Charlie Rich Midnite Blues / Whirlwind

Charlie Rich. Born in Forrest City, Arkansas, on December 14, 1932. Died in
Hammond, Louisiana, on July 25, 1995. Certainly, the guy to whom Sun Records
founder would refer to as the best singer, writer and player he ever recorded, had
everything necessary to succeed as a solo artist. Including a catchy name. A
talented good-looking young man married to a woman who deeply believed in his
musical potential, Rich had grown up on a farm near Colt, a small rural community
located about 50 miles away from Memphis, Tennessee. There he developed a
taste for Blues, Jazz, Gospel and Country music and was able to reflect that
eclectic mixture in his piano skills, playing club gigs while serving in the Air Force
during the early fifties. After his discharge, Charlie bought a five hundred acre farm
and played the Memphis area circuit as much as his family duties allowed.
According to the legend, one day around 1957 Rich’s wife took a demo tape they
had recorded at home to Bill Justis, musical director at Sun Records, and soon
Charlie became a writer and session musician for the label, providing songs or
piano accompaniment for such artists as Ray Smith, Carl Mann, Johnny Cash,
Barbara Pittman and Jerry Lee Lewis.
August 1958 brought Charlie Rich’s first solo session, resulting in a single released
in November that year by Sun’s subsidiary Phillips International. The songs
included were “Whirlwind” (which you can find on this piece of wax you’re holding in
your hands) and “Philadelphia Baby”, sales being good enough to assure a followup
in summer 1959 with “Rebound” and “Big Man”. Rich only needed one more
single, released early in 1960, to get his first hit. “Lonely Weekends” spent some
weeks in the charts and Charlie found himself into the star-system for a short
period, as public response to his new releases wasn’t so enthusiastic in spite of
such great recordings as “Gonna Be Waiting”, “Who Will The Next Fool Be”,
“There’s Another Place I Can’t Go” or this “Midnite Blues” included here. He left
Sun in 1963, recording for a variety of labels in the next years and finally hitting the
big time in the seventies with Country oriented songs as “Behind Closed Doors”,
“The Most Beautiful Girl In The World”, “A Very Special Love Song” or “I Love My
Friend”. Retired during the most part of the eighties, Charlie Rich had to deal with
alcohol abuse and health problems that finally caused him a pulmonary embolism.
His legendary status, coined by a large collection of unforgettable recordings, was
perfectly reflected, once again, by Sam Phillips’ words: “I never knew a more
talented musician, or a more beautiful human being, than Charlie Rich”.
The perfect epitaph.