Little Charles and the Sidewinders

Listen/Download – Little Charles and the Sidewinders – Shanty Town MP3

Greetings all.

I thought we’d get the week off to a start with an old fave of mine.

Back in the day, my man Haim turned me on to all kinds of groovy records. We had very similar tastes so he was a fantastic digging partner.

One of the groups he put me on to was Little Charles and the Sidewinders.

Ironically, the song that first grabbed me is the one I’m still looking for, probably the group’s rarest side ‘A Taste of the Good Life’ on Decca from 1967.

The record I bring you today is yet another disc from the extremely brief discography of the Botanic label (seen here a few weeks back with Gary US Bonds).

Little Charles was Nashville-born singer Charles Walker, who got his start touring with JC Davis’s band, before taking some of the guys with him and forming the Sidewinders in 1966.

The group recorded a series of discs for Decca, Drum, Botanic and Red Sands between 1966 and 1971.

The funky ‘Shanty Town’ was released in 1970. Powered along by a pulsing bass line and a wailing vocal by Little Charles, ‘Shanty Town’ is a very groovy number. It was – like everything else on Botanic – produced by Jerry ‘Swamp Dogg’ Williams.

Though it didn’t make any impact, it’s flipside ‘Please Open Up Your Door’ (which was issued again on Red Sands in 1971) was a minor regional hit in the St Louis, MO area.

Little Charles took much of the 70s and 80s off, running an art gallery,before returning to musicin the late 90s, first under his real name Charles Walker, and then with Charles Walker and the Dynamites.

I hope you dig the sounds, and if you have a reasonably priced copy of ‘Taste of the Good Life’ laying around, please drop me a line.

Keep the faith

Larry

 

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

 

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

One Response to “Little Charles and the Sidewinders – Shanty Town”

1. janey says:

   April 24, 2016 at 4:03 pm

   BY chance would you know the names of this group Little Charles and sidewinders.