USA Today: Singer/songwriter and New Orleans piano great pay tribute to a Louisiana songwriting legend.
Songwriter Bobby Charles would have been 75 today.
Shannon McNally has a birthday present for the late songwriter of early rock 'n' roll hits like Fats Domino's Walking to New Orleans and Bill Haley & The Comets' See You Later, Alligator -- a sweet cover of his I Must Be in a Good Place Now, recorded with Dr. John on piano.
"It sums Bobby up pretty perfectly," says McNally. "The guy would sort of rather be fishing than doing anything else."
I Must Be in a Good Place Now will appear on the alt-country singer/songwriter's forthcoming Small Town Talk album, out April 30.
McNally previously covered Charles' Tennessee Blues on her 2005 album Geronimo.
That recording led to Charles asking her to play a tribute concert at
the 2007 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, where she met
keyboardist Dr. John. Dr. John, aka Mac Rebennack, had played on the
original version of I Must Be in a Good Place Now for Charles's 1972 debut album for Bearsville Records.
McNally
floated the idea of re-recording the Bearsville album in its entirety
with some of the same musicians. "To my amazement, and pleasure, they
both went for it," she says.
McNally cut basic tracks for the
album before Charles' death in 2010, so he was in the studio for the
sessions. However, the concept of the album evolved: "There were so many
great songs to choose from, and a few real gems that had never gotten
released, that it turned into more of a retrospective," McNally says. Small Town Talk still includes several songs from that 1972 album, as well as a rendition of one of Charles' better-known tunes, But I Do, originally a 1961 hit for Clarence "Frogman" Henry.
"People will recognize that song," McNally says, "people of a certain record collection or age."
When he was around 13, Robert Charles Guidry began singing with a
band around his hometown of Abbeville, La., deep in the Cajun swamps.
The group played Cajun and country music and, after he passed through
town and played a show, Fats Domino's
music. It was a life-changing experience for the young man, and he
found himself with a new ambition: to write a song for Fats.
One
night as he left a gig, Charles said to his friends, "See ya later,
alligator," and one of them yelled back, "In a while, crocodile."
Charles stopped in his tracks. "What did you say?" he asked. The friend
repeated it. At that moment, as would happen countless times in the
future, the song "See You Later, Alligator" came to him, fully formed.
Fats
didn't want the song, and told the young man he didn't want to sing
about alligators. Somehow, though, the kid wound up singing the song
over the phone to Leonard Chess, whose Chess Records in Chicago was the
hottest blues label in town. Chess didn't hesitate: He sent the kid a
ticket, and when Charles showed up at his office, Chess said something I
can't say on the air. The sentence ended with the word "white" and a
question mark, though.
Chess recorded him, though, and put the song out, changing Guidry's
name to Bobby Charles; almost immediately, Bill Haley grabbed it for
himself. Haley's record was one of the best sellers of 1956, and both
Chess and Charles made some decent money from it. They tried follow-ups
called "Watch It, Sprocket," which wasn't something people actually
said, and "Take It Easy, Greasy," which was, but the record was a little
too, well, greasy to be too popular. Charles recorded for Chess until
1958, but his records only sold locally. Along the way, though, he seems
to have pioneered a genre called swamp pop. He
also got to realize a dream. One evening, Fats Domino played Abbeville,
and Fats invited Charles to a show in New Orleans. The young singer
said he had no way to get there. "Well," the fat man said, "you'd better
start walking." And sure enough, a song popped into Charles' head:
"Walking To New Orleans."
Bobby Charles
signed with Imperial, Fats' label, but again, nothing hit. He admitted
freely that he was part of the problem. He didn't enjoy touring, and he
had a jealous wife who didn't like him leaving town. He continued
writing and selling songs, and recorded for some local Louisiana labels.
He and his wife parted company, and then, in 1971, he got busted for
pot in Nashville. Rather than risk jail, he disappeared; he wound up in
upstate New York, and saw the name Woodstock on a map. He'd never even
heard of the famous festival, but the name appealed to him.
Arriving
in town, he asked a real-estate agent about a place to rent and wound
up in a house shared with two other musicians. They introduced him
around, and Albert Grossman, who'd managed Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and
many others, got interested. The next thing he knew, Charles was back in
the studio with members of The Band, Dr. John and lots of other Woodstock musicians. The resulting album has some truly memorable moments.
It
didn't sell, though. Charles focused on songwriting, but he wasn't
comfortable in Woodstock, and in the end he went back to Abbeville,
where he disappeared from public view for an entire decade. He had a
good income from his songs, but a run of bad luck: His house burned
down, and then his next house blew away in a hurricane. He kept writing
songs, and he entertained visitors who came to Abbeville to meet him —
people like Bob Dylan and Neil Young and Willie Nelson. His record label, Rice 'N' Gravy, put out several homemade albums, which mixed his old and new songs. At
70, Bobby Charles was diagnosed with cancer, and he died in January
2010, unknown to most of the world he'd enriched with his songs.
Bobby Charles (Born Robert Guidry) February 21, 1938 – January 14, 2010
Songwriter Bobby Charles passed away this morning; the cause has yet to be determined. The writer of “Walking to New Orleans” and “See You Later Alligator” had struggled with ill-health for years, including back problems and a bout with cancer that was in remission. Those problems led him to miss a scheduled appearance at the Ponderosa Stomp in 2004 and Jazz Fest in 2007. Evidently he fell recently and was bedridden as a result. It was after that fall that he died.
He also wrote “(I Don’t Know Why I Love You) But I Do” which was recorded by Clarance “Gatemouth” Brown and received prominent placement in the Forrest Gump.
Charles had completed work on a new album, which is due out next month.
