance/rehabilitation period.
I think maybe one of my favorite recordings is “River Stay Away From My Door”. I was just going to post the song here, but I found a clip of him appearing on the Jimmy Dean Show in 1964 singing the song and also “Big Boss Man”. It gives such a good feel, I think, for Rich’s appeal as a performer. We’ve got the ballad and then we’ve got “Big Boss Man”, which shows his “raunchy” side (you’ll see he calls it “raunchy” in the clip below). He was almost as good-looking as Elvis. As Jimmy Dean gives the introduction, you can hear Rich trilling around on the piano off-screen, creating, again, that nightclub feel, very unusual for a country singer – then or now. Charlie Rich created a MOOD.
Listen to the purity of his tone. His voice is PERFECT. And in “Big Boss Man” he brings in a RASP which is thrilling, especially since his voice is so SMOOTH.
Also, he CRUSHES it on piano. Sam Phillips had in his head Jerry Lee Lewis’ style, which of course was completely distinct and unique to him, and explosive! Pushing the stool back! Banging on the keys! Howling to the devil! Rich is an accomplished and fluid and intuitive piano player, steeped in all his influences, but … he’s not Jerry Lee Lewis. Phillips equated pianist with Jerry Lee … and … well, that’s not how it works, Sam. Charlie Rich could be a little stiff when he stood up and sang, away from the piano. He’s definitely not grooving around the stage, moving his body, that wasn’t his thing. He was very sexy but it wasn’t because of how he moved. The piano released him. You can SEE it, it’s like he and the instrument are one.
Rich had a decade to go before he became a huge star. He had some songs that hit the charts, but nothing really moved the needle for him. Still, there’s a lot there to discover. “Milky White Way” is one of my favorite gospel tunes, and I probably have 15 versions of it by different artists in my music library. Rich’s is gorgeous. And bold, in its blending of styles.
Also, his beautiful “Don’t Put No Headstone on my Grave”. Jerry Lee Lewis covered this and rocked it up – fantastic – but here, Rich keeps the pace slowwwww – and there’s a kind of horse-clopping sound keeping the beat, with his piano swooping up and trilling down around it. And he’s got the rasp in his voice. So it’s … blues and jazz and country.
It is to die for.
In the late 60s, he signed with Epic Records and ended up in Nashville, where his transformation began.
Nashville can be bossy. They basically set the tone for what they want (what they will tolerate). Nashville was afraid of rockabilly. The Grand Ole Opry rejected Elvis when he auditioned. We’ll have none of that HERE. Doing THAT to country music was an abomination. Let’s not discount the racism behind a lot of this. When Elvis dominated the country charts, in the early days, the powers-that-be shunned him, banning him from the charts, and the same thing happened to Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers. Country music would stay the same, dammit. Country music would stay white only. It didn’t matter that these were all white boys, it was clear those white boys were listening to “race records”, and Nashville would have none of that. Nashville paid the price for their conservatism and racism. They stopped having any relevance. They were a closed system. (People like Willie Nelson/Waylon Jennings/Merle Haggard changed that, but that was a bit later). Art can’t decide to stay the same. Art can’t refuse other influences into it. Not if it wants to grow.
Rich, an oddball, really, became the new face of country music with the whole “countrypolitan” thing, a massive star, a gorgeous imposing figure with white hair, wearing white suits, just impossibly glamorous.
And then the totally unforeseen happened. Along came two outlaws, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, who looked around at the artistically conservative landscape, and were like “The hell with all THIS.”
Rich was an alcoholic and – along with changing of the times – this contributed to his sad and early decline. A rough hard-living life. He was a huge star but he got stuck in a rut and some of the countrypolitan stuff all sounds the same (to me, anyway). His voice is always a pleasure, though. There was the whole controversial setting-fire-to-John-Denver thing on live television that happened, something which still gets chatter, and is still one of the things most people know about Charlie Rich. Was he just drunk? Was he bitter? Rich said no, it wasn’t that. He had no problem with John Denver.
I don’t want to toss countrypolitan on the trash heap! He’s always fun to listen to. I adore “Beautiful Woman”.
He was married to the same woman for over 40 years. He had three children. He had darkness in him, for sure, something he struggled with, occasionally drowning in it. But he had that something, that unique spark – the gleam of originality – a sense of self-knowledge when presenting himself – it’s unmistakable and can’t be faked. He knew who he was and what he had to offer, and he offered it freely. You can FEEL it when you watch him live. Early on, he was in the Elvis-aftereffect, as so many young male musicians were, he sounded so much like him, but eventually he shook that off, inhabiting his own beautiful voice in his own way.
It may seem weird to end on his version of “America the Beautiful” because the song is so done – overdone – and (to Americans, at least) – we have heard it so often it’s hard to even HEAR it anymore. However, Rich’s version is special and filled with feeling – almost corny, but he makes it work because he means it. What makes his version startling and very much his own is the long spoken-word opening, where he basically preaches – you can practically see the pulpit – about the meaning of the words, how to say it in different languages, giving a vision of the melting-pot ideal of America, or what America should be. There are so many of us who no longer feel America should be this way, and I do not – and will not – forgive them for betraying this essential ideal. The song hits very different now. Rich builds and builds this section, taking his time with it, the way he took his time with his piano playing, the way he took his time with everything. Jazz is all about tempo, and so is blues really … and Rich could slowwwwww things down without erasing the tension. Quite the opposite: when a master like Rich slows things down, he just builds the anticipation in the audience.
While the pinnacle of “America the Beautiful” is Ray Charles’ version – I don’t think it can ever be topped – I love Rich’s version too.
Charlie Rich was a giant while he was here, and his time at the tippity-top was brief. But those early years … those Sun/Phillips years … that’s the REALLY good stuff. He was an artist.
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