Billy Branch and the Sons of Blues: Billy Branch on harmonica and vocals, Dan Coscarelly on guitar, Ariyo on piano, Nick Charles on bass and Mose Rutues on drums and vocals.... The Jimmie Smith Blues Band, as it appears on the "Jimmie Smith Live in Chicago" CD: Jimmie Smith on guitar and vocals, Scott Bradbury on harmonica, Gene Pickett on piano, Nick Charles on bass and Patrick Doody on drums.
When Nick Charles left his home in Vicksburg, Mississippi for the big city of Greenville, he found more than just work. He found the future. He found Aladdin's lamp in the shape of a bass guitar. His fascination with the music scene and with the bands touring the South helped to create the avenue on which his natural abilities and his youthful passion for playing would flourish. The result is the formidable thump that now backs up Billy Branch and the Sons of Blues....
"I had a lot of friends in Greenville. Like this guy, Booby Barnes. He died. He was from Greenville. I wasn't playing music but I used to get out. I heard this guy, L.V. Banks, and I thought he was the greatest, and Booby Barnes was next, right down the street. Back then, I used to do a lot of dancing and back then, my hair was all down my back. People thought I was a musician with the bands anyway. I just started doin' roady for 'em just so I could go with 'em when they go out. One time this guy stopped me and said I should be playing with them. I told him I wants to play. And he started me off to playing"....
"I got to Greenville about October of '61, and by December of '61, I was playing music. By '62, I was with Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Tina Turner, all these people. I was always pretty lucky. I always had plenty of work and a good piece of money. And I saved, 'cause, you know it wasn't as good as it is here because it was the South"....
Nick toured Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas mostly, with whoever was bringing music to the South. The road to Chicago wasn't quite as smooth however, and mainly due to Nick's fear of the North. "I wouldn't leave. I had my line I wouldn't cross. I was kinda scared to come North 'cause I heard about the murders and all, and I said, naw, no city for me"....
Even with his father already living and established in Chicago, it took Howlin' Wolf to send for Nick and Eddie Shaw to talk him into coming to Chicago before Nick would give it a try. "I came in '62, in February, but it was so cold. I said, well, I'll give it 'til March. You know, 'cause by March, all the little birdies and the flowers start coming out. But it seemed like the coldest month of the year and the snow was this high." He raises his hand about three feet from the floor in slight exaggeration. "I was gonna try to stay, but by Valentine's Day, I got my little bag and headed back down South." Nick stayed South until Earl Hooker came and took him touring again. They played all the same southern night spots and even returned to Chicago. But Nick didn't return to Chicago for good until April of '64. This time he came to the West Side, to a place named Curly's, where he met "everybody, all the musicians." He also spent time hanging out on the south side at Pepper's, where the music played seven nights a week and he could always meet someone new....
"Nick Charles is one of the baddest bass players there ever was. He's played with everybody from Howlin' Wolf to Slim Harpo and Muddy Waters. He's a mellow fellow and the best there is. He understands the language of the blues and knows how to take it to another space. Good cat. He's been with us for two years but I played with him off and on for over fifteen years. We played everywhere" says Billy Branch....
Nick shows a photograph... "This is with Roy Hightower. This is in Miami Beach. We played at this big club. This is where I met the Billy Lattimore Band, too. We played here from '72 to '77, off and on. I met Roy while I was playing with Johnny Drummer. Johnny lost his guitar player and I had met Roy down at Pepper's. I played with him a bit and I said to him, why don't you come on and play with Johnny Drummer. So he did and he stayed about a year. One day he said he was leaving and had another job down south. So I just left with him....
As his usual luck would have it, Nick found himself working the Miami Beach gig at $750 a night, six nights a week. He also worked days in Miami Beach with a band playing beach tours. Nick worked as their drummer. "Yeah, I can play the drums a bit." Nick toured the States, with Roy Hightower's band, playing the Dakotas, Colorado and Arizona. The tours were mostly driving tours, as had been the case in the early days touring with Earl Hooker, Johnny Drummer and Junior Wells. Nick's mother had a fear of flying that transferred to Nick as a child. He didn't conquer that fear until 1977 when he flew to California with Junior. Once his fear was eradicated, the tours never stopped coming. In 1980, he toured Europe for the first time with Jimmy Witherspoon and Johnny Dollar. He also did some recording there. In 1982, he toured Europe again with Junior Wells and Lowell Fulsom, and in 1983, toured Europe with Lefty Dizz. The list is endless: Canada with Son Seals, Europe with Buddy Guy and Syl Johnson, and the States with Bobby Mcfarland and Tommy McCraken. The list of recordings credited to Nick Charles is impressive as well. "The first recording I ever did I didn't get credits on. That was with Earl Hooker and A.C. Reed back in '63. I did some recording with Jimmy Reed in '71, too. My first credits probably came with Roy Hightower, though. That's the time that probably changed my career the most. But I got credits with Detroit Junior and this guy, Top Hat. He was a drummer. That did very well. I remember it because it was so big in Europe and I used to get royalty checks from it every month. And I got credit with Son Seals in '91 for Bad Axe"....
Though Nick traveled extensively and enjoyed the crowds at large festivals and the scenery of foreign lands, nowhere held for him, the mystique of the blues and the high of performing more than the clubs of Chicago. "I like playing in Chicago the best. I played the Queen Bee and Teresa's when Lefty Dizz and Junior Wells and a lot of other people were hanging around there. Teresa always gave everybody work and you could see everybody there. Sometimes there'd be more musicians in the house than audience. I really like playing R&B, too. Blues is laid back and you don't get a lot of changes. With R&B you get to change up a lot." Nick attributes his big bad thump to playing with so many different bands. "I like playing with a lot of different bands 'cause I get to fit their stuff and play a lot of different rhythms." Not only does he prefer Chicago clubs to big festivals, he prefers the old days to the new. He pulls a picture from a photo album of Lefty Dizz and Pat Scott sitting in the old Queen Bee. "Here's Lefty and Pat Scott. She was about sixteen or seventeen. We used to tell him, man, you goin' to jail. I liked that club a lot. 'Cause you know, I came up playing in clubs with people real close and wooden floors and good sound you get from that. Things changed around '76 or '77 when the disco came in. People stopped using the bands. That's when I started going to the North Side"....
The most touching reminiscence Nick recounts is his brief and inspired association with blues singer, Valerie Wellington. "I had heard of her, and she heard me play a bit, and one day, she called me and asked me to play bass for her. I said ok, but she didn't really have enough work for me then. Then one day, I saw her doing a Tribune (newspaper) commercial on TV. Then she called and said, 'are you ready for me now, Nick'. So we put a band together and started working. Everywhere she went she took me." The photos of the Japan tour seem to confer upon the memory a sense that here was a band held together by some intangible glue behind the work. Nick goes on. "One night we has this gig and Valerie called to make sure I would pick her up. I said yeah, but when I got outside her apartment, I was waitin' and waitin' in the car and she was taking so long. I knew that wasn't like her. One of the neighbors told me she had been taken to the hospital. So I went, but when I got there, the doctors told me she had died. I was so shocked because I had just talked to her. She had an aneurism. She used to have a lot of headaches but we didn't know something was wrong"....
Nick quit the blues after that and began playing with a rock band called "Euphoria". They played the North Side, Rush Street and the suburbs. "I stopped playing the blues for a while after Valerie. I just couldn't do it anymore, 'cause when Valerie died it really hurt me"....
As we peruse more photos, the charmed evolution of the life of Nick Charles becomes strikingly clearer. There are carefree smiles from five to fifty years old. His road trips appear to be as much fun as work. His associations with other musicians have remained good ones. The self taught, freelancer who could always find work is still in the same position. One can't help but wonder how it was that Nick Charles remained in control, remained focused and was not whirled in by the undertow of freedom, popularity and youth. He smiles, sweet and southern style. "Oh I always, I always had a cool head" - excerpted from an article by Michelle Seals, Jefferson Blues Magazine, 1998
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Billy Branch and the Sons of Blues performing "Nick's Groove" at Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago on June 2, 2006
Hi Nick, Thank you for the very great show to the Zentih in Caen. Jacques and I often write with your pen. I have pictures to send to you. Have a nice Sunday.
Wassup Slick Nick! Been a little while now. Tell all the fellows hello for me. Glad to see the baddest blues bassman in Chicago out here in myspace. Oh, I finally finished putting the 76 Riviera together, man its cherry. Theres a pic of it in the slide show on myspace.
peace
larry
Hi Nick!..Im much honored to be added as your friend.You are an inspiration to me and a true legend!May the coming year surround you in magic and grace
Love and Light
Ginger Lee
THANKS FOR THE ADD. LOOKING FORWARD TO PLAYING WITH YOU AGAIN SOME DAY SOON, YOU'RE 1 OF THE BEST.
WE ARE HAVING A BIRTHDAY PARTY HONORING JUNIOR WELLS AT ROSA'S LOUNGE DECEMBER 9TH. SURE HOPE YOU WILL BE THERE. IT'S A CD RELEASE PARTY TOO, AND JUNIOR SOUNDS GREAT ON THIS NEW CD. I WILL BE PERFOMING WITH JIM LIBAN + BLUE LIGHTNING BAND.
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