nuggets volume one: ‘bobby charles’

as i have stated before, one of the main purposes for starting this site was my disagreement with those people who believe that ‘they don’t make music like they used to’. you just have to get past the industry filters and seek things out. to a certain extent, that has always been true. there is plenty of high quality material out there from the past that never saw the light of day. it is in this spirit that i have decided to start a new category – one dedicated to visiting vintage releases that didn’t get the attention they deserve, for whatever reason. we shall dub this new category ‘nuggets’. here is the first installment.

robert charles guidry was a cajun from louisiana who was best known for writing ‘see you later, alligator’ and ‘walking to new orleans’. in the summer of 1971 he was on the lam due to drug charges in nashville, and at some point arrived in woodstock, ny. a couple of local musicians took him in and and gave him shelter. they eventually started introducing him to other musicians in the area, including rick danko from the band. rick introduced him to albert grossman, who was the manager for dylan and the band. grossman offered him a deal: i will contact the powers that be down in nashville and get the charges dropped if you will sign a five year contract with me. charles agreed, and work got under way to record his first record under bearsville records – grossman’s new label. grossman also had a studio built on his property (called bearsville, of course), and local musicians started congregating there to begin working on the demos for the project. in addition, the studio was frequently visited by levon helm, garth hudson, and danko from the band, mac rebennack (dr. john), and nashville pedal steel guru ben keith (redeye readers may be familiar with his work with neil young, beginning with the harvest album).

sessions began in earnest in the winter of ’71, usually after the local bar closed. all involved thought that they were still cutting demos, and they never got around to any ‘final cuts’. what we have here is a series of vignettes of a bunch of guys just messing around with sketches of songs in a retrofitted barn out in the woods. very laid back, the songs all have a swampy, sleepy, country funk feel, and bobby’s southern molasses vocals are perfect throughout. released in 1972, it sold poorly, due in large part to bobby’s lack of interest in promoting or touring to support the album. i found it for 9 bucks on amazon, and rhino records produced a three cd offering in 2011 after he died. the latter went for over fifty bucks, and that was a little rich for me. add the former to your library, and you will not be disappointed.