Charlie Feathers Feature
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,J tr0 W _,,.1,.:., al ,: .. .,,. '\lE IN AI THE BIRTH OF ROCK'N'ROLL, ffiARI.IE TEATHERS HAD IO WAITTWO WHOLE DECADES BEFORE HIS CRUCIAL CONTRIBUIION TO THE GENRE WAS RECOGNISED. JEREI{Y ISAAT RECALLS HIS OUI NIESSENTIAL RECORDI NG YEARS harlie Feathers is a rockabilly Ole Opry stars like Bill Monroe on the honkytonks andjuke joints. By 1950 he legend. The son oftenant farmers wireless. He was also inspired by the had settled in Memphis, working as a from rural Mississippi, he was music of the black field hands with truck driver and at a box factory. there at the dawn of rock'n'roll. whom he worked, learning to play guitar At the same time,27-year-old radio His unique'bluegrass rock' style from sharecropper and bluesman Junior engineer Sam Phillips opened his was key in getting Elvis Presley started Kimborough. studio at 706 Union Avenue, where his and still influences the music today. Yet Feathers left school in his teens to work Memphis Recording Service recorded unlike his famous Sun Records label with his father on the oil pipelines in a mixture of local bluesmen for R&B mates Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Illinois and Texas, where he first played record labels such as Chess, as well as private waxings of weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and birthday greetings, such as the one Presley would record two years later. Feathers started hanging out at the studio at the suggestion ofblues shouter Howlin'Wolf, who recorded there, and when Phillips started Sun in 1952, Feathers found his niche as a busy session musician. Lewis, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison, But he was not satisfled to g'uest on he remained an obscure local performer other people's records. He wanted to before finding surprise mainstream make his own recordings of a unique acceptance 20 years later. Now new musical style he had developed. immortalised in such top Holly'wood "I was singing bluegrass and rapping movies as Kill BilI and walk The Line, on the guitar like I heard them black Charlie Feathers is the ultimate artists do," he recalled. "Bluegrass rockabilly template for the cyber age. rock, that's what it really was. Bill Charles Arthur Feathers was born on Monroe music and black artists' 12 Jwe,1932,in the hill country near music is what caused rock'n'roll." Holly Springs in northwest Mississippi, In late 1954 he got his chance around 50 miles southeast of Memphis. when Phillips allowed him to record He started early in music through I've Been Deceivedf Peepin' Eyes on singing in church and listening to Grand Sun's subsidiary Flip label, but + ISSUEs YINTAOINOCI 27 V things did not work out quite as Feathers they were typical oftheir style and era, had hoped. and complemented those of label mates Those expecting to tap their toes to Doug Pointdexter and Ernie Chaffin. his trademark rockabilly sound will be Of more than 30 sides recorded by bemused by these first offerings from Feathers at Sun, only four were released, the legendary hillbi1ly rocker. Deceiyed and those hoping to hear more vociferous is a traditional country waltz featuring material among the unreleased Sun tracks scraping fiddle, steel guitar and high, will be disappointed, as only Corinne, whining vocals. The jaunty Peepin' Eyes is Corinna comes close. more upbeat, but its faster-paced acoustic More significant is the hotly-debated guitar is still laden with fiddle, steel and contribution he made to the label in the country harmonies. So what happened to two years he was there. On the surface, "bluegrass rock"? Feathers' claims of influence at Sun seem When Phillips first heard Feathers thin. He claimed to have developed the play he did not hear "a u,hite singer who labe1's legendary echo technique, yet could sound and feel like a negro tr'eathers was an illiterate farmer, and make a million dollars". He while Phillips was an experienced heard a superb interpreter of sound engineer. He claimed to have traditional country ballads and, arranged Presley's supercharged despite Feathers' protests, kept take on Bill Monroe's Blue Moon him recording country music. So of Kentucky ("I arranged all Elvis's it was no surprise that Feathers' stuff" he declared in 1990). But when next single, reieased on Sun, was a asked, Scotty Moore didn't remember little different . D efro st Your He art it that way. Feathers gets a half-credit was another funereal country waltz for writing Presley's Sun crtt I Forgot featuring fiddle, steel and soaring To Remember To Forget, but co-writer nasal vocals, and its flip-side, Stan Kesler later said he alread), had Wedding Gown of White is much the the song virtually completed and gave same. It sold rqt copies and, far from Feathers the credit for his steadfast making him a million dollars, earned work on the demo. And, of course, Feathers royalties of $7.56. Feathers taught Jerr1. Lee Lewis his His work for Sun is often unfairly unique piano pumping sty1e... T maligned. Although perceived The details of these anecdotal claims \ as traditional country, it actually are murkv and unsubstantiated. but melded bluegrass and it is interesting that none hi11billy music with of Phillips' rockabilly b1ues, and this is what artists - Sonny Burgess, Phillips heard, later Warren Smith, eilly explaining, "Charlie Lee Riley, or even Carl was a damn talent Perkins himself - had because ofthe blues the wild sound found on feeling he put into a the Presley sides, yet that hillbi11y song. He was can be clearly heard on a superb stylist - he Feathers' later efforts could have been the for other labels. George Jor-res of Perhaps Feathers' his day." \.l,rhilg biggest - albeit some may find unintentional - Feathers'early claim to fame at country vocals Sun was of a more grating today, comical nature: the fn[ $H*ilS use of his photo on the sheet music for Blue Suede Shoes because Carl Perkins' image wasn't sexy enough. "Carl was baldheaded," Feathers later reca1led, "so they used my picture instead." At any rate, Feathers was not cutting the songs he wanted. While Phillips is often pilloried for not tapping Feathers' true potential, the singer's stubborn attitude may have harmed his chances at Sun. "He real1y had it," Phillips recalled, "but he was difficult and I never got the best out of him. He always felt he knew more than anyone else." Feathers put it more bluntly, "The record always ends up the way someone else wants to hear it." The crunch came in early 1956 when, after cutting several tunes that Phillips refused to release, Feathers took the label boss a demo of Tongue at Sun," he later wistfully obr"ru"d. U" would continue wrestling with marrying bluegrass rock to the Sun sound over the next couple ofyears. Feathers next recorded at Sid Nathan's King Records, a major indie whose roster of country and R&B artists was struggling against the rising tide of Tied Jill. Phillips didn't like the song and racy rockabilly story song featuring the rock'n'roll. In short, King was looking flatly refused to record it. So Feathers stuttering vocal idiosyncracy for which for an ansr.r,er to Elvis, and Feathers simply took it across town to Sun's rival, Feathers would become famous, its wild and his bluegrass rock seemed just the Les Bihari's Meteor labe1, who paired it sound giving further credence to the ticket. In August, 1956 he entered King's with Get With It for release. singer's Blue Moon arrangement claim. Cincinnati, Ohio, studios to ctfi One Get With If was the first disc Feathers Sadly, this early success was short Hand Loose and Bottle to the Baby. cut in the style for which he would lived. The record was a hit in Mernphis, Feathers really hit his stride with become legendary, his energetic vocals but the trio left Meteor after falling out this roliicking lockabilll pairing. whipping up a storm to the country rock with Bihari over the meagre royalties whose characteristic slap-bass style, backing of henchmen Jerry Huffman and they received. In any case, Feathers did reminiscent of Presley's Sun tracks, Jody Chastain on guitar and bass. But the not feel they had done the song justice. provided the launchpad for his greater triumph was ?ongue Tied Jill, a "It would have been No l if we'd cut it distinctive hiccuppingvocals. + ISSUEB YII{TIOIROCK 29 CHARLIE FEATHERS Xing or Feathers recorded several more tunes for King but, despite their defining rockabilly sound, the records soid poorly and Feathers' talents remained unrecognised. "They was never right," he later admitted. "We iust didn't have the sound. I was dissatisfied with all of them, every one." This is further evidence of the random collaborative chemistry of the Sun sessions. Feathers kneu. what he wanted, but was not allorved to practise it at Sun. Yet when he did it his way at Meteor and King, the absence of Pl-riilips' engineering expertise meant the near- cutting-edge sides were not quite there. t In 1958, Feathers switched to Chariie I Kahn's Kay Records in Memphis, where c he was joined by guitarist Roland James I and Ramon Maupin on drums. They t recorded four tracks - Jungle Feverf e Why Dott't You and My Myf Jody's Bedt. o -Fever represented another departure, as t. Feathers' roaringvocals soared above b a rumbling bongo backbeat to deliver n what can be most politely described as a n 'politically incorrect' lyric about'darkies L creeping through the trees'.