Charlie Feathers

Charlie Feathers is a legend. He never had a hit record, or anything approaching one. But he had a style all his own, and he knew it. He was one of the very first Memphis-based singers to appear on Sun Records in the mid-1950s, and he was one of the first to work in that hybrid style somewhere between honky-tonk country and blues that became known as “rockabilly.”

Ten years later, in England, where I started collecting records in the 1960s, Charlie’s Sun and Meteor masterpieces were being imported by a handful of pioneering record dealers. People like Dan Coffey sang Charlie’s praises and he developed a cult following in Europe.

I first met Charlie in 1971 when I was writing a book about Sun Records and he was playing at a night spot in Memphis called Harper’s Lounge. Twenty years into his career, he had perfectly nailed his version of rockabilly style; more country than country, yet bluesy and rhythmic too, certainly more acoustic than most. The steady, delayed beat, the insistent rhythm, the vocal phrasing taken equally from cottonpatch blues and bluegrass. It was all still there, years after classic records like “Peepin’ Eyes,” “Get With It,” “One Hand Loose,” or “I Forgot To Remember To Forget.” I’ve still got a low-fi cassette of that night. Charlie played some hits of the day, but mostly he played his own music to his own crowd, with his son, Bubba, on guitar and his daughter, Wanda on duet vocals. That was the first time I heard a song called “Two To Choose,” a country duet that surely would have been the song to put Charlie in the charts if he could have got it onto a big label.

A few years after that, we made some recordings for a little record label I was running. Charlie drove me to the airport at the end, and as I left I can still picture him in his car looking suspiciously at the travel checks I’d paid him with, probably feeling it wasn’t real money.

Next time I saw him was at the height of the late 1970s rockabilly revival when he played a big theater in London. Sadly, his intimate honky tonk music didn’t travel well onto a big stage. By then, he had started to embellish the legend a little, maybe trying to live up to and beyond expectations. It must have been strange for Charlie to come to terms with all these people travelling so far to tell him how great he was. Sometimes it led to welcome recording or performing opportunities; maybe too often it led to false promises and a sense of frustration about what might have been or should have become.

In the end, what’s important is the music that’s left behind. And Charlie left some classics with us, for sure. I’ve mentioned some, but there are a lot more. You won’t find “Defrost Your Heart” or “Too Much Alike” on any sales charts, but you won’t find any better records either.

Martin Hawkins