Charlie - s/t

Name: Charlie
Album: s/t
Year: 1983
Style: Powerpop, Arena Rock
Similar Bands: Journey, Foreigner, Bad Company, Styx
"One-Word" Review: That's Journey, Right? RIGHT?
Based Out Of: London, UK
Label: Mirage, Atco, Atlantic, Warner

 Cover & Record

Back & Record

Charlie (1983)

1. It's Inevitable  3:52 (single)
2. Tempted 3:57
3. Spend My Life With you 4:14
4. Never Too Late 4:31
5. Playing To Win 4:06 /
6. The Heartaches Begin  4:09
7. You're Everything I Need 7:02
8. This Time 4:19
9. Can't Wait 'Til Tomorrow 4:00

Album Rating (1-10): 7.0

Members & Other Bands:

• Terry Thomas - Writer, Guitar, Backing Vox, Producer, Mixing (Magic Mixture, Axe, Bad Company, Foreigner, Tommy Shaw, Fastway, Giant, Richard Marx, Doctor Rockit, Biran Howe,  Sons of God Quartet, Janus Stark, Flash Terry, Anja Garbarek, White Trash)
• Terry Slesser - Lead Vox (Back Street Crawler, Beckett, Crawler)
• John Anderson - Bass, Backing Vox (Axe, Black Cat Bones, Shaun Guerin)
• Robert Henrit - Drums, Percussion (Argent, John Verity Band, Phoenix, Barnet Dogs, Kinks, Roulettes, Unit Four plus Two, Ziggy Byfield and the Blackheart Band, Colin Blunstone, Roger Daltrey, Leo Sayer, Duncan Browne, Michael Fennelly, Adam Faith, Limey, Russ Ballard, Dave Davies, Ian Matthews, Mike Berry, Kazuo Takeda, Francie Conway, Zombies)
• Steve Gadd - Drums
• Kevin Beamish - Producer, Engineer
• Bruce Barris - Asst. Engineer
• David Thoener - Mixing Engineer
• John Davenport - Asst. Engineer
• George Marino - Mastering
• Jay Anning - Art Direction
• Pete Turner - Cover Photo
• Felix Krish - Bassic Info
• Andy Clark - Digital Dexterity
• Richard Cottle - Digital Dexterity, Sax (Abbacadabra, Glamorama, Manic MC's, Obsession, Respect, Royal T, SFX, Shaft)
• Adrian Lee - Digital Dexterity
• Chris Parren - Digital Dexterity
• Nick Payne - Sax (Bill Wyman's Rhyth, Kings, Bootleg Kings, Moon, Q-Tips, Paul Young, John Slaughter Blues Band, Lonnie Donegan, Mick Abrahams, Culture Club, Anthony More)
• Bud Prager - Mgmt
• Dave Thomas - Mgmt

Unknown-ness: Never heard of Charlie. Pretty tough name to search for, but I like the dark desert highway energy on the cover + font...like a shady version of the show Night Rider. I'd love if this goes in a dark, synth-wave direction verging on disco, alas, no synth on the back cover credits.

Album Review: The band has gone through 9 different line ups since starting in 1970 with six albums preceding this one, and they are still active through 2015. Based on the vocals and production, I would have never guessed they were from London, but this was mainly a Terry Thomas outfit, but for this album, under US label requirements, they needed to find a new singer, and Slesser was auditioned in, sounding just like Steve Perry. They blame their lack of UK success on the rise of punk, and found fairer lands here in the US, with four minor hits. There is a lot of hair energy in this album, lots of power chords and high kicks in tight leather pants. Save the monster power ballad "Spend My Life With You." "Never Too Late" has a little bit of Tina Turner's "Simply the Best" in it.

Stand Out Track: Never Too Late

Links:
Terry Thomas Wiki
Charlie Wiki
Discogs
Allmusic
History
Terry Thomas Interview
Bad Cat Records
Steve Hoffman Music Forum