When Leon McAuliffe settled in Arkansas, it appeared as if his glory days were behind him.
The old-timers remembered him best. Before Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys went to Hollywood in the 1940s, they played Northwest Arkansas frequently in between gigs from their home base of Tulsa, where they had a radio program on KVOO, which reached the Arkansas Ozarks. A high point of any show were the moments when Wills, known as “The King of Western Swing,” called out, “Take it away, Leon!” and McAuliffe would make his steel guitar wail. The instrumental “Steel Guitar Rag” was his signature song and is a country and western standard today. In fact, Leon McAuliffe is largely responsible for making the steel guitar a standard in country music. Without his influence, it’s quite plausible that Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart” or Buck Owens’ “Together Again” would be punctuated with fiddle solos instead.
McAuliffe had a successful run with Bob Wills until leaving the group when World War II beckoned. When Leon was discharged from the Navy, instead of rejoining Wills, he returned to Tulsa. He ran his own venue (The Cimarron Ballroom), formed his own group (The Cimarron Boys) and created a hit-making record label (Cimarron Records). He performed regularly in Northwest Arkansas, whether it be an annual barbecue in Decatur, a roller rink, armory or nightclub, before abandoning it all – save the occasional performance at private parties and special events.
In 1967, “The Summer of Love,” McAuliffe moved to Rogers when country music was far from cool, and the country rock sounds of The Byrds and The Band were still a couple of years away. At 50 years old, he could keep an eye on radio station KAMO, which he owned, relax a little and be closer to family while starting a new one.
Then, just as Leon had freed himself from smoky dance halls, recording studios and TV performances, he made a realization. Retirement would have to wait.
FROM DOUGHBOY TO PLAYBOY
The music came from a magic box called a radio, and it captivated young William Leon McAuliffe, who was born on January 3, 1917, in Houston, Texas. This new invention was capable of broadcasting so many melodies and sounds. Those with guitar especially got to him. When, at the age of 14, he saw a $7 guitar for sale at the local pawn shop, he pointed it out to his mother, who bought it for him. The moment mapped out the rest of his life. It was his obsession. He took lessons and didn’t need to be cajoled to practice; that’s all he wanted to do with chores and schoolwork serving as annoying interruptions. After mastering his weekly assigned song, he would come up with a few more for his next lesson, sometimes loosening the strings on his guitar and placing a nut on the neck so he could play it as a lap steel like the Hawaiians did.
Leon McAuliffe (left) played his lap steel sitting down when performing with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.
Bored that his assignments were doled out at a slow pace, Leon quit his lessons and taught himself through books and other musicians. In just a couple of years, he reached the point where he could play professionally. He dropped out of school and performed on a local radio station. Though he received no pay, the radio show allowed him free advertising and he was able to pick up gigs at private parties and dances. He eventually gravitated more toward the steel guitar while becoming a fan of a Fort Worth outfit called the Light Crust Doughboys, which featured a fiddler named Bob Wills and had a popular syndicated radio show sponsored by a flour mill company. Leon could walk a few blocks to the grocery store and hear the entire show broadcast from radios along the way.
In 1933, when Leon was 16, Bob Wills quit the Light Crust Doughboys and took several of the band members with him, including steel guitarist Bob Dunn, who played an electric steel guitar with an amplifier. (Dunn had, on at least one occasion, let Leon play it while Dunn slipped away during a show to get a drink.) Leon was hired among the replacements, earning $10 a week. He moved to Fort Worth and was provided with his own Doughboy outfit – a white shirt, pants and cap. The show broadcast six days a week, but Leon was allowed only one steel guitar solo per show. The flour mill company’s owner didn’t see this as a good use of a $10 weekly salary and Leon was canned. He returned to Houston, where he picked up jobs and made more money than the $10 Doughboy salary.
But the flour company had a change of heart. They wanted him back, and he didn’t want to return. His mother, however, urged him to take the job as it was one of the best listened to radio programs in Texas and would provide him exposure. She was making sense, and so he went back. He was allowed more guitar solos and, as his mother predicted, it opened up doors. Bob Wills, who headed a new band called “The Texas Playboys,” was in dire need of a new steel guitarist after just losing his. Wills sent a representative to lure Leon away with the offer of a $30 a week – great pay for a teenager during the Great Depression. With the promise of a tripled salary, it didn’t take much thought. In March 1935, Leon promptly headed to Wills’ home base of Tulsa and never looked back.
A NEW SOUND FOR STEEL
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys played Northwest Arkansas frequently in the 1930s. This ad, which ran in 1936, was apparently taken before McAuliffe joined the band.
Aside from the Hawaiian-styled popular songs of the day, the lap steel guitar hadn’t been fully integrated into what is now known as country music when Leon began playing. Though Leon McAuliffe was a pioneer in the field, it was Bob Dunn who got the fire started. Dunn had moved on to play steel guitar with Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies, which brought the instrument to a forefront in the 1930s.
After leaving the Light Crust Doughboys, Bob Wills wanted to provide an alternative to the hillbilly image of musicians like Uncle Dave Macon and The Carter Family. He initially dubbed the band “The Playboys,” adding “Texas” after relocating to Oklahoma to avoid confusion with any other groups carrying the “The Playboys” name. He outfitted his band in matching uniforms and incorporated drums – his first drummer was Smoky Dacus, who spent much of his life in Rogers, Arkansas – and horns as well as fiddles and guitars (they had no idea that this would lay down the foundation for rock ’n’ roll decades later). This allowed for the ability to perform everything from jazz to blues to hillbilly (though Wills hated that term) that became known as “Western swing.” But for a time, the Texas Playboys stood in the shadows of Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies – the group that included steel guitarist Bob Dunn. In fact, Brown might have been known as “The King of Western Swing” had he not been killed in an automobile accident in 1936. (In 1944, an organization called The Boots and Saddle Fan Club voted Spade Cooley as “The King of Western Swing,” a term Cooley adopted for himself. Cooley, however, never sustained the same level of fame as Wills and spent his later years in prison for murdering his wife.)
When Leon arrived at Tulsa, he suggested that Wills should get an electric steel guitar for the band. It didn’t take much persuasion. Wills went to the local music store and paid $180 cash for an electric steel guitar, which had to be special ordered as the instrument was that new. McAuliffe also performed for Wills “Steel Guitar Rag,” which Wills added to the group’s song list. They performed the song on Leon’s first broadcast with the Texas Playboys on Tulsa radio station KVOO from Cain’s Dance Academy.
“Steel Guitar Rag” was a mash-up of sorts of Sylvester Weaver’s “Guitar Rag,” which Weaver recorded on Okeh Records in 1923, and the Hawaiian song, “On the Beach at Waikiki.” (Much discussion has taken place through the years about the originality of the song, with different versions recorded by others before Leon presented his arrangement to Wills. One account is that Leon first heard a variation of the tune from a friend.) When the group later recorded the song, Leon was caught off guard by Wills’ calling out Leon’s name. After Leon strummed the first cord. “Now friends, here’s Leon. Take it away boys, take it away!” The 1936 recording featuring a 19-year-old Leon took place in Chicago for Vocalion Records.
“Steel Guitar Rag” became one of many of the Texas Playboys’ signature songs with Leon at the helm, and he would help with others, such as “San Antonio Rose,” the song best associated with the band. This lineup would be considered by many the golden age of the band’s career, consisting of several musicians including Wills, Tommy Duncan (singer), Al Stricklin (piano), Johnnie Lee Wills (Bob’s brother and banjo player), Eldon Shamblin (lead guitar) and Smoky Dacus (drums).
Leon, of course, was on hand with his steel guitar, which he played while seated. His guitar solo begins at about the 0.58 second mark:
Though in full throes of the Great Depression, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys were high in demand, and their recordings received substantial airplay nationwide. In between radio shows and performances from Cain’s Dancing Academy in Tulsa, the group toured the region, often performing in Northwest Arkansas. Before Leon joined the Texas Playboys, members of the Disabled American Veterans’ Fayetteville chapter were already making plans to hire the band for a series of benefits at the National Guard Armory, located between what was then the Washington County Courthouse and Washington County Jail on North College Avenue. The band played several performances for the organization in addition to playing elsewhere in the area from 1935-41.
The numerous local performances slowed down substantially when Hollywood called. The boys headed out to California and made cowboy films with Tex Ritter, Glenn Ford and, most frequently, Russell Hayden. Here’s a clip of Leon (far left) showing that in addition to playing steel guitar, also had a fully capable singing voice, taking lead vocals in a song called “Toodleumbo” from the Columbia motion picture, Saddles and Sagebrush (Two more tunes follow in the video).
In 1942, and after the band was finished filming its last movie, World War II beckoned. Wills, Leon and other band members reported to the military and the group disbanded. Leon, who had taken flight lessons, was assigned the role of flight instructor for the Navy before serving active duty. To fulfill his need to perform, he took his steel guitar with him and accompanied bands at naval stations and was a member of the naval band led by Tex Beneke, saxophonist for Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. When the war ended, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys had moved to California. Leon had other plans.
Charlie Rich was the underdog. The guy who became a superstar and sex symbol at the ungodly age of 40.
Then, on Oct. 13, 1975, and just shy of his 43rd birthday, he nearly threw it all away.
Summoned by the Country Music Association to announce the Entertainer of the Year for its annual awards show on live television, Charlie showed up visibly impaired and torched the card with a lighter as he announced John Denver’s name.
Thus, a mythical feud was born: The Silver Fox, as Charlie was then known, vs. Rocky Mountain High. Charlie, in this folklore, was acting on behalf of true country music by protesting the award going to John Denver, a folk-singing hippie. Charlie was hailed as either a hero or villain, depending on one’s attitude toward Denver.
Ever since, Charlie struggled to adequately explain why he did what he did, which only fueled speculation. On his personal website, Allan Rich defended his father’s actions by attributing it to a combination of alcohol, medication and an attempt to be funny that backfired.
Charlie, however, framed it differently.
“It may have been that I had been overworked in ’73, ’74, ’75 and that sort of thing, and maybe I was rebelling but not against John Denver and not against country music,” Charlie told NPR’s Fresh Air host Terry Gross in 1992. “I just – like I say, it was just a mistake that I made that I guess was important. But, actually, I think everything works to the good, so maybe I was saying, ‘Well, I want to try something else besides country,’ or something. I don’t know.”
That was the closest to a straight answer he ever gave.
Yet his history, actions and own words leading up to that fateful night made it clear where he stood with country music. Had anyone paid attention.
***
Charlie was a musical “jack of all trades and master of all,” great qualities for a studio musician but a marketing nightmare for a solo artist. His talented songwriting wife, Margaret Ann, instigated his recording career by landing him work at Sun Studio in Memphis during the post-Elvis years. Charlie dabbled with being a rock ’n’ roll artist while writing for and recording with its two biggest stars at the moment: Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis, who left Sun Studio and transitioned swiftly to country. Charlie, who embraced jazz and idolized big band leader Stan Kenton as a teenager, did not.
Early into his career, with gray, slicked-back hair and a suit and tie, Charlie didn’t look how he sounded. One moment, he was Ray Charles, and another, Elvis. He could also be Mel Tormé and then switch to George Jones. One time, when he had nothing to lose, he gave it his best James Brown.
These musical experimentations lasted more than a decade and produced two minor hits: “Lonely Weekends” for the Sun Records subsidiary, Phillips International, and, on Smash, “Mohair Sam,” an R&B rocker that became a favorite of both The Beatles and Elvis.
It wasn’t the Grand Ole Opry but the Cow Palace near San Francisco where Charlie was catapulted as a supporting act for headliners Sonny and Cher, drifting out into a universe where he shared the stage with The Kinks and Billy Preston on the TV show Shindig! and as an opener for a Beach Boys concert.
But Smash didn’t keep Charlie, who then signed to the much smaller Hi Records label in Memphis and veered even farther outside the orbit. Charlie’s music, at times, straddled funk, and he even recorded songs by a young Memphis duo, David Porter and Isaac Hayes, future Stax superstars. When Hi released an album of Charlie covering mostly Hank Williams songs with a soulful twist, the public yawned, and the suits at Hi decided Charlie, whose recording career was now a decade old, wasn’t worth their time. They dropped him from the label.
Billy Sherrill, however, saw an opportunity and a challenge. He once worked as an engineer for Sam Phillips’ Nashville studio when Charlie recorded there in the early 1960s. Now a producer with Epic Records, Sherrill set the country music charts on fire by producing hits by Tammy Wynette and David Houston. Epic signed Charlie, but without the fanfare he received from previous labels and with no bonuses or guarantees.
The results were mixed with some of Charlie’s finest and dullest material to date. The finest: Margaret Ann’s “Life’s Little Ups and Downs,” a beautifully soulful songs recorded that was inspired by Charlie’s lackluster success in the music business. The dullest: a plethora of lush ballads of devotion, a Sherrill trademark, that didn’t always showcase Charlie’s best talents.
They threw everything against the sound booth to get a hit, but by 1971, Billy experienced the same frustrations as Charlie’s previous producers. Charlie’s contract was about to expire, and a Hail Mary was all that was left. If that didn’t work, Charlie would be sent packing. Producer Chips Moman, who helped resurrect Elvis’ in the late 1960s, was rumored to take over, but Sherrill continued as producer, bringing in the young songwriter Kenny O’Dell, who presented a ballad to fidelity titled, “I Take It on Home.” Charlie recorded the song along with a couple of others on June 13, 1972, and it was released as a single. Possibly Charlie’s last with the label.
What happened next caught everyone off guard. When it hit the low end of Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart, instead of customarily sliding back down, like his others, the darned thing kept climbing, peaking at No. 6.
Charlie’s contract was renewed.
The song set the stage for “Behind Closed Doors,” which O’Dell also wrote, as the follow-up single. It was a monster. When Charlie recorded “The Most Beautiful Girl,” it claimed the No. 1 position on both the pop and country charts – a record label’s dream.
Charlie also went through a physical transformation. For an album cover photo, he posed in a wide-brimmed hat and suede jacket with fashionable long hair and matching long sideburns. George Jones may have been “The Possum,” but Charlie’s brand of country was much different and sexier. This was when he became “The Silver Fox.”
Name a TV special or variety show, Charlie was on it. His former record labels, the ones that failed to bring him much success, furiously rereleased his old material resulting, at one point, with Charlie having the top three albums on Billboard’s country charts simultaneously. (Only two others have accomplished this milestone since: Garth Brooks and Chris Stapleton.) In 1973, he won four Academy of Country Music Awards, three Country Music Association awards plus a Grammy.
The success and fanfare were an overwhelming, blindsiding twist of fate that caused Margaret Ann to question the sincerity of everyone she met while Charlie fulfilled the grueling demands unlike anything he encountered before.
That was only the beginning of Charlie’s troubles. A controversy brewed in Nashville: the age-old argument that pop music was infiltrating and desecrating good ol’ traditional country.
The disgust came to a head during the 1974 CMA Awards. When Roy Acuff, now in his 70s, presented the award for Female Vocalist of the Year, he either purposely or inadvertently mispronounced the winner’s name as “Oll-i-vuh Newton-John.” Olivia Newton-John recently had hits on Billboard’s pop and country charts and edged out Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn for the award. Unable to attend the ceremony, her recorded acceptance speech only fueled the ire of country purists when, in her Australian accent, she said she hoped to record an album in Nashville someday.
Meanwhile, Charlie won the CMA Album of the Year Award, for which Conway Twitty and Merle Haggard were also nominated. And now, after spending years without any sustaining success as a recording artist, Charlie was named the CMA Entertainer of the Year.
He and Margaret Ann celebrated. Many of the veteran country music stars did not. Instead, they met at George Jones and Tammy Wynette’s house to form the Association of Country Entertainers (ACE), which included Jan Howard, Brenda Lee, Porter Wagoner and others as members. They hoped to rescue country music from becoming the dreck they deemed it to be by presenting their case to the Country Music Association.
Jean Shepard (above) to Charlie Rich: “I wish him success in jazz.”
ACE member Jean Shepard, singer of “The Dear John Letter,” aimed a dart at Charlie after learning his first love was jazz.
“I wish him success in jazz,” she said flatly.
Charlie never made any bones about it. He was happy to see jazz incorporated into country music. His hero, Ray Charles, already did just that with the addition of R&B, blues and pop in his classic 1962 album, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. Charlie was an outsider in many ways, and not just for his music leanings. He spent much of his recording career living near Little Rock. When he finally moved to Tennessee, he settled in Memphis, not Nashville, and made the three-hour commute when needed.
Charlie had stayed quiet about ACE for months, until he was asked by a journalist with The Atlanta Journal just weeks before the 1975 CMA Awards. Charlie praised Olivia Newton-John, with whom he shared a bill at the Las Vegas Hilton during the summer of 1974, and Roger Miller and Kris Kristofferson for widening country music’s audiences.
“I’ve probably been recording in Nashville longer than 90 percent of the people in ACE,” he said. “I like country music as much as anybody, but I don’t think it should be restrictive.”
But the pressures took their toll. Plagued with anxiety his whole life, alcohol was how he self-medicated, sometimes with disastrous results. In 1973, when his fame was skyrocketing, Charlie showed up drunk on a country music-themed TV special hosted by Burt Reynolds. Reynolds’ deadpan wit and humor saved the segment from being a total disaster, though Charlie’s camp wasn’t laughing. They intervened and got him into a facility to sober up, which apparently stuck for a little while. The following summer, he took Epic’s promotion team and a couple of journalists to his childhood farm in Arkansas, a comfortable location for an uncomfortable feature story that should have taken two or three hours max. Instead, it evolved into an overnight drunken excursion. The next morning, the Arkansas State Police found them at a Stuckey’s and sent them all home.
Charlie was simply unpredictable. In September 1975, he committed to a whirlwind tour across England that included a videotaped concert in front of an audience to air on the BBC. One time, he drunkenly took off his shirt and laid down on the floor while his backing musicians tried to maintain their composure, wrote backup singer Diane Vanette in her memoir, Cherry Sisters Music City.
He returned to the United States with little time to rest as he fulfilled more dates in the South before heading to Nashville, where as 1974’s CMA Entertainer of the Year, he would announce his successor.
Charlie didn’t receive any CMA nominations for 1975. Nor did he dominate the charts like he did in 1973 and 1974. The public was losing interest. Charlie’s music was now formulaic with schmaltzy and predictable middle-of-the-road ballads that Billy Sherrill hoped would reap more cross-over success, which only betrayed Charlie’s soulfulness. Charlie suffered a fate worse than being awful. He was boring.
And the outgoing Margaret Ann, the one who often gave interviews on Charlie’s behalf, did more than hint that there were problems at home. She not-so-tongue-and-cheek suggested to Nashville country music columnist Red O’Donnell that wives of country entertainers form a support group to “cry on each other’s shoulders.”
***
Charlie missed dress rehearsal for the CMA Awards, but arrived in time for the live broadcast, and all looked well, at first. The show opened with the stars, including Charlie, smiling and waving at the TV camera as they arrived at the new Grand Ole Opry House in Model T automobiles. After the show began, he was in the audience, but without Margaret Ann.
Glen Campbell and Charley Pride were the emcees of the night’s live, hourlong broadcast that quickly ran into overtime. The high point, saved for last, was Charlie’s presentation of the Entertainer of the Year Award.
Charlie was now backstage, where it was cramped and chaotic, and where he reportedly self-medicated his nerves by slinging gin and tonics with Tennessee Ernie Ford.
J.P. Foster, the accountant representing the firm that tabulated the votes for the awards show, recalled in an interview years later for The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville that he realized a problem was on his hands when he delivered to Charlie the envelope containing the name of the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year.
“‘All you’ve got to do is tear the end off the envelope,’” Foster told Charlie. “That didn’t appeal to him. I tore it open and pulled the slip out a little bit.”
When time came, Charlie walked out on the stage effortlessly, blowing kisses to the audience in his dark, sparkling cowboy tuxedo as he held the visibly torn envelope.
Arkansas native Narvel Felts, who was enjoying his own overdue success as a country artist, and his wife, Loretta, saw Charlie’s presentation unravel as they sat in the audience.
“When he came on stage, I told Loretta, ‘Uh-oh. He’s drunk,’” Felts recalled.
It was evident when Charlie spoke his first words.
“Oh, I’ve got time,” he said, possibly responding to a directive to keep the presentation short. His eyelids hung like west-facing window shades at sunset.
“This is the most beautiful thing in the world right here. … The most beautiful thing in the world,” he said, looking at the award to be presented. “Thank you very much. I know the people who are up for it are suffering right now – The way I did last year. I mean, suffering. Like, GUT!”
The normally not-so-chatty Charlie was rambling, going off script as the camera panned the audience of country music stars with the clock ticking. Loretta Lynn’s husband, Doolittle, seemed to be genuinely entertained as Charlie asked her out on a date from the stage.
He then announced Milsap’s name.
“The first time I saw Ronnie, our bandstand broke through,” Charlie said, further delaying the presentation. “Eighteen-foot bandstand. BAM!”
(Silence.)
The camera then panned over to Conway Twitty and his very nervous wife, Mickey, who whispered into Conway’s ear as she disapprovingly shook her head and sighed.
“The winner …,” Charlie said, drum rolling as he pulled the already torn tab on the envelope. The card bearing the winner’s name fell on the lectern.
He picked it up with his left hand.
He reached for a lighter in his pocket with his right. And swiftly ignited the card.
He tilted his head and smiled.
“My friend, Mr. John Den-vuh!”
Denver, spared of the blazing visual, gave his thanks via live satellite from Australia, unaware of the chaos brewing onstage visible only to the Opry House audience.
“Glen Campbell came and got him by one shoulder and Charley Pride by the other one, kind of trying to move him out of that place because Chet Atkins was coming up next,” Felts said.
Charlie still wouldn’t budge.
“And then some person came out there, like a producer or something, saying something to Charlie and pointing his finger at him,” Felts recalled.
The Tennessean newspaper of Nashville captured an image of Charlie cradling the CMA with his left arm and pointing his finger to an unidentified person in a scolding manner as Charley Pride peered over Charlie’s shoulder.
“This is one award I’ll be glad to keep for myself,” The Dallas Morning News reported Charlie as saying, adding matter-of-factly that he was protesting Denver’s win.
This version of the incident would be told for decades.
After some cajoling, Charlie finally left the stage.
Margaret Ann filed for divorce.
***
This was the stuff of headlines. The media, in a swirl, reported that both Charlie and Margaret Ann were in the hospital with Margaret Ann undergoing tests following a bout with the flu. Charlie’s people told the media he was being treated for an infection to his foot caused from a spider bite compounded by a stress fracture sustained while in England.
But the buzz all over Nashville was Charlie really did it this time.
“The Dimming of a Bright Star” was the headline that ran with in an editorial in The Tennessean.
“One moment Mr. Rich was riding the crest of a wave of good fortune and high popularity. The next, he faces a questionable future as a professional,” the editorial read.
Charlie canceled his concerts and appearances for the next two weeks. Margaret Ann withdrew her divorce petition, and the couple reconciled. The two began to rebuild as Charlie sent a letter of apology to his fan club, attributing his behavior to the painkillers he took to treat his foot fracture. He never mentioned if he had been drinking.
“I know it is impossible to undo that evening,” he wrote. “I know now that the song I have been singing for years, ‘Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs,’ is all too true. I am writing to tell you that from this dark hour will come my shining hour.”
Charlie stayed firm for the rest of his life that his actions weren’t in protest of Denver winning, adding an interesting twist by stating that as a CMA member, he had voted for Denver, and called him a “fine artist and a fine musician.”
John Denver remained quiet about the incident until asked about it in 1994. He shifted the blame away from Charlie and showed a glimmer of sympathy toward him.
“I think the CMA should have monitored Rich’s social activities a little closer that day,” said Denver, who also had his own battles with alcohol and drugs. “What I hate the most is that the incident cost Rich his career. His action turned country-music executives against him, and he faded away.”
Not exactly.
Charlie’s career survived. He received Grammy nominations in early 1977 for “Every Time You Touch Me, I Get High” for Best Country Song and Silver Linings for Best Inspirational Performance. That same year, his recording of “Rollin’ With the Flow” held the No. 1 spot for two weeks on Billboard’s country chart. “On My Knees,” a duet with Janie Fricke, was a No. 1 country hit in 1978. The next year, he had a No. 3 hit with “I’ll Wake You Up When I Get Home.” Cash Box magazine declared Behind Closed Doors the album of the decade in December 1979 for all genres.
Charlie left Epic Records in 1978, continued with two more labels, but with limited success, and appeared in a couple of movies. Like so many of his peers whose heyday was now in the rearview mirror, Charlie smartly avoided becoming a sad sack of an artist by trying to reclaim his former glory. Instead, he quietly ducked out of the recording business with the financial means to do so. He spent the remainder of the 1980s in semi-retirement.
Charlie Rich, circa 1980, at the Palomino Club in Los Angeles.
And then he got the itch to record again.
He had an unfulfilled goal, one that he set decades earlier: to record an album that adequately reflected the jazz and R&B that informed his soul. Arranged and produced by writer and friend Peter Guralnick, Charlie recorded what was arguably his greatest album, Pictures and Paintings, named for the signature track penned by famed songwriter Doc Pomus and Mac Rebennack, better known as Dr. John. It was released on Sire Records in 1992. Not even remotely country, the album featured an intimate, after-hours vibe that included Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo,” jazzier reinterpretations of Charlie’s past songs and new ones by Margaret Ann. The critics loved it. The public ignored it.
Charlie’s career was a wrap. On July 25, 1995, while stopping overnight at Hammond, Louisiana, on a trip to Florida, he died from a blood clot to the lung in a hotel room. He was 62.
Charlie’s music has incredible sustaining power. Country Aircheck, a country music radio trade magazine, listed in its December 2023 issue the top 100 most-played country music songs during the past 50 years based on reports by five large-market radio stations. “The Most Beautiful Girl” was No. 15 in a list that included Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again,” Luke Combs’ “Even Though I’m Leaving,” Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying” and Faith Hill’s “Breathe.” Charlie’s song was also the oldest, tying in age with Marie Osmond’s “Paper Roses,” which was ranked much lower at No. 70.
Yet, from all the CMA Entertainers of the Year from 1966 to 1998, only two have yet to be inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame as of 2025. One of them is Charlie. The other? John Denver.
After Charlie’s passing, Margaret Ann eventually embraced Charlie’s actions at the 1975 CMA Awards.
“I think it should go down in history as the best show they’ve ever had,” she told The Village Voice in 1996. “It’s the only exciting thing I’ve ever seen on there.”
“CFUN Presents.” The Province, 22 Sept. 1965, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
“Charlie Rich Interview by Chet Flippo – Tape One, Side Two – 1974-09-04.” Country Music Hall of Fame, 9 June 2021, digi.countrymusichalloffame.org/digital/collection/musicaudio/id/12368/rec/11. Accessed 2 Jan. 2022.
“Charlie Rich, Behind Closed Doors.” New York, New York, 2001. Liner notes on CD release.
“CMA Awards Past Winners & Nominees.” CMA Awards, Country Music Association, Inc., 12 Jan. 2024, cmaawards.com/past-winners-and-nominees/. Accessed 24 Aug. 2025.
“Margaret Ann Rich & Charlie Rich Interview by Chet Flippo / Charlie Rich Live Performance Las Vegas – Tape One, Side One – 1974-07-02.” Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Digital Archive, Accessed 13 Aug. 2023.
9th Annual Country Music Association Awards, 1975.Video Recording, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Digital Archive.
Alexander, Wiley. “Denver Still in the Space Race Hurt by Shuttle Diplomacy, John Denver Still Looks to the Stars.” San Antonio Express-News, 24 Apr. 1992, p. 20C. NewsBank: America’s News. Accessed 10 Nov. 2023.
Buchanan, Ann. “Charlie Rich’s Wife: I Filed for Divorce to Save Our Marriage.” San Antonio Express, 7 Dec. 1975, p. 149.
Burk, Bill E. “Traveler’s Precaution Led Her to Mishap.” The Memphis Press-Scimitar, 21 Jan. 1982, p. 5.
Cain, Scott. “Charlie Rich Proud of Power of Today’s Country Music.” The Atlanta Journal, 5 Sept. 1975, p. 19.
Chapple, Charlie, and Associated Press. “Charlie Rich Dies of Clot in Hammond – Singer and Wife Were on Holiday.” The Times-Picayune. NewsBank, Accessed 03 Aug. 2016.
Charlie Rich. Pictures and Paintings, Sire/Warner.
Daniel, Pete, and Charles McGovern. “Interview with Charlie Rich.” National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, 12 Aug. 1992.
Rich, Charlie. “Charlierichjr.Com.” Charlie Rich Jr. | The Envelope Burning, 1998, web.archive.org/web/20220106115523/www.charlierichjr.com/controversy/the_envelope_burning/. Accessed 24 August 2025.
Schone, Mark. “Rich and Fameless: Charlie Rich’s Unsung Muse Gets the Chops She Deserves.” The Village Voice, 29 Oct. 1996, pp. 41-70.
Siegelbaum, Dee. “Success Brings Charlie Closer Home.” United Press International in Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Mississippi), 20 Oct. 1974, p. 50.
United Press International. “Charlie Rich Has an Apology.” Daily Independent Journal (San Rafael, California), 12 Nov. 1975, p. 15.
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