Bobby Charles - Bobby Charles (1972)

Bobby Charles was an American singer-songwriter.

After many songwriting successes in the 50s and 60s, Bobby Charles' first solo LP didn't come out until the early 70s, when he moved to Woodstock, looking for a quiet hideout in the mountains. As fate would have it, he was persuaded to record again by Albert Grossman, who was living a few miles away in Bearsville, where he had built an ultra-modern recording studio. The result was a brilliantly laid-back, rootsy mix of rock & roll, rhythm & blues and country. Musicians backing him included Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm of The Band, steel guitarist Ben Keith, members of Paul Butterfield's Better Days (who were living and working in Woodstock at the time), Dr John and producer John Simon. Rick Danko co-wrote the single "Small Town Talk", and also recorded it on his own solo album in 1977. The album also featured "Before I Grow Too Old", a Bobby Charles song that had originally been recorded by Fats Domino back in 1960. It was a brilliant record, sadly overlooked, and endures today as testimony to Charles' genius with it's easy-going, mellow grooves. A great find for fans of roots-rock.
Charles recorded material for a second Bearsville album in 1974, but it never saw release. By then he had seen enough of the music industry, and had been screwed over one too many times, so he returned to his homeland of Louisiana, where he lay low for many years.

|> Clean Water (1987)
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