The Charlie Gracie Story Told By Someone Who Really Knows

If you caught yesterday’s blog post about the great Charlie Gracie, you might have learned something about one of the pioneers of rock and roll that you hadn’t known before. I know that I did in researching the post. Well, today we’re all in luck, because none other than Charlie’s son, Charlie, Jr., read my post and followed up with a wonderful comment that fills in many, many deatils of his dad’s career.

I hope that Charlie, Jr. doesn’t mind, but the information is too good to get lost in the comments that you might not all read, so I’m going to repost those comments here. Oh, and make sure you listen to the song embedded at the end. As Charlie, Jr. points out, the “Boogie Woogie Blues” was recorded in 1951–three years before Elvis recorded his first great Sun stuff!

Here’s what Charlie, Jr. wrote:

Dear Buster,

Thanks for shar­ing info about my father, Charlie Gracie, with your sub­scribers. My dad enjoyed front-page cov­er­age in Philadelphia’s major daily newspaper–the Philadel­phia Inquirer yes­ter­day. “Charlie Gracie Bounces Back!” read the head­line.

His new sin­gle, “Baby Doll,” reached #52 on the U.S. Adult Con­tem­po­rary Charts according to Bill­board last week. The song was the #1 CD sin­gle in dad’s home­town of Philadel­phia. My father also had a new CD out on the ABKCO label, For the Love of Chalie!” which was pro­duced by Al Kooper. Guests on the new CD include a few of my dad’s musi­cal admir­ers: Gra­ham Nash, Peter Noone, Jimmy Vivino, Den­nis Diken, and more!

Photo borrowed from www.rockabillyhall.com

ABKCO also owns the rights to all the Cameo-Parkway label’s catalog–including my dad’s chart hits. ABKCO released The Best of Charlie Gracie: The Cameo Years : 1956–58.” This disc includes a few pre­vi­ously unre­leased tunes as well. My dad, of course, gave Cameo their first hits and bankrolled the company–allowing them to grow and pros­per into the largest inde­pen­dent record label in the U.S.A. Motown would even­tu­ally eclipse them and it’s unfor­tu­nate that Cameo-Parkway chose to push teen idols and teen pop as opposed to fos­ter­ing higher-qual­ity music that leaned more towards rock & roll, soul and r&b.

My father filed a law suit against Cameo’s bosses in 1958 for back roy­alty pay­ments which led to his being “black­listed” for a num­ber of years. Cameo was tied in with Dick Clark (a silent part­ner of all the record labels in Philadel­phia) who became the influ­en­tial host of Amer­i­can Band­stand, the most pop­u­lar TV teen music and dance pro­gram in Amer­ica. My dad was unaware of these alliances. Chal­leng­ing one of them was the same as chal­leng­ing all of them! My father went on to record for a slew of labels after Cameo: Coral, Roulette, Pres­i­dent, Fel­sted, Dia­mond, and Sock & Soul, through­out the rest of the 50s and into the late 60s. But the dam­age had been done and he found it very dif­fi­cult to get any air­play after that.

When recount­ing Char­lie Gracie’s career, one needs to take into account that he was raised at time when enter­tain­ers, musi­cians, and record­ing artists were expected to be well rounded. He was influ­enced by the fad­ing Big Band Era, the Pop Vocal­ist Era of the John­nie Ray’s and Frankie Laines, and the ris­ing pop­u­lar­ity of R&B (Louis Jor­don, Joe Turner). My grand­mother was a big fan of Coun­try Music–so my dad had plenty of expo­sure to records by Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Hank Thomp­son, and oth­ers. All of this music was “burst­ing in his head” as he often com­mented. He learned to play it all. That com­bi­na­tion of Swing, R&B, and Coun­try later gave birth to some­thing called Rock & Roll and Rockabilly.

Photo borrowed from www.rockabillyhall.com

Dad cut his first record on the Cadil­lac label out of New York City in 1951, just shy of his 16th birth­day! That disc, “Boo­gie Woo­gie Blues” is often sighted as one of the first rock & roll records ever recorded by a white artist–although that term hadn’t been coined yet! He was in the stu­dio in 1951–1953 exper­i­ment­ing and mak­ing records long before Elvis, Buddy Holly, Gene Vin­cent, and Eddie Cochran had even got­ten started! He released three sin­gles with Cadil­lac dur­ing that time and then moved onto the 20th Century/Gotham label in Philly. He released two sin­gles on the latter in 1954–55. By that time, Bill Haley had hit the charts and those 20th Cen­tury discs have a brassy back­beat to them.

Despite his youth, by the time he signed with Cameo in late 1956, my dad was already a sea­soned musi­cian and enter­tainer. He was already per­form­ing in small the­aters, strip joints, and bars in the Philadel­phia area. Bernie Lowe, owner and pres­i­dent of Cameo was look­ing for his answer to Elvis who had achieved unheard of suc­cess ever so rapidly that year. Lowe played piano for the Paul White­man Orches­tra and remem­bered my dad from his suc­cess­ful appear­ances on Whiteman’s TV teen pro­gram on the ABC tele­vi­sion net­work a few years ear­lier. The rest is his­tory as they say! Their first efforts in the stu­dio would make his­tory for Lowe, Cameo, Philadel­phia, and of course, my dad!

“But­ter­fly,” backed with “Ninety-Nine Ways” shot to #1 on the U.S. Bill­board charts by March of 1957. Lacklus­ter cover ver­sions by Andy Williams and actor Tab Hunter were also highly suc­cess­ful! “Ninety-Nine Ways” rose to #11 when “But­ter­fly” feel to #4. “Fab­u­lous” reached #16 in the U.S. and # 8 in the U.K. “Wan­der­ing Eyes” hit #6 in the U.K. and “I Love You So Much It Hurts” climbed to #14. In 1958, my dad’s ver­sion of “Cool Baby” also reached the Top 15 in the U.K. But by then, the row with Cameo ensued and his reign in the charts would soon come to an end.

Due to his ver­sa­til­ity, my dad stayed in the music busi­ness and con­tin­ued to per­form in the­aters, clubs, bars, resorts, and such from that time on. It was tough to go from head­lin­ing venues such at the London’s Hip­po­drome and Pal­la­dium to smaller venues and cafes, but he did what he had to do to remain an active per­former and enter­tainer. Had he been a one dimen­sional artist, he couldn’t have lasted con­tin­u­ously for…going on 61-years now!

He is writ­ing a book with author John A. Jackson about his more than half cen­tury in the busi­ness. Jack­son also penned Alan Freed’s life story, The Big Heat in the late 1990s as well as other music-related books. So stand by for that some­time in this year of 2012. At 75 he is grate­ful to do what he loves to do best: per­form­ing, and is ever so appre­cia­tive for his devoted fan base in the U.K. and in the U.S.A.