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Fact #42477

When:

Short story:

Charles Arthur Feathers is born in Myrtle, Mississippi, USA. He will find success in the 1950s as rockabilly guitarist Charlie Feathers.

Full article:

Charlie Feathers : Let's seeā€¦ my first guitar, I was real young, about ten I guess. I had an aunt, she'd sit down and she'd pick the guitar. She'd pull on the strings, which I could tell you right now, women have the greatest touch on guitar of any human being here on earth to start with. A lot of people think you rap guitars ... you don't! A guitar is really supposed to be picked on, like that. You can get some wonderful sounds out of rappin' it, but actually you pick upon a guitar string to get tones out of it. The old-timers, they used to pick that thing. There is an old colored guy down there in Mississippi, I played with him all my life and he learned me a few things. He's still living there in Hollow Springs, and I think he's the greatest musician in the world. I've heard Chuck Berry, I've heard Chet Atkins, I've heard them all but down there in Mississippi is the greatest guitarist in the world!

I was cutting stuff all the time. I'd go in there and cut some stuff, me and Scotty and Bill. Next time Elvis was in or someone else and they cut some stuff sounding just like it, exactly like it. Sam told me to get with some boys, who wrote a song called Day Dreaming which they had brought by and Sam had turned down. They took it out there on the little old Meteor label, out here on Chelsea. A little bitty place. I think it had but one real good mike in there working and they cut the song and it was a pretty good seller.

Next thing I knew they came by again and Sam said to me, 'Now look, you need to get with them boys, man, that's who you need to get with, right there, and I'm gonna put you in the country field.' Those were the exact words he told me, 'I'm gonna put you in the country field, Elvis into the R And B and rock.'

So we got with these guys, Quinton Claunch and Bill Cantrell, and we worked and we got Stan Kesler and he came over and we worked on some songs and we got them ready and we recorded them for Sun but I felt it was a bad mistake. That wasn't the type of stuff that I wanted to do. That wasn't the type of stuff that I felt, and me and Quinton every once in a while we get over to his house and we'd do a lot of this rock stuff and we went down and recorded several of it.

Aw, man, Sam thought it was great! It sounded pretty good, or at least we knew it was that type of stuff there was a demand for. Never did have a release on it, next thing we knew ... you remember 'Frankie and Johnny'? I think Johnny Cash came out with it later and it sounds pretty much like what I had right along in the same bag. Several other of those things that Elvis came out with ... we'd work up some stuff there and it came out the next day or two.

I'll be honest now, we have never been able to copy nobody. I don't copy when I sing. I'm Charlie Feathers and I guess I'll be singing like that until the day I die. So that's it right there, that's the way we feel it.

Sam was leasing little old home recorders out to people to make the wheels. Ten, fifteen dollars, whatever he could get for one and we'd take this thing and run it trough the board back into the little Ampex he had sitting in a chair, and that's how we got the slap-back sound. Then it wasn't a matter of Elvis or who to record, it was just a matter of getting anybody in there who could whistle or sing. Even when you just talked you sounded great. That slap-back sound was a sound that was new to the world.

The radio stations didn't want to play it because it wouldn't bounce too good, see. They had problems every time they would play it. It was exactly what the public wanted to hear man, it was what the kids... they dig it see, because it had that bounce like it was coming out of space somewhere. And all he had were two little recorders, he had a little Ampex recorder and a little home recorder. He ran it through the board and that was the Sun sound. I've heard several people try it several times since then. They don't really have the true sound. They definitely don't. I could show you that. I can take a little, small home recorder, that's say 2 tracks or 4 tracks. I can take an amplifier and I can give you the true Sun sound, because that is really about the type of equipment that was there when we cut it, you see. I can show you some sound that this world will long, long experience after I'm dead and gone I can give you sound ... you can walk in the RCA studio in Nashville, any studio you want to pick, they cannot get this sound, no way. We done tried it.

There was a boy here named Tommy Tucker. We cut a little demo on him, I cut it on a home recorder, took it down and they heard this thing. Oh man, they signed this cat under contract. They was gonna do wonders, got down there and they couldn't even compete with the tape I've got. They couldn't even get it sound alike! RCA couldn't even get Elvis sounding like he was on Sun. Steve Sholes thought they had sold them the wrong artist. They thought Carl Perkins was Elvis, this is true!

One guitar man,- I don't need no band. That's crazy, a guitar got it even. There's bass strings comes right down here in harmony. People... you go up there and get these big orchestras and everything.. you already got it right there, you got six strings. Every one of those strings, you get the harmony together and you got it. It's right there. Now people go, they try this, they try violins, they try everything. My opinion. it is there on the guitar to start with. You don't need all those things. All you gotta do is get it out of it, in it's place and time. Well, it's hard to explain, I tell you, but it's there... it's really hard to explain. When you say "guitar" you speak of everything in music!

Man, that does something to you! To me when people look like they like what you do... it's great I think you're at your best then... that's when you really open up. It does something to me. I don't know what it is, but I'm not the same person. I've heard people say I'm bound to be drinking or something, but that's not true. I drink maybe one beer, may take another five days before I take a beer again. It's something... the love of music will do it, do those things, make you open up your heart and play a lot better!
(Source : not known)