Charlie Sayles performs a unique and diverse repetoire of American roots music, tailoring sets to the audience and venue. With an amazing ability to read his audience, he's equally at home on stages at indie college radio festivals or causing the smallest juke joints to shake with dancing. Charlie's originals are startling unique stories of real trouble and real ife. At the core of the music are his soulful and fiery blues harmonica and vocals and the solid dance groove of a veteran blues band.
Although life hasn't been easy for Sayles, he seems to have come through the traumas okay. They started in his childhood, when he was shifted from his broken home to a long procession of foster homes. He ended up joining the Army in the late 1960s and was promptly shipped to South Vietnam. His tour of duty ended in 1971, and he came back to Massachusetts for a time. Sayles picked up the blues harp while he was in Vietnam and made a slow adjustment back to civilized society upon his return from three years in the infantry. He discovered the music of Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) after he returned home and learned all he could from those recordings. Sayles began to make trips to New York City, Atlanta, St. Louis and other cities, playing on the streets for tips from passersby in 1974 and for several years thereafter. He worked when he needed money as a day laborer. He hasn't had a real day job since then, patiently plying his craft in clubs, on street corners and more recently, at blues festivals.
What shows in Sayles' playing are the long periods of time he spent honing his craft on the streets and in subway stations. His approach as a solo artist was to get as full and bandlike a sound as he could with his harp. It appears to have paid off, because Sayles is unlike other harp players; his playing is full of extended phrasing and super-quick changes in register. Sayles uses the harmonica as a melodic device while coaxing sharp, almost percussive sounds from it as well.
Sayles began to develop his songwriting voice in the mid-'70s as well, and his debut album was recorded in New York for the small Dusty Road label.
It sounds like a field-recording and it´s the blues and nothing but the blues in it´s purest form. It´s time to discover Charlie Sayles !
"The Afro-American harmonica, or blues harp, gives us one of America's great traditional art forms. It can't be written down with music notation; you have to hear it to believe it. Charlie Sayles is one of our very best harp players" (Pete Seeger)
Charlie about the history of these recordings:
PTB: What took you to New York, where you cut the album?
CS: I was in New York off and on. When I first decided to play the harmonica I was working for a while, the longest job I held was probably for about two months, made enough money and I decided to...I remember I looked at the map, on the bus house, and I said, "I'm gonna go to St. Louis", 'Cause of St .Louis Blues, but on the way I stopped in New York, 'cause New York is very exciting, you know, the movies, and I love movies. So I hung out there. I wasn't playing on the street then. Then I just would travel. Made a lot of money and I tried to get back home and after I left Atlanta and went to New York I had fifteen dollars when I got there. Now, that's not too much money in New York, right, I'd never really played solo. Only done it a couple of times and I was really kind of nervous, you know. So I got out there and I said, "Well I think I’ll try to be, like, a whole band. Kind of fool somebody!". I fooled 'em, 'cause I was making, like, a hundred bucks a day! That first night I couldn't believe it, man. After I paid my hotel bill I just threw all these coins on the bed and I just kinda, you know, this was, what, seventy dollar's worth of coins! I said," This isn't bad", 'cause I was making nothing in Atlanta, I was lucky if I made ten bucks a night. So I just started playing.
PTB: How did the album come about?
CS: OK. I was playing on the streets of New York and Dave Sax, an English guy, was riding on a bus and he said that he heard me and got off at the next stop and ran up and talked to me. We became friends and I come to find he's a blues lover, collects blues records and wotnot, and he decided that he was just going to use his own money to put an album out. Because he thought that, you know, I should be heard, or whatever they think. So we just worked that winter and he even went as far as bought a tape recorder, a big one, and he's not rich. He was working, you know, putting in phones, for the electric company.
We did it (the album)and the next year Ralph (Rinzler) invited me to the festival and we sold quite a few of those, and we sold some in England. So, that's so much for the New York thing.
PTB: On that album you sang through your harp. Any reason for doing so then and not now?
CS: Mainly because, see, when I started music I didn't know anything about the structure. I just knew that I liked it and listened to the blues, and it just came natural. I said, "Well how am I going to sing and play?" and so I figured, like I said, I tried to become a whole band. If you're a whole band you got to sing and then play the bass part (sings),and it just came. My voice wasn't all that great, because when you sing and play the harmonica, if you're like this(assumes harp playing position) I found that singing you need the wind and need to be free and I didn't have that. Also, I couldn't extend my vocals because I thought I had to play in between. Now I'm just learning about the ex tension and things like that. Plus I never hung out with musicians, I was just by myself. I’m just starting now to hang out, you know, with Dr. Harp or whatever.
(by winniecampbell)
Personnel:
Charlie Sayles (harmonica, vocals)
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a bunch of unknown studio musicsian
Tracklist:
01. New York-St Louis (Sayles) 3.11
02. Goin' Up, Goin' Down (Sayles) 3.51
03. Baby You Done Wrecked My Life (Sayles) 5.36
04. Atlanta Boogie (Sayles) 4.02
05. Here Comes The Train (Sayles) 4.41
06. I'm Mad With You (Sayles) 3.21
07. Makin' Love To Music (Sayles) 5.30
08. Almost Gone (Sayles) 4.08
09. Banjo (Sayles) 2.22
10. Vietnam (Sayles) 6.21
Charlie Sayles (harmonica, vocals)
+
a bunch of unknown studio musicsian
Tracklist:
01. New York-St Louis (Sayles) 3.11
02. Goin' Up, Goin' Down (Sayles) 3.51
03. Baby You Done Wrecked My Life (Sayles) 5.36
04. Atlanta Boogie (Sayles) 4.02
05. Here Comes The Train (Sayles) 4.41
06. I'm Mad With You (Sayles) 3.21
07. Makin' Love To Music (Sayles) 5.30
08. Almost Gone (Sayles) 4.08
09. Banjo (Sayles) 2.22
10. Vietnam (Sayles) 6.21
