From: Colin Kilgour 
Date: Fri Jan 7, 2005 7:52am
Subject: Scan Do - Charlie Feathers
 
Reproduced from 'Not Fade Away' No. 16 - 1980

A 1969 interview in Memphis by the then Co-Editor of 'Rock'n'roll Collector', 
Roger Ford

     [Wanda, I haven't attempted to edit this in any way ......... hopefully 
     your feelings won't be too hurt by some of the negative references .....
     what counts most is the high regard in which this List and world-wide fans
     hold your father's many great recordings: The Rock 'n'Roll and
     Rockabilly worlds are tough ballparks and very few artistes escape
     with nothing but favourable comments all the way down the line.

     There is another article on Charlie here, alltogether more favourable
     by Peter Guralnick from New Kommotion. This looks to have then gone
     into his book Lost Highway which no doubt you and most others here
     have already. The item unfortunately falls into that category of
     'extremely difficult to replicate for e-mail etc.' CK]

"It was back in the mid 60's that Rock'n'roll record collectors first heard
of the name Charlie Feathers and within a short time everybody just had to
have copies of 'One Hand Loose', 'Tongue Tied Jill', 'Nobody's Woman', and
anything else that had the name Feathers on it. Since then, he has dropped
and risen again in popularity and is now idolized with such tags as
'Rockabilly's Main Man', 'King of Rockabilly' and other such twee titles
that ill befit this highly overrated singer.

Feathers himself now struts around telling everybody or anybody who will
listen of his 'importance', of how he alone got the 'Sun Sound' back in 1955
for Sam Phillips, of how everybody has done him wrong through the years, how
he can't work with anyone because they don't understand him, and a hundred
other things.

To the uninitiated, he would seem a genius, if it were all but true, but it
would seem that Charlie is just bitter with the thoughts of how fame and
fortune have left him behind, and yet not realizing that these things could
never have been his to begin with. He just did not, could not, fit into the
mould of a Rock'n'roll Star.

Today, his overbearing manner has labelled him as an 'ass-hole' by many
fellow musicians who are fed up with his constant boasting, his sudden mania
about bootleggers, not to mention his mercenary attitudes with certain
record companies. Yet despite all this, Charlie remains an enigma in the
history of Rock'n'roll music. Certainly he has made some worthwhile
contributions to the short-lived period of Rockabilly music, but ...

Charlie wasn't always like this though. Back in 1969, the then Co-Editor of
'Rock'n'roll Collector', Roger Ford, interviewed Feathers in Memphis (For
full transcript see R&RC No. 5) who seemed totally unimpressed when Roger
told him of his 'fame' amongst record collectors and the high prices his
records were commanding and had a good word to say about everybody, save
Junior Thompson whom he spoke about in short, but further prompting from
Roger only made Charlie keep referring to Thompson's recording of 'How Come
You Do Me Like You Do' on the TUNE label, saying 'He done stole that song
from me'.

In recent interviews, Charlie has mentioned recording for other labels prior
to recording for the Sun label, but in 1969, he seemed very certain that Sun
was his first label;

RF: 'Did you ever do any kind of recording before the Flip record?'

CF: 'No sir, That was the first record, the first one I ever did'.

RF: `Had you ever been approached for recording before that?'

CF: 'No I hadn't. That was the first time. I worked in therewith Sam for
several years over there, right back to when Elvis was recording there and
then came Carl, then came Roy Orbison and Sonny Burgess, then came Conway
Twitty, he was there, then Johnny Cash. I played many shows with Cash, he
and I had the same manager at that time and Carl Perkins too'.

RF:'What was the reason behind your transfer from Flip onto Sun?'

CF: 'Well, y'know they did that on their own. See, Flip was a non union
label and they can do that any time they want, change it from one label to
another with the same man on both of them'.

RF: 'Can you remember any of the tracks that you cut for Sun that were never
released?'

CF: 'There's one in particular that I wished I could remember, I really do
'cause it was a good song, one of my favourite songs. But somehow or another
over the years I've forgotten just how it goes, the melody to it and
everything. One of these days I'm gonna get on down there and get Sam to
take 'em out and I'm gonna listen to some of them. He's got them all there,
all the tapes, that's the reason I didn't listen to them then'.

RF: 'How many tracks would you say that you recorded for Sun that haven't
been released?'

CF: 'I'd say about fifty'.

RF: 'When did you first start songwriting?' 

CF:'The year I went into hospital. I had some time, stayin' in there so that's 
when I started to write. I wrote 'Peepin' Eyes' and several others while I was 
in there. 'Peepin' Eyes' was the first one that I ever tried to write, it wasn't 
too good a number but it was the first one I tried'.

If Charlie did cut fifty tracks, then where they are now, no one knows, for
only a handful have turned up in recent investigations of the Sun tapes,
although it is possible that they have been erased by other recordings,
which is now known to have happened several times during Sun's active
period.

Much has been made by Charlie of his work with Elvis recently, but this is
all he had to say when Roger questioned him about Elvis' recording of 'I
Forgot To Remember To Forget'.

CF: `Stan Kesler and I, he played with me on my first records, he plays a
steel guitar, he mentioned a song he wanted me to sing and one he wanted me
to sing to Elvis. Anyway, I was more interested in this other song so I went
over to his (Elvis') house the next day and that's where it all began, we
got it together and I sang it to Elvis and he listened to it on a little ole
tape recorder. Sam really liked the song and they recorded it about six
times and nobody liked it the way they were doing it and he wasn't really
doing the song the way I had in mind, so we went up and had supper and went
on back out there and he did the song twice and I'd kinda pumped it into his
head and he had the melody right and that was it. So the song did real well,
I was proud of it, I kinda helped him along on several others too. I was
around there a lot and anything I thought of I helped out on. They'd ask me
what I thought of this and I'd tell them my opinion of it and that's the way
it went. Sometimes it might not mean much but sometimes it might help a
little, anyway, that's the way I worked over there, about three years all
told'.

RF: 'Did you cut the song yourself as well?'

CF: 'No, I never did record that one'.

Whatever Charlie's position at Sun records, he left in 1956 when his contract 
was up, and Sam seemed disinterested in renewing his contract or issuing any 
recording that Charlie took to him.

RF: 'How did you come to meet the Bihari Brothers and Lester in particular?'

CF: 'I wrote the song 'Tongue Tied Jill' and my contract was out with Sun
and Lester had a very small recording unit out here so I went out there, me
and my two musicians and we put this thing down on tape, just one mike we
used. I took it over to Sam but he didn't go for it too much so this man
asked me, he came round my house that night, he asked me what I was gonna do
with it. So he released it. But I never did have a contract with his Meteor
Records or the Bihari's. I went from there to King Records and I recorded
several numbers there with them and now I'm back with the Phillips's.

RF: `Did you ever meet or work with any of the other Meteor artists?'

CF: 'Yeah, there was Junior Thompson and his boys, I saw them occasionally,
every once in a while and there was a song called 'How Come You Do Me Like
You Do'. They recorded the song, I'd written the song two or three months
before that'.

RF: 'How did you come to join up with Jody and Jerry?'

CF: 'I met them at a friend's house here in Memphis. They played my type of
stuff so we just got together from then on and we wrote songs together'.

RF: 'Did they back you on stage too?'

CF: 'That's right, we played quite a bit on stage. In those days it was me
and Carl and Cash and Webb Pierce and later on Don Gibson. We played a lot
of shows together'.

RF: 'How old would you say they are?'

CF: 'I would say Jody's about 35, both of them are about the same age.
Jody's still right here in Memphis and Jerry's down somewhere in Alabama'.

So although Charlie never had a contract with Meteor, his record did become
a sizable local hit, necessitating Charlie to tour the Memphis circuit
plugging his only `hit' record, as well as an appearance on the 'Wink
Martindale Dance Party' TV show on channel 13 in Memphis, plus a trip to New
York for a one-off appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

On top of all this, a local girl started a fan club for him, but this seems
to have expired the same year it was started, exactly the same fate as Wayne
McGinnis, whose Meteor recording of `Lonesome Rhythm Blues' was also a
sizable local hit, and Ramon Maupin who also hit with his recording of `Love
Gone' and is a long time friend of Charlie's.

RF: 'Can you give us any details of Ramon Maupin?'

CF: 'Well, Ramon lives, I guess, about six blocks away from me. His big
record was `Love Gone' I believe, he was on Fernwood records and he did
'Rockin' Rufus'. (Also Fernwood). He's played guitar with me a lot too, he
used to back me up a lot. Don't see him as much now as I used too but he's
still around and he plays a good bit of music too, yeah, he still plays'.
RF: 'How many songs did you write with Ramon?'

CF: 'Let's see, we've wrote several different songs together, this 'Jungle
Fever' was one. He and I wrote this together and several other numbers, I
don't think we've done some of them yet but different artists have sometimes
used them. We have the coloured groups over there and they do a lot of
different numbers and we furnish material, sometimes we don't remember the
groups, we just lease the material to the company'.

All in all, Charlie seemed content with his lot, and even after the
interview, whilst Roger was with Charlie in Tom Phillips' studio, listening
to some tracks Charlie had recently put down, he seemed very content with
what he was doing in Memphis at that time, just the odd gig here and there,
a bit of songwriting, joy-riding, entering salooncar races and whenever the
need for a fist full of dollars came up, he'd go and cut a record somewhere.
Happy times indeed.

Another thing that came to light during the interview was that Feathers did
not rate his recordings very highly, and said later that things like `Get
With It', 'Tongue Tied Jill', One Hand Loose' etc. were recorded too fast.
His own preference was for the more country-fled numbers, as can be seen by
Feathers answer to one of Roger Ford's questions when he was asking about
the various labels Charlie had recorded for;

RF: 'When you joined King, how long was your contract with them?'

CF: 'I had a year's contract with them'.

RF: Did you cut any tracks for them that are unreleased?'

CF: 'No, I just cut the eight tracks for them'. 

RF:'Which was your personal favourite out of those?'

CF: 'When you Decide', I guess that's the one'.

RF:'When you were with King, did you ever meet Mac Curtis, who was on the
label at the same time as you?'

CF: `Yeah, I met Mac Curtis. I never did know too much about him, I just met
him and that was about all'.

RF: `Did you ever see him on stage?' 

CF:'Yeah, he had a pretty wild act, did a real good job too'.

RF:'After you left King, did you go straight to the Kay Label?'

CF: 'Yeah, it was owned by a guy right here in town. Let me see how this
came about now, he was going into the record business and he wanted to do a
number there so I cut a thing called 'Jungle Fever' and 'Why Don't You', and
after that I cut `Deep Elm Blues' and 'Nobody's Darlin' for Holiday Inn'.

RF: 'What about the instrumental for Kay, Jody's Beat'?

CF: 'Yeah, I played on that, both sides'.

RF: 'You also did a record on the Walmay label under the name Charlie
Morgan. Why did you change your name for that one?'

CF: 'Well, Quinton Claunch and I wrote the song called 'Dinky John' and
'South of Chicago', and it was a folk type number. This was all a mishap, it
just happened that this guy over at Walmay heard the number and he liked it 
and I think it was a year or so later that he came out with it. That stuff 
wasn't around much then so when they released it they put it under a different 
name because it was folk and I never done nothing like that so that was the 
purpose of it, I guess'.

During his recording career, Charlie has recorded for many labels, the most
recent being the Vetco label, on which he has just had Issued two albums on
the Feathers label, plus of course, the labels Feathers now says he also
recorded for. Of these records, only a handful merit mention, the remainder
seeming to be bad attempts at 50's rockabilly, plus of course that now, his
fame far outstrips his abilities, a sad fate indeed for a once likeable
hillbilly singer born some 47 years ago to Leonard and Lucy Feathers in
Hollow Springs, Mississippi.

Charlie grew up as one of eight children and was educated locally. His
interest in music came at an early stage in his life;

`Well, I had an old guitar and I banged around on it, I was about nine or
ten years old at he time, right around there, and I used to listen to a lot
of Hank Williams numbers and things like that and I came up on them like
that. Then a few years later I went on out to Texas, stayed out there a year
or so and I played there at a few places locally, then I came right back and
started over at 706 Union, at the Sun Recording Studio over there. I went in
and played the man a song, just me on guitar and he like it so much I
started with him right there'.

He also worked some time as a pipeline layer, and in 1953, spent a year in
hospital with spinal meningitis. After joining Sun records and having his
first record issued, Charlie spent time touring the Memphis circuit, as well
as appearing on a local radio station, Radio WMPS, and doing back-up to
various other artists;

RF: 'Did you ever back anyone on stage?'

CF: 'Yeah, I did with Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, I did something with them.
That was back in the early days when they had those wild sounding records
out, 'Tear It up' was one'.

RF: 'Did you back anyone on record?'

CF: 'Yeah, I did it several times. I'm trying to think who, I can't remember
any particular one right off, but I've done several of them'.

RF:'Can you remember your first public performance, the first time you
appeared on stage?'

CF: `Lemme see now, I can, here in Memphis. It was at the Overton Shell Park
here in Memphis. It was a Rock'n'roll concert and Elvis was headlining the
show. Elvis wasn't as big then as Webb Pierce, Webb was the big star on the
show, but Elvis did real well too, and there was also Big Jim Wilkinson,
Wanda Jackson, Johnny Cash, that was about his first show here in town.
I don't think Carl was on that show, but there were several others, Red
Sovine, Bud Deckleman, there's several of them I'm not mentioning, I can't 
remember all their names, but there were about thirty people all together'.

Since those days, much has been written about Charlie Feathers, his
influences, his style, but no one has yet made the man understandable to the
point where one can forgive his quirks and verbal attacks on others. I like
to remember him as he was in 1969, a happy-go-lucky singer facing each day
as it came, a far cry from the mania ridden megalomaniac we have with us
now.

NOTES: presumably by NFA editor Neil Foster)
Charlie only had one Meteor record issued. `Sleepy Time Blues'/'All Messed
Up' (Meteor 5025) by Jess Hooper is not an alias for Feathers. Tom Phillips
can recall Hooper appearing in and around Memphis in the mid 50's, although
he was not a native of Memphis.

Charlie mentioned that on his last session with King Records, the
Prisonaires were used as vocal/hand-clapping back up. It appears that
because Johnny Bragg of the Sun recording Prisonaires was present, Charlie
assumed it was them. However, it would seem that they were in fact the
Marigolds, whom Bragg had just joined after his parole from the Nashville
State Penitentiary. Ramon Maupin was also present on both of Charlie's King
sessions as drummer.

The tape that Roger listened to was in Tom Phillips' then recently built
studio, and he heard eleven tracks in all, with backing supplied by Marcus
Van Story (bass); Feathers Vocals (S.C.)/guitar/drums);and Charlie Feathers
Jnr./'Bubba') on lead guitar. Of these, only two have been issued so far,
`Tear It Up'/ `Stutterin' Cindy' (Philwood P223) in the same year of
recording-1968.

In recent times, Charlie had stated that he recorded with two or three other
companies before joining King. In conversation with Roger Ford, he did not
mention this at any time, saying that after the Meteor disc, he went
straight to King Records.

For those of you who have a copy of the Redita Album 'Living Legend' (Redita
LP 107), four tracks contained there on ('Uh Huh Honey'/'Mound of
Clay'/'Send Me the Pillow'/'I Forgot to Remember To Forget') are stated to
have been recorded at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis. They were in fact cut at
the Allied Studios sometime between 1971-73, the same studios where Charlie
recorded his first Barrelhouse album.

Although Charlie states he did not record `I Forgot To Remember To Forget'
for Sun, one wonders what happened to the taped song that he gave Elvis".
===============
posted by Colin Kilgour: