Charlie Rich - Biography
By J Poet
Charlie Rich, The Silver Fox, is known by most people for his gold and platinum, Grammy winning, Best Male Country Vocal Performance song “Behind Closed Doors” one of the least explicit sexist songs ever recorded. Rich’s years as a country superstar concluded the third phase of a four pronged career that saw him go from rockabilly cat, to R&B crooner and pop star, to country music icon, to jazz singer. His last album, Pictures and Paintings (1992 Sire) finally got him the acclaim as a singer of jazz standards that he’d always sought, but he died a few years later, before he could launch the new jazzy phase of his career.
Rich was born in Colt, Arkansas, population 312 and grew up in poverty, picking cotton while going to high school. He played piano and sax in high school, but his religious parents told him playing music outside music class was the devil’s business. Nonetheless, he went on to become a music major at the University of Arkansas studying sax, piano, blues and jazz. In 1952 he enlisted in the Air Force and was stationed in Enid, Oklahoma where he played jazz and country music in off base honky tonks. He met and married his lifelong partner Margaret Ann and they moved into the Rich family farm after Charlie got out of the service. Margaret Ann smuggled a demo tape of Rich’s playing to Sun Studios: Bill Justis hired Rich as a session pianist for Johnny Cash, Warren Smith, Billy Lee Riley, and Ray Smith.
Justis and Sam Phillips told Rich he had to go commercial if he anted to succeed. Jazz and blues weren’t going to cut it. Rich started writing rock and rockabilly style tunes. Jerry Lee Lewis got a hit with “I’ll Make It All Up to You”, Johnny Cash cut “The Ways of a Woman in Love”, Carl Mann waxed “I'm Comin' Home.” and his own Phillips single “Lonely Weekends” was a smash, since recorded by dozens of artists. Lonely Weekends (1960 Phillips) collects some of his early sides. Lonely Weekends The Sun Years 1958 1963 (1998 Bear Family) gives you all of his known Sun and Phillips recordings.
In he early 60s he recorded briefly for RCA’s Groove label and had a minor hit with Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man.” His bluesy honky tonk style of the period is captured on Big Boss Man The Groove Sessions (1998 Koch).
In the 60s Rich was playing honky tonks again, blending country and R&B tunes into his set. He signed with Mercury’s Smash division and scored with “Mohair Sam” a pop and R&B crossover hit in 1965. He cut two incredible R&B/country albums for the label that mercury reissued as Fully Realized (Mercury/Smash) in 1974 after Rich became a star at Epic. They were repackaged after his death as The Complete Smash Sessions (1994 Mercury).
Billy Sherrill was an up and coming Nashville producer who was adapting the countrypolitian template of Chet Atkins into a more lush pop sound with massive string overdubs. He signed Rich in 1967 and together they built up the momentum that made Rich a superstar with Set Me Free (1967 Epic, 1994 Koch) was a subtle, pop, country, R&B blend; The Fabulous Charlie Rich (1969 Epic, 1994 Koch) extended the formula with re-recordings of some of his best Smash tunes and the minor hit “Raggedy Ann”, and Boss Man (1970 Epic, 1994 Koch) with a hint of Memphis soul to the charts. “I Take It on Home”, a tune from Behind Closed Doors (1973 Epic, 2001 Sony Legacy) hit #6 just before the album dropped. The title tune was a #1 country and Top 20 pop it, and the follow up; “The Most Beautiful Girl” went #1 pop and country. The album won three CMA awards, Best Male Vocalist, Album of the Year, and Single of the Year and a Grammy.
RCA started releasing old Rich tracks and they hit just as often as his new Epic songs. He had 11 country and pop hits between 1974 and 1975 and made solid albums like The Silver Fox (1974 Epic) Very Special Love Songs (1974 Epic), Every Time You Touch Me (I Get High) (1975 Epic) and Take Me (1977 Epic). Rich had a drinking problem, which got worse the more successful he became. Silver Linings (1976 Epic, 1999 Sony Legacy) a Gospel album, was his last solid effort for Epic.
He recorded I Still Believe in Love (1978 United Artists), a single “I'll Wake You Up When I Get Home” for Clint Eastwood’s Every Which Way But Loose Soundtrack (1980 Elektra) and Once A Drifter (1980 Elektra), before going into semi retirement in 1981, playing infrequently and staying out of the studio. Journalist Peter Guralnick got Rich back into the studio to display his jazzy side and they made Pictures and Paintings (1992 Sire). The album got rave reviews and Rich seemed ready for phase four of his career when he died in his sleep in 1995.
