Underappreciated Geniuses, vol. 2: Charlie Rich

When I was a kid, there was this song that was on the radio all the time. It was called "Behind Closed Doors," and I was sure it was just about the worst record ever made. That is, until I heard "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," the follow-up single by the same artist, Charlie Rich. There was no doubt in my mind: Charlie Rich totally sucked.

Years later I started poring through the writing of music critic/historian Peter Guralnick, and of course I was completely mystified by Guralnick's love of Charlie Rich, which is profound. By this point I had a compilation of singles recorded on the Sun label that included Rich's "Lonely Weekends," a great record to be sure but nothing to inspire rapture. A little later, Elvis Costello released an album of country covers called Almost Blue, a decent album with a killer song called "Sittin' and Thinkin'," written by Charlie Rich. The pieces were beginning to fall into place.

The coup de grace was delivered by an album called The Complete Smash Sessions, which contains 29 tracks of relentless soulful bliss. Rich has a great voice--that's apparent even in his shlocky 70's hits--and here he puts that talent to use for good instead of evil. The disc puts him through all his paces--funky little dance numbers like "Mohair Sam," big emotive ballads like "I Can't Go On," rave ups like "Washed My Hands in Muddy Waters"--and Rich nails 'em all. It's a visionary record; what Rich accomplishes on these 1965-66 recordings brought him little commercial success, but a few years later Elvis Presley would follow their blueprint and strike gold.

Up until "Behind Closed Doors," that was the story of Charlie Rich's life. He was a tremendously talented guy making great music who could not achieve the popularity his talent merited. When he finally achieved fame, he did it on bittersweet terms, perhaps explaining why he showed up to the 1975 CMAs drunk to present the CMA Entertainer of the Year Award and, upon opening the envelope and seeing the winner was John Denver, set the envelope on fire and walked off stage.

The period between the Smash recordings and Rich's ascent to pop stardom was a fertile one, throughout which he kept mining the Memphis-driven blue-eyed soul vein. Grab a copy of The Fabulous Charlie Rich if for no other reason than to hear one of the most heartbreaking songs ever, "Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs." The rest of the album is nearly as good, meaning that it's superlative. Complete Smash Session, alas, is long out of print and is correspondingly priced by savvy Amazon resellers. A certain blogger might be convinced to burn you a copy if you ask nice.

Oh, and "Behind Closed Doors"? It's really not that bad.