Curley Money’s “Chain Gang Charlie” Came Out of Nowhere in the 90s

Curley Money is another of the great “unknowns” of rockabilly. He recorded a bunch of great stuff including 25 released singles, some of which actually did pretty well. Money also started his own record label in 1956 called Rambler Records and later called Money Records. One song that wasn’t released back in the day was ”Chain Gang Charlie” which was recorded in 1956 at the Memphis Recording Service studios (that’s Sam Phillips’ studio which is most often incorrectly called Sun Studios, a name that wasn’t used until later). In fact, the song was forgotten soon after it was recorded and remained unknown for about 35 years when it was unearthed in the Sun Records vaults and released on two different compilation records. Money continued to be involved in music and the radio business as an announcer and was still playing music right up to his death in 2003, which was also the same year he was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.