Charles Allan Rich (December 14, 1932 – July 25, 1995) was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. His eclectic style of music was often difficult to classify, encompassing the rockabilly, jazz, blues, country, soul, and gospel genres.
Rich was born in Colt, Arkansas, United States, to rural cotton farmers. He graduated from Consolidated High School in Forrest City, where he played saxophone in the band. He was strongly influenced by his parents, members of the Landmark Missionary Baptist Church in Forrest City, as his mother, Helen Rich, played piano and his father sang in gospel quartets. A black sharecropper on the family land named C. J. Allen taught Rich blues piano. He enrolled at Arkansas State College on a football scholarship and then transferred to the University of Arkansas as a music major after a football injury. He left after one semester to join the United States Air Force in 1953.
While stationed in Enid, Oklahoma, he formed "the Velvetones," playing jazz and blues and featuring his wife, Margaret Ann, on vocals. He and Margaret Ann Greene married in 1952. Upon leaving the military in 1956, they returned to the West Memphis area to farm 500 acres. He also began performing in clubs around the Memphis area, playing both jazz and R&B. During these times, he began writing his own material. After recording some demonstration songs for Sam Phillips at Sun Records he was considered not commercial enough and "too jazzy", but it was at Sun that he first met the man who would make him a star and become a country music legend in his own right, producer Billy Sherrill. In 1958, Rich became a regular session musician for Sun Records, playing on a variety of records by Lewis, Johnny Cash, Bill Justis, Warren Smith, Billy Lee Riley, Carl Mann, and Ray Smith. He also wrote several songs for Lewis, Cash, and others.
His third single for the Sun subsidiary, Phillips International Records, was the 1960 Top 30 hit, "Lonely Weekends", which was notable for its Presley-like vocals. It sold more than one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America. None of his seven follow-up singles was a success.
Rich's career then stalled and he left the struggling Sun label in 1963 and bounced around a few studios including Groove, RCA, Mercury and Smash. Only a few records became moderate hits like “Big Boss Man”, “Mohair Sam” but unfortunately again for Rich, none of his follow-up singles were successful. Rich again changed labels, moving to Hi Records, where he recorded blue-eyed soul music and straight country, but once more, none of his singles for Hi made a dent on the country or pop charts.
One Hi Records track, "Love Is After Me", from 1966, belatedly became a white soul favourite in the early-1970s. Signed to Epic Records by Nashville-based producer Billy Sherrill in 1967, it took another four years for the pieces to come together. In those ensuing years Charlie put out some of the best records of his whole career. Charlie finally hit pay dirt with Behind Closed Doors, which won multiple Grammy and Country Music Association awards. He went on to enjoy four more hit making years at Epic under Sherrill’s aegis, scoring chart-toppers with A Very Special Love Song, I Love My Friend, and Rolling With The Flow.
Rich began to drink heavily, causing considerable problems off-stage. His destructive personal behaviour famously culminated at the CMA awards ceremony for 1975, when he presented the award for that year's Entertainer of the Year. Instead of reading the name of the winner, who happened to be John Denver, he set fire to the envelope with a cigarette lighter. Many considered it an act of rebellion against the Music Row-controlled Nashville Sound. Others, including industry insiders, were outraged and Rich had trouble having hits throughout 1976.
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| Charlie with wife Margaret Ann |
Rich appeared as himself in the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie "Every Which Way But Loose" where he performed the song "I'll Wake You Up When I Get Home." This song hit number three on the charts in 1979 and was his last top ten single. For over a decade, he was silent, living off his investments in semi-retirement and only playing an occasional concert. Charlie had always wanted to record a jazz album, one that would capture his own, genre-bending style. His life-long dream came true in 1992 with "Pictures and Paintings," his final album.
Charlie Rich and his wife were driving to Florida for a vacation after seeing their son Allan perform with Freddy Fender at Lady Luck Casino in Natchez, Mississippi, when he experienced a bout of severe coughing. After visiting a doctor in St. Francisville, Louisiana, and receiving antibiotics, he continued travelling until he stopped to rest for the night. Rich died in his sleep on July 25, 1995, in a Hammond, Louisiana, motel at age 62. The cause of death was a pulmonary embolism.
(Edited from a bio by Jane Stacy Eubanks & Wikipedia)