Saturday, July 26, 2008

Sassy Country Gal

Are you looking for a spunky female country singer from the 1950's who made great music but never became a household name? Well, look no further. Charline Arthur is your gal.

Charline Arthur – He Fiddled While I Burned
Charline Arthur – Burn The Candle
Charline Arthur – (I'm In Love With) Someone's Used To Be

Buy Welcome To The Club.

Here's a nice blurb about Charline from AMG:

Charline Arthur didn't play by the rules. During the '50s, country music wasn't particularly receptive to rowdy, racy material sung by females, much less one who refused to submit to the orders of her record company or promoters. No matter how much pressure Arthur received, she didn't change her ways. With a raging temper, she was difficult to work with, particularly angering her producer, Chet Atkins. Nevertheless, her music was frequently impressive. In some ways, Arthur was a forerunner of rockabilly, with her bluesy, raw hillbilly music and her wild stage shows. She was the first female singer in country music to perform in pants and she used the extra freedom to prowl the stage. While her career was extremely brief — she recorded for RCA for three years — her music gained a cult following over the years, as proved by the appearance of Bear Family's Welcome to the Club compilation in 1986.

-Stephen Thomas Erlewine

For further study, make sure you go to Rockabillyhall.com.

I also recommend reading the customer reviews at Amazon.

7 comments:

Rich said...

Good stuff! New to me, but probably shouldn't be.

Paul said...

Thanks Rich. I'm not surprised you like it (or that it's new to you). Hardly anybody knows about Charline Arthur anymore. Hopefully this post will create a few new fans.

Rich said...

At least one!

Anonymous said...

Thank for the intro. I'd only ever heard Honey Bun before, which is a great tune, so it's nice to have the opportunity to hear more. Might have to pick up the whole album.

Divinyl said...

I love this Paul...she almost sounds like a cross between Patsy and Wanda Jackson. I'll join the ranks of those who had not previously heard of her but are very happy to be introduced! :o)

Anonymous said...

Divinyl, that's a pretty accurate assessment. Cline + Jackson = Arthur.

Anonymous said...

Great stuff on this site! Appreciate anything on the classics and early Honky tonk! Love the style of Charline Arthur.
Terri Church
www.davidchurch.net