Charlie Rich

Started by montage, April 11, 2017, 03:40:31 PM

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1= Let's Take It Nice and Easy
2= The Most Beautiful Girl
3= Behind Closed Doors
4= I Love My Friend
5= My Elusive Dream



Charles Allan "Charlie" Rich (December 14, 1932 – July 25, 1995) was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. His eclectic style of music was often difficult to classify in a single genre, encompassing the rockabilly, jazz, blues, country, soul, and Gospel genres.

In the later part of his life, Rich acquired the nickname the Silver Fox. He is perhaps best remembered for a pair of 1973 hits, "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl". "The Most Beautiful Girl" topped the U.S. country singles charts, as well as the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles charts and earned him two Grammy Awards. Rich was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2015.

Rich was born in Colt, Arkansas, to rural cotton farmers. He graduated from Consolidated High School in Forrest City, where he played saxophone in the band. He was strongly influenced by his parents, members of the Landmark Missionary Baptist Church in Forrest City, as his mother, Helen Rich, played piano and his father sang in Gospel quartets. A black sharecropper on the family land named C. J. Allen taught Rich blues piano. He enrolled at Arkansas State College on a football scholarship and then transferred to the University of Arkansas as a music major after a football injury. He left after one semester to join the United States Air Force in 1953.

While stationed in Enid Oklahoma, he formed "the Velvetones", playing jazz and blues and featuring his wife, Margaret Ann, on vocals.  He and Margaret Ann Greene had married in 1952. Upon leaving the military in 1956, they returned to the West Memphis area to farm 500 acres. He also began performing in clubs around the Memphis area, playing both jazz and R&B. During these times, he began writing his own material.

After recording some demonstration songs for Sam Phillips at Sun Records that Phillips did not find commercial enough and considered to be "too jazzy", he was given a stack of Jerry Lee Lewis records and told: "Come back when you get that bad." In a September 6, 2010, NPR airing of a 1992 interview with Fresh Air host Terry Gross, Charlie Rich tells the story, himself, of Bill Justis telling Rich's wife those words.  In 1958, Rich became a regular session musician for Sun Records, playing on a variety of records by Lewis, Johnny Cash, Bill Justis, Warren Smith, Billy Lee Riley, Carl Mann, and Ray Smith. He also wrote several songs for Lewis, Cash, and others.

His third single for the Sun subsidiary, Phillips International Records, was the 1960 Top 30 hit, "Lonely Weekends", which was notable for its Presley-like vocals. It sold more than one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America.

None of his seven follow-up singles was a success, however, though several of the songs became staples in his live set, including "Who Will the Next Fool Be", "Sittin' and Thinkin'", and "No Headstone on My Grave". These songs were often recorded by others to varying degrees of success, such as the Bobby Bland version of "Who Will the Next Fool Be".

Rich's career then stalled and he left the struggling Sun label in 1963, signing with a subsidiary of RCA Victor, Groove. His first single for Groove, "Big Boss Man", was a minor hit, but again, his Chet Atkins-produced follow-ups all stiffed. Rich moved to Smash Records early in 1965. Rich's new producer, Jerry Kennedy, encouraged the pianist to emphasize his country and rock n' roll leanings, although Rich considered himself a jazz pianist and had not paid much attention to country music since his childhood. The first single for Smash was "Mohair Sam", an R&B-inflected novelty-rock number written by Dallas Frazier, and it became a top 30 pop hit. Unfortunately again for Rich, none of his follow-up singles was successful. Rich was forced to change labels, moving to Hi Records, where he recorded blue-eyed soul music and straight country, but none of his singles made a dent on the country or pop charts. One Hi Records track, "Love Is After Me", from 1966, belatedly became a white soul favorite in the early 1970s.

Despite his lack of consistent commercial success, Epic Records signed Rich in 1967, mainly on the recommendation of producer Billy Sherrill. Sherrill helped Rich refashion himself as a Nashville Sound balladeer during an era when old rock n' roll artists like Jerry Lee Lewis and Conway Twitty were finding a new musical home in the country and western format. This new "countrypolitan" Rich sound paid off in the summer of 1972, when "I Take It on Home" went to number six on the country charts. The title track from his 1973 album Behind Closed Doors became a number-one country hit early in that year, then crossing over into the top 20 on the pop charts. This time, his follow-up single did not disappoint, as "The Most Beautiful Girl" spent three weeks at the top of the country charts and two weeks at the top of the pop charts.

Now that he was established as a country music star, Behind Closed Doors won three awards from the Country Music Association that year: Best Male Vocalist, Album of the Year, and Single of the Year. The album was also certified gold. Rich won a Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance, and he took home four Academy of Country Music awards. One of RCA's several resident songwriters, Marvin Walters, co-wrote for three years with Charlie, producing four recordings including a very popular "Set Me Free".

After "The Most Beautiful Girl," number-one hits came quickly, as five songs topped the country charts in 1974 and crossed over to the pop charts. The songs were "There Won't Be Anymore" (pop number 18), "A Very Special Love Song" (pop number 11), "I Don't See Me In Your Eyes Anymore" (pop number 47), "I Love My Friend" (pop number 24), and "She Called Me Baby" (pop number 47). Both RCA and Mercury (Smash was a subsidiary of Mercury which was absorbed into the main company in 1970) re-released his previously recorded material from the mid-1960s, as well. All of this success led the CMA to name him Entertainer of the Year in 1974.

In the same year he performed the Academy Award-nominated theme song "I Feel Love (Benji's Theme)" from the film Benji. Rich had three more top-five hits in 1975, but though he was at the peak of his popularity, Rich began to drink heavily, causing considerable problems off-stage.

Rich's destructive personal behavior famously culminated at the CMA awards ceremony for 1975, when he presented the award for Entertainer of the Year, while visibly intoxicated. After stumbling through the names of the nominees, Rich clumsily tore open the envelope, took out a cigarette lighter, and lit the paper on fire with the winner's name. While the paper burned, he announced that the winner of the award was "My friend Mr. John Denver." 

Some considered it an act of rebellion against the Music Row-controlled Nashville Sound. But many speculated that Rich's behavior was a protest against the award going to Denver, whose music Rich had considered too "pop" and not enough "country".  Others, including industry insiders, were outraged, and Rich had trouble having hits throughout 1976, and only had one top-ten with "Since I Fell For You". In a 2016 interview, former CMA Executive Director Jo Walker-Meador speculated that Rich's drunkenness may have been in part due to resentment over his being shut out of the nominations that year, after his success at the 1974 awards.

His son Charlie, Jr., says on his website: "...why did he do it? I'll tell you why I thought he did it. #1 He thought it would be funny. He set it up by talking about how the potential winners were probably nervous, as he had been the previous year. #2 Bad judgement. He had recently broken his foot in a freak accident at his home in Memphis. It sounds funny, but he got his foot caught in an awkward position while getting out of a reclining chair. He cracked several bones in his foot. So...Due to the pain, he took pain medication the night of the show: Bad idea! Secondly, he and another country star got to drinking gin and tonics while waiting in the dressing room.

The show was long, so by the time Dad was supposed to go on, the drinks on top of the medication got him buzzed. So, there ya' go. That's why I think he did it. Primarily he thought it would be funny. I know the last thing my father would have wanted to do was set himself up as judge of another musician. He felt badly that people thought it was a statement against John Denver."

The slump in his career was exacerbated by the fact that his records began to sound increasingly similar: pop-inflected country ballads with overdubbed strings and little of the jazz or blues Rich had performed his entire life. He did not have a top-10 hit again until "Rollin' With the Flow" went to number one in 1977. Early the following year, in 1978, he signed with United Artists Records, and throughout that year, he had hits on both Epic and UA. His hits in 1978 included the top-10 hits "Beautiful Woman", "Puttin' In Overtime At Home", and his last number one with "On My Knees", a duet with Janie Fricke.
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montage

#1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODOR5mfT7xA


Nice 'n' Easy is a 1960 album by Frank Sinatra.

All the songs, with the notable exception of the title song, are sung as ballads and were arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle. The title song was a last-minute substitute for the originally planned "The Nearness of You", that did not appear on the original LP.

The album spent nine weeks at number one on the Billboard stereo album chart, and one week at number one on the corresponding mono album chart.  At the 1960 Grammy Awards, Nice 'n' Easy was nominated for the Grammy Award as Album of the Year, Best Male Vocal Performance, Best Arrangement.

The song "Nice 'n' Easy" was released as a single in 1960 and made it to number 60 on the charts. It was also recorded by Charlie Rich in 1964, Peggy Lee in 1966, Michael Buble in 2004, Natalie Cole in 2008, and Barbra Streisand in 2011.
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montage

#2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhqbESuc2v8


The Most Beautiful Girl" is a song recorded by Charlie Rich and written by Bill Sherrill, Norris Wilson, and Rory Bourke.

The country and western ballad reached number 1 in the United States in 1973 on three Billboard music charts: the pop chart (two weeks); the country chart (three weeks); and the adult contemporary chart (three weeks), as well as in Canada on three RPM charts: the RPM 100 Top Singles chart, the Country Tracks chart, and the Adult Contemporary chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 23 song for 1974.

The song was originally recorded as "Hey Mister" in 1968 by co-writer Wilson. The song also uses a part of "Mama McCluskie", also by Wilson.

Rich's B-side, his own "I Feel Like Going Home", was later covered by Rita Coolidge and was released on her 1974 album Fall into Spring. British pop singer Engelbert Humperdinck included "The Most Beautiful Girl" on his 1973 album Engelbert: King of Hearts.

"The Most Beautiful Girl" was also recorded by Slim Whitman in the 1970s. Andy Williams released a version in 1974 on his album The Way We Were. In 1975 ABBA singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad recorded a Swedish-language version called "Vill du låna en man?" (with Swedish lyrics by Stig Anderson) on her solo album Frida ensam.

Sergio Franchi recorded the song on his 1976 DynaHouse album 20 Magnificent Songs. Country music boy band South 65 recorded an updated version of the song, titled "The Most Beautiful Girl (2001 Version)", on their 2001 album Dream Large.

The song receives a very brief airing by Brenda Fricker in the film So I Married an Axe Murderer. Jason Alexander also offered a rendition as his character George Costanza on the December 16, 1992, episode of the sitcom Seinfeld titled "The Pick", where he bemoaned the loss of his girlfriend, Susan.
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admin

#3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyoPaVxMyWY

"Behind Closed Doors" is a country song written by Kenny O'Dell. It was first recorded by Charlie Rich for his 1973 album Behind Closed Doors. The single was Rich's first number-one hit on the country charts, spent 20 weeks on this chart, and was also a crossover hit on the pop charts. Background vocals were provided by The Nashville Edition.

Rich's producer, Billy Sherrill, encouraged O'Dell to write music for the singer. O'Dell recalled the creation of "Behind Closed Doors" to Tom Roland in The Billboard Book of Number One Country Hits. "It was just a title I had written down, and I had a little guitar riff that I'd carried with me for a couple of years. The chorus was pretty much a little deviation on that." Sherrill later changed some lines at the end of the second verse, but some radio stations banned the record initially as being racy.

"Behind Closed Doors" earned awards for Song of the Year (for O'Dell) and Single of the Year (for Rich) from both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, and Rich also received a Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal
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#4
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iAAfnyrOeY

"My Elusive Dreams" is a country music song written by Billy Sherrill and Curly Putman, which has been recorded by several artists.

The best-known version was recorded as a duet by David Houston and Tammy Wynette, and was a No. 1 country hit in October 1967; the song also peaked at No. 89 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The song follows a restless man and his wife, as he attempts to find an ever-elusive and lasting happiness pursuing various dreams and schemes, all which are ill-fated. The man's attempts at making something work include stops in at least six states: Texas, Utah, Alabama (specifically, Birmingham), Tennessee (specifically, Memphis (where the wife gave birth to their child) and later Nashville) Nebraska, and finally Alaska (it is implied that during their stint there, their child died and was buried there).

The man finally admits to his resigned wife that he recognizes she's tired of following him around the country and that his dreams are fleeting.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxYdVmOsoYo

"She Called Me Baby" is a country song written in 1961 by Harlan Howard which despite a number of recorded versions did not appear in the Top 20 of the C&W chart in Billboard until 1974 when a mid-60s recording by Charlie Rich was belatedly released to reach #1 C&W.  In its female version, "He Called Me Baby", the song was a Top Ten R&B hit for Candi Staton in 1971.

Charlie Rich recorded "She Called Me Baby" at one of a series of sessions produced by Chet Atkins at RCA Victor Studio in Nashville which occurred between March 1964 and February 1965.  Like many Atkins-produced tracks of this era, "She Called Me Baby" featured choral backing and strings, a style prominent on other Rich recordings of the time.

Rich's version of "She Called Me Baby" went unreleased as an album cut or single until after Rich had his star breakout in 1973, when he scored million-sellers with "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl." That run of success continued into 1974, when several of his older recordings made during his tenures at RCA, Mercury and Sun records — "She Called Me Baby" included — were released as singles to C&W radio.

Released in September 1974 — around the time his Epic single "I Love My Friend" was peaking in popularity — "She Called Me Baby" reached #1 on the Billboard C&W chart dated 7 December 1974. "She Called Me Baby" was Rich's fifth #1 C&W hit in 1974 alone and his seventh #1 C&W hit overall.
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LR1944 - Charlie Rich - Most Beautiful Girl In The World   G
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musicman100

97682_06 - She Called Me Baby_VH
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Behind Closed Doors
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Midi - Charlie  Rich

97683_05 - A Very Special Love Song_VH
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