– The Dynamites Featuring Charles Walker – In Session at KDHX – 2008 –
Diving into Thursday Night Funk with The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker, live in session at KDHX in St. Louis. Recorded on January 10, 2008.
Walker, whose career has gone back to the 60’s, hooked up with modern-day Funksters The Dyanamites around 2007 and the collaboration has been a successful one.
Charles Walker was born in Nashville July 12th, 1940. He was nicknamed ‘Wig’ by his mother because of his full head of hair as a kid. Like so many others from Charles background his singing began in Church and school.His professional musical journey began in his hometown with his first recording ‘Slave To Love’ released in 1959 on the Nashville ‘Champion’ label. He relocated to New York shortly afterwards and met record entrepreneur Bobby Robinson who cut some demos with Charles for his ‘Fury’ label. Soon afterwards, a chance meeting with the J.C Davis Band, who had played the famed Apollo Theatre, opening for Jackie Wilson led to Charles becoming their lead singer. During his time with the L.C Davis band he toured the country opening for many of the greats of the era, including Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Etta James, Wilson Pickett, and Little Willie John. With Charles as lead singer they recorded ‘Sweet Sweet Love’ and ‘The Chicken Scratch’ for Chess records. These cuts never become hits at the time, but their quality has endured that over the years they have become highly collectable. By 1965 Charles had split with the J.C Davis band and taking some of the key players with him formed ‘Little Charles and The Sidewinders’ . Through the help of Lloyd Price the group recorded 8 sides for Decca, but they didn’t chart. The Sidewinders continued to record for more outre labels with names like Botanic, Drum and Red Sands. At one time Charles even had his own label, P R Gallery. If that’s an odd name for a record company it’s because it was named after a New York art gallery which Charles owned in the eighties. The Sidewinders and a solo album recorded for Lloyd Price in the 70s remains unreleased.
Here’s what they recorded that day they fell by the studios at KDHX:
The Dynamites Featuring Charles Walker
KDHX – January 10, 2008
1. Own Thing
2. Dig Deeper
3. Slinky
To the people who say modern Soul and Funk is dead, I say Ha. A couple bars of this will prove it.
