The  Lightnin' Charlie Story...

In June of 1961, a small wedding ceremony taking place in a church in Miami Beach, Florida was interrupted when a bolt of lightning struck the steeple on the roof of the church. Besides startling everyone present, especially the groom, no major damage resulted.



Nine months later, to the day, baby Lightnin' was born to very proud parents.

Charles’ father, Sidney, had moved to Florida from New York in the 1940’s to open a restaurant/nightclub in the playground of the rich and famous, Miami Beach. By 1960, he was running the restaurant in the Eden Roc hotel on Miami Beach, which, along with the Fountainbleu next door, were the two premier hotspots on Collins Avenue. They were frequented by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Elvis Presley. Elvis’ first public appearance, upon his return from the army, was on Frank’s television show, which was filmed at the Fountainbleu in 1960. It was here that Lightnin’ Charlie’s mom and dad met
…and fell in love.

Charles’ mother, Barbara Ann, grew up in Greeneville, Tennessee, the daughter of a policeman and a seamstress, and one of seven children. Born in the midst of the Great Depression, Barbara became somewhat of a sensation as a child preacher. Gaining a local reputation for preaching the Gospel at tent revivals and churches as a nine and ten year-old, she traveled as far away as Washington D.C. to preach revival meetings, and even had her own radio program in Greeneville at age eleven. She continued playing piano and singing in her church choir until her family moved to Florida in the late 1950’s.

When Charles was growing up, his Aunt Jeanette would play him records by an old friend of hers from Tennessee…a crooner by the name of Elvis Presley. In 1957, when Jeanette was sixteen, her mother (Charles’ grandmother) had written a love song that she thought Elvis should record. So she put a very reluctant Jeanette on a Greyhound bus bound for Memphis to deliver the song to Elvis. In retrospect, it seems crazy to put a teenager on a bus, by herself, en route to a big strange city 500 miles away, to deliver a song to the biggest recording star in the world. But, crazy or not, that’s just what they did. Arriving in Memphis, Jeanette’s only chance to see Elvis was to hang out all day at the now-famous gates of Graceland along with dozens of other fans. She explained her mission to the friendly gatekeeper, who introduced himself as Travis, and he invited her to his home to have supper with his wife and kids. Jeanette gratefully accepted and when Travis Smith’s shift was over, he put her into a golf cart and drove up the driveway towards Graceland. “To his car”, Jeanette thought. But at the top of the hill, Travis got out of the golf cart and told Jeanette to come on in. It seems that the gatekeeper, Travis Smith, was Elvis’ uncle, and that he and his wife, Lorraine, lived in a house trailer adjacent to the main house with their two sons, Bobby and Billy. After supper, they took a stunned Jeanette over to the house and introduced her to their famous nephew. Ironically, the song, according to Jeanette’s recollection, was never even mentioned to Elvis. Jeanette returned to Graceland many times through the years, and remained good friends with Travis and Lorraine for the rest of her life. Aunt Jeanette’s stories of going to movies and roller skating with Elvis and his fledgling Memphis Mafia would leave quite an impression on her not yet famous nephew, Lightnin’ Charlie.

Lightnin’ Charlie’s first memories of music are from a console stereo at his grandmother’s house. “An old Magnavox, blond wood, console stereo. It sounded fantastic. It dropped 45 RPM records onto the turntable with that big spindle - FLOP! And the giant stylus arm that looked like a catsup bottle. She had a huge house and everybody lived there, all my uncles and their families and kids. It was a family gathering place every holiday. The first song I remember hearing was Jewel Aikens’ ‘The Birds and the Bees’. I must have been 2 or 3 years old. I remember being just tall enough to stand at the edge of that monster and peer over the side and watch those 45’s spin. My mother says that I used to sing ‘Standing On The Corner (Watching All The Girls Go By)’ by Dean Martin when I was 3 years old. All the grown-ups must have really gotten a kick out of that!”

In 1972, Charlie’s dad bought him an acoustic guitar for his tenth birthday. It was then that he started playing. And it was then that Lightnin’ Charlie started dreaming.

In October 1977, when Charlie was fifteen, his beloved father passed away after a long battle with cancer. Elvis had passed away less than two months before. This made the teenager dream a whole lot harder.

In 1979, after graduating in the middle of his high school class, young Lightnin’ kissed his mother goodbye and, along with his guitar, moved to Tennessee to see if dreams really came true.

In 1980, Lightnin’ Charlie made his first public appearance, singing and playing guitar at an informal church dinner/social in Johnson City, Tennessee. He performed some of the same hymns and gospel songs that his mother had played and sung years before.

In 1983, Lightnin’ Charlie played his first paid performance, with his new band, in a Johnson City strip club. The Eastern philosophy of Yin and Yang was alive and kicking, even in the Appalachian mountains of East Tennessee. At his debut performance as a professional, Charlie remembers having to pay full price for a coke at the bar, which took a good part of his pay for the night. “It was the middle of summer, and on the afternoon of the gig it was probably 95 in the shade, and I was out on a ladder, putting our name up on the marquis in the parking lot of the club. They weren't going to do it. Their sign read: 'Dozens of beautiful women and three ugly ones.' A real class joint. I came back into the club, pouring sweat - hotter than Michael Jackson at Boys Town - and gave them their ladder back, and asked the bartender if I could please have a coke, and he said, 'That’ll be $2.75.' I was getting a real good education on my first night as a professional musician!”

In the wee hours of the night, just days before Christmas 1983, Charlie woke up in his house trailer smelling smoke. Seconds later, he was sitting in the snow, coughing but alive, watching flames quickly consume all his worldly possessions…except his two guitars. Lightnin’ had taken his Fender Stratocaster out of the burning home and had gone back into the smoke-filled death trap to rescue the acoustic guitar his father had given him. It was then that Lightnin’ Charlie stopped dreaming and started doing.

In early 1984, Charlie saw a little-known guitar slinger by the name of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Stevie was appearing in a small club in Charlotte, North Carolina and Charlie was able to get right in front of him for his set and even got to meet him briefly after the show. To Lightnin’ Charlie, the world had changed and he would never look at guitar playing the same again. He said later, 

   “It was like I had been to the mountaintop. I had seen the promised land. Of guitar playing. You just couldn’t get any better than that. Stevie had it all - every gift a guitarist could have. There is a level of musicianship that one cannot go above. And the ones that are at that level, you can’t say one is ‘better’ than another. Just different. It becomes a matter of style. Can you say that Frank Sinatra is ‘better’ than Mahalia Jackson? Or that Louis Armstrong is ‘better’ than Hank Williams? Was Moses was a ‘better’ prophet than Isaiah? The term ’better’ doesn’t apply to these guys. Their musicianship is on an infinite, spiritual level that one cannot even describe in finite terms, or with mere language. And there are a lot of guys, in my opinion, on the very top of the guitar heap. Freddy King and Albert and B.B. and Lonnie Johnson and Magic Sam. But there’s never been, and never will be, a guitarist that can say that they’re ‘better’ than Stevie Ray Vaughan. He’s tops."

   You know, there’s guys by the bushel out here now, copying his every lick, note-for-note. They’ve got his amps and their guitars set up like his. They wear their hair like him and have hats and stage clothes like him and make faces like him. And they miss the whole point. They’re like Elvis impersonators. Have you ever heard an Elvis impersonator that was even a tenth as good as Elvis? And there’s not one of ‘em that’s even CLOSE to sounding like Stevie. Nor will there ever be. Why is that? Well, I’ll tell you friend, that’s when you know you’re dealing with something that’s not of this world, when man can’t copy it. Edison invented the electric light bulb - a great accomplishment. But his work can be copied exactly by any 4th grader doing a science project, and you can’t tell the difference. It’s easy to copy the culmination of someone’s lifework. You’ve got the blueprint. But reciting the Gettysburg Address doesn't make you Lincoln. No one will ever be able to copy what Stevie Ray was. It's imposiible. Someone may equal it, by letting go and letting God speak through them and their music to such an extent that it's no longer them, but God. I thank God for Stevie Ray. And I thank Stevie Ray for letting God use him. And I thank God for bringing me to the front of that stage that first night in Charlotte."

In 1989, after five years of fronting the locally infamous Chicago-style blues band, The Southside Sheiks, Lightnin’ Charlie formed The Upsetters. Lightnin’ Charlie and the Upsetters were then, and still are, a three-piece group - Lightnin’ Charlie on guitar and vocals, with bass and drums. The small band boldly tackled all kinds of American roots music, and took to the road. Charlie explains, “I wanted a small band, because I work best within a small group, and that’s the only way to survive on the road, financially. It makes for a lot of work for the guitar player, though. When people would tell me, ‘Man, I’ve never seen a guitar player like you before…you play it this way and that way…‘ I’d tell them, ‘Man, I’m just trying to hang on to that thing - I've got me a tiger by the tail!‘”

The name, the Upsetters, was taken from Little Richard’s killer road band of the 1950’s. Charlie picks up the story, “They were supposedly the first band to get funky with the rock ‘n’ roll beat. And they were monsters. Richard’s Specialty recordings were usually cut with the great Specialty house band, featuring Lee Allen on tenor sax, that also backed label-mate, Fats Domino on all his records, but the Upsetters were his touring band. They only recorded two songs with Little Richard, “Keep A-Knockin’” and “Ooooh My Soul”. Listen to those two songs compared to the other Little Richard records. The band sounds like a runaway Mack truck. And I thought it would be a cool name for my band because we seemed to have a knack for upsetting folks.”

For a long time, the secluded mountains of East Tennessee had Lightning in a bottle, but now the top was off of the bottle, blown off, and the world was taking notice.

“Tri-Cities band plays the blues like the masters.”
     - Johnson City Press

“Lightnin’ Charlie and the Upsetters are known from Miami to Chicago as one of the hottest rockin’ blues combos going. The band is fronted by singer/guitarist Charlie Dolinger, whose charismatic stage persona and off-the-wall guitar antics grab an audiences attention like a snake-handling preacher.”
     - Weekly Beat magazine

“Charlie Dolinger is an exciting, accomplished guitarist, but there is no shortage of wonderful guitarists. The thing that, for me, sets Charlie ahead  of the others is that the boy can sing, too. He has not neglected his vocal skills at all.”
     - Ann Rabson of Saffire
     (Grammy Award winner)

In 1991, LCU took home first place in the Piedmont Blues Society’s Blues Talent Contest. This was the break that the boys had been waiting (and working) for. Their performance not only showcased their talent to a lot of insiders, including the owner of Hipshake Records, a local independent label, but got them spots on big-time blues festivals, like Memphis and Bull Durham. Charlie recalls, “Literally, overnight, we went from playing little honky-tonk bars and even parking lots to playing baseball stadiums with B.B. King, Bobby Bland, and Albert Collins. And really going over with the audiences. I have video of us at the Bull Durham Blues Festival, where the people would just not let us go, they kept cheering for more. I don’t know how many encores we did, but it was unbelievable. Here we were - just an unknown little opening act, and these people that had bought tickets to see a legend like Bobby Blue Bland are getting us back up for encores. It was unbelievable.” 

Rave reviews seemed to follow Lightnin’ Charlie everywhere.

“This band has the potential to break out big. They won the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society’s contest in competition with bands from five other states. They’ve appeared everywhere from Miami to Memphis to Chicago and wowed ‘em everywhere.”
     - Focus Magazine

“I’ve been to every one of these (National Amateur Blues) contests, and Lightnin’ Charlie might be the hottest guitarist they’ve ever had. He‘s got Stevie Ray Vaughan written all over him.”
     - ESP Magazine

“A unique combination of gutsy vocals, smoking  guitar, and high-energy showmanship. Lightnin’ Charlie was simply amazing - not because of the way he’d play his guitar behind his head or with his teeth, but because of the way he could make it sound. An exceptional guitarist.”
   - 1992 Carolina Blues Festival Newsletter

In 1993, Lightnin’ Charlie and the Upsetters stormed blues mecca, Beale Street in Memphis, and took home third place in the Blues Foundation’s National Unsigned Band Contest, beating out hundreds of bands from all over the world.

“If you want to see who SHOULD have won (the W.C. Handy award for amateur performance), check out Lightnin’ Charlie and the Upsetters, who hail from East Tennessee. During the after-show jam, the Upsetters held court for over an hour and nearly burned down the house.”
     - Memphis Music Monthly

“I can still remember the chills when Lightnin’ Charlie did Magic Sam’s “Everynight, Everyday”. A band that really needs to have an eye kept on them.”
     - Bob Vorel, Editor
     Blues Revue Quarterly

“Charlie Dolinger whipped up some 12-bar blues gems and put on a show that too many missed.”
     - Living Blues Magazine

In 1994, on the heels of their triumph at Memphis, Lightnin’ Charlie and the Upsetters was signed to Hipshake Records for a one-record deal. Their debut CD, “Lightnin’ Charlie and the Upsetters”, was a good representation of the band, wicked blues and butt-rockin’ originals. It was recorded at Daxwood Recording Studio in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a funky little studio that their manager (and owner of Hipshake Records) had used before. They cut the record live-to-tape, the band playing together, with only a couple of overdubs. The entire CD was recorded and mixed in a day and a half, and was taken to Nashville to be mastered by a man named Randy Kling, who had mastered discs by a number of notable artists. But one artist Kling had worked with, in particular, caught the attention of Lightnin’ Charlie.
“We took it (the CD) to Randy Kling in Nashville to be mastered. I don’t know how our manager hooked up with him, but he had a great reputation and had mastered a ton of records put out in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s. It seemed every truck-stop cassette tape we’d buy on the road was mastered by Randy Kling. So we’re in his studio, and I’m looking at the pictures on the wall, and here’s a picture of Big Red, the RCA mobile recording truck, which was a gigantic, red bread truck, parked on the lawn at the back of Graceland. I asked Randy about it and he said that he was the engineer for the infamous ‘Jungle Room Sessions’ at Graceland in ‘76, when RCA sent it’s mobile unit to record Elvis in his den (the ’Jungle Room’ ). The album ‘Recorded Live On Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee’, which was a better title for the record than ‘Recorded In Elvis‘ Den‘, was recorded by Randy Kling! So now I’m in hog-heaven and Randy’s telling me all about mixing Elvis’ ‘68 TV Special, and living next door to Roy Orbison, and I’m having a ball and wanting to hurry up and cut another record so I can come back here to hang out with Randy Kling!”

The record sold well, received lots of radio airplay, and along with the reputation of their live show, caused an international stir.

“One of the most popular live blues bands around, and a must for all the major blues festivals.”
     - Blues and Rhythm Magazine
      England 1994

“In the ‘90’s, many young musicians who are taken with the blues give it an honest try, yet capture only  style, not substance. But Lightnin’ Charlie, live and on this record, deliver the real goods: deep feeling, power and spontaneous fun.”
     - Bob Margolin
     Alligator recording artist
     Guitarist, Muddy Waters Band

“Passionate, rootsy style and unique showmanship.”
     - Metro Spotlight

“One of the best new recordings I’ve heard in some time.”
     - Blues Revue Quarterly

Released overseas, Lightnin’ Charlie’s debut CD received rave reviews in such respected foreign press publications as “Il Blues” and is a regular on the play list of Europe’s longest-running blues radio programmer, Eduardio Fassio.


“A dramatic performer, Lightnin’ Charlie sang with the gritty panache of Howling Wolf and played the guitar with the dynamism and flair of Jimi Hendrix.”
     - Style Magazine

“Lightnin’ Charlie and the Upsetters are one of those bands that you need to see now so you can tell your kids, ‘I saw them back in my college days’. Once you’ve seen Charlie play the guitar with his teeth and every other way but normal, and participate in the overwhelming crowd response, you’ll be hooked.”
     - Highland Cavalier

“Lightnin’ looked disreputably cool, sang like Howling Wolf, while the rhythm section smoked behind him. Displaying exquisite timing and dynamics, tonal variety and electric communication, the small band put out big sound and feeling on blistering blues.”
     - Style Magazine

“Bo Diddley on acid.”
     - Johnson City Press

Lightnin’ Charlie and the Upsetters have been featured at the Memphis Blues Festival, the Bull Durham Blues Festival, the Chicago Blues Festival, the Carolina Blues Festival, and many others.

Lightnin’ Charlie and the Upsetters have appeared on television and radio, as well as at roadhouses, juke joints, fairs, parties, weddings, receptions, charity benefits, nursing homes, senior citizens’ centers, marriage proposals, high school reunions, showrooms, nightclubs, baseball stadiums, and dance halls all across the United States and Canada.

Lightnin’ Charlie has appeared with: B.B. King, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Koko Taylor, Rod Piazza, Charlie Musselwhite, Tinsley Ellis, Anson Funderburgh, Dr. John, the J. Geils Band, Kenny Neal, the Kinsey Report, Marcia Ball, Magic Slim, Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials, R.L. Burnside, Chubby Carrier, John Jackson,  Big Jack Johnson, Yank Rachell, Rufus Thomas, Bob Margolin, Mike Morgan, Eddie Shaw, Bobby Blue Bland, Jim Thackery, Ann Rabson, and Albert Collins, to name a few. He has also appeared with some notable non-blues artists such as Hootie and the Blowfish, Kenny Chesney and Garth Brooks, who opened for Charlie!

In 1997, Lightnin’ Charlie and the Upsetters released their second CD, “Don’t Touch That Dial”. The album was recorded at Classic Recording Studio in Bristol, Virginia on a mixing console that was built by Chet Atkins for RCA Studio C in Nashville in the 1960’s. This console was a favorite of many legendary artists, including Elvis Presley, who recorded on it throughout the 1960’s & '70's. The eclectic “Don’t Touch That Dial” featured ten originals and received immediate airplay on a variety of radio formats, internationally and in the states. And it kept the boys out on the road, doing what they do best…making music.

“Lightnin’ Charlie mixes his hip influences with his own fire and personality to make a record that is fresh, fun, and easy to enjoy. Clever originals and cool covers.”
     - Bob Margolin
     Alligator recording artist
     Guitarist, Muddy Waters Band


“Funny original songs such as “You’re The Boss (With Hot Sauce)”, a romping boogie stomp with hilarious words and solid guitar work abound. A send-up of the Elvis hit “Burning Love” reveals a knack for doing good knock-offs; Lightnin’ Charlie even sounds like the King sometimes. Another high point is his version of Hank Sr.’s ”Jambalaya”, with a chicken-scratched guitar line working wonders with the rhythm. With such good originals and the added plus of tasteful covers, this is a powerful release.”
     - Blues Revue Quarterly


In 1997, Charlie married his dream girl, Beth, and they have been blessed with two beautiful baby boys, Sidney and Sam. Slowed down slightly by the responsibilities of a family, Charlie has continued to play music full-time, sometimes with his band, sometimes as a solo (which has garnered him more high praise and rave reviews from the ‘unplugged’ crowd), but has curtailed his traveling a bit.

“I am Mister Mom!”, Lightnin’ proudly proclaims. “My wife is a physical therapist, and she works days, Monday thru Friday. I play nights and weekends and I take care of the boys every day. I have since the day they were born. And folks at my gigs often ask me why my eyes are so red! They’re only 18 months apart and both still in diapers, so it gets a little crazy sometimes. But they’re the most wonderful blessing in this world, and I wouldn’t trade a minute of our time together for anything. I’m proud to say that my kids haven’t been in daycare at all in their life, and we don‘t plan for them to be. I’m not knocking parents who have to put their kids in daycare so that they can work, we’re just very fortunate to have a schedule that can work around them. Our boys are our number one priority. And I’m not campaigning for any medals, either, we’re just old-fashioned, I guess. We’re throwbacks to a day when people got married, had kids, and took care of them. In that order. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Like Cool Hand Luke said, ‘I’ve got my mind right!‘ And, you know, I really have a lot of babysitting experience…I’ve been a bandleader for twenty years!”

2005 saw Lightnin’ Charlie riding the wave of his brand new CD that, according to Charlie, is his "masterpiece". It featured new sidemen and special guests, big band, small ensemble, and solo acoustic cuts. The new CD, titled “A New Leaf", received rave reviews worldwide and helped to reinvent Lightnin' Charlie. Dig this buzz, cuz'...

"The best blues-based CD I've ever heard, including all the classic blues recordings. Every record has some deficiency, but not this one. Listening to A New Leaf from beginning to end is truly a musical experience."

                                                     - Ron Baisden, Blue Rapture

"A powerful, polished and fresh original release. Atomic-powered hybrid music, somewhere between classic rock 'n' roll and Chicago blues. Vibrant remakes and superb originals."

"A stellar release. "A New Leaf" shines as bright and bold as autumn colors. Contains so many great cuts, it hard to pick out one or two as standouts."

                                                     - Joe Tennis, Bristol Herald-Courier

"Sheer magnificence. The boppin' tunes on "A New Leaf" could bring joy to watching paint dry."

                                                     - Josh Mancuso, News & Neighbor

Lightnin' Charlie says of "A New Leaf", "It's by far the best record I've ever done. It represents me and the band very well. It's us. It's the record that has taken me twenty-one years in the business to make and is the record that will take us to the next level in the business."

Lightnin’ Charlie now performs concerts as a solo, with his band The Upsetters, and with his vocal group Charisma. Charisma is a three-piece vocal group consisting of alto, bass, and tenor, while Lightnin' sings lead and plays guitar and piano. Lightnin' is partial to Charisma's beautiful tenor - it's his wife Beth. Lightnin' Charlie and Charisma perform a wide variety of original and traditional gospel songs and hymns. Charlie explains, “Charisma is the Greek word that’s translated as ‘gifts’ throughout  the New Testament. Divine gratuity - free gifts from God. That’s what we are and what we do, musically. My family is everything to me, and is one of God's greatest gifts to me, so we thought Charisma was a good and proper name for the group. It all comes from God’s grace and was given to us freely. And we're trying to give it back.”  This is the vocal group that performs all the background vocals on Lightnin's new CD, "A New Leaf".

Charlie and his wife Beth are members of  Grace Baptist Church in Johnson City, Tennessee and sing in the choir, where according to Charlie, "I'm the worst singer in that whole bunch - we have singers and musicians in our church that are really dynamite. I'm just thankful that they let a squawler like me be a part of something so good and so spirit-filled. Our pastor is a wonderful man named Elbert Charpie, but everyone calls him 'Beaver'. He has helped me in so many ways - in my walk as a Christian, in my study of the bible, he's always been there for me. Beaver and his kids are all terrific singers and musicians too - he even taught me how to breath correctly while singing - I'd been doing it wrong my whole life. Breathing begins at forty, or at least it did for me! He's got a great study-in-the-Word website, hosts mine, and is, by far, the best thing ever to come out of the state of Alabama!" 

Lightnin' Charlie performed several unique concerts this past year as a musical triple-threat - Lightnin' Charlie acoustic/solo, Lightnin' Charlie acoustic with Charisma, and Lightnin' Charlie with the full electric band, the Upsetters. Charlie explains, " I've played a lot of concerts and private parties where I open the show as a solo on acoustic guitar, playing classic country and rock 'n' roll, and then bring out Charisma, playing acoustic gospel and folk songs, and then bring out the Upsetters, playing our rhythm and blues and rockabilly stuff. It's a one-of-a-kind show not to be missed, and concert promoters say they get three great acts for the price of one. Or maybe two!" Speaking of his musical family affair, Charlie quips, "It's not many men who get to go to work with their wife. It's not many men who'd want to! But for me, it's the greatest. We bring our kids to the shows too, if it's practical, but it's getting harder and harder to keep our four-year old Sam off the stage! He's just like his Daddy - he's not a chip-off-the-old-block, he's a ham-off-the-old-hock!" 

Charlie is currently working on a new gospel CD that is slated for release in 2007. "I've been writing and working on songs for the new album, which is really going to be a lot of fun to do, and it'll be a very heavy record when God's done with it. I'm just trying to stay out of His way. It's tentatively titled 'Born Again', and it's another tour-de-force CD like 'A New Leaf', but with the Ultimate in subject matter. We've already got two CD's worth of material - so we plan to release 'Born Again' first, which will be the same type of music that Lightnin' Bugs are accustomed to - rockabilly, blues, and soul, but with a Gospel message. The next CD, tentatively titled 'The Good News', will lean more toward the acoustic, folky side, featuring a lot of my vocal group Charisma's harmony songs."
 
2006 has been quite a pivotal year for Lightnin' Charlie. He has gone from playing mostly in night clubs and bars to playing prestigious performance centers, theatres, churches and nursing homes. Nursing homes? "If you told me a year ago that I would be playing more gigs than ever, better gigs than ever, and not playing in a single bar, I would've told you to click your heels together and follow the yellow brick road home kid, 'cause this ain't Oz. You see, I play music for a living and always thought that I had to take whatever work came my way to support my family, my band, and myself. I didn't want to travel like a gypsy wildman as in the old days, and locally, bars and clubs are where live bands played. So I was stuck there and hating it. But after 'A New Leaf' came out, I decided to practice what this song preached and truly turn over a new leaf. I took a leap of faith and decided not to book bars anymore. I trusted God to put me in a better place. I figured the One who hung the stars in the sky could certainly get me gigs away from the bottle-throwing drunks and music haters, if I'd let Him. And so in January of '06, when a friend of mine, the activities director of a local nursing home, asked me to perform at her facility, I said yes. And that changed everything. I was amazed at the response to me and my music. Again, if a year ago, you asked me about playing nursing homes, I would've said that's a good, charitable thing to do, but not something that I would be interested in doing. After all, I'm a professional musician and world-class entertainer. A professional touring musician playing nursing homes would be a guy who had 'hit the skids', or so I thought. But how wrong I was. The folks in these facilities, mostly folks belonging to the 'Greatest Generation', are folks born during the Great Depression, who fought and won the Great Second World War, and are the sweetest, strongest, most precious people I know. And they turned out to be the greatest audience for my music I'd ever played for. Ever. What I call 'my music' is actually their music. The music from the '40's, '50's, and '60's that I've been making a living with all these years, is the stuff of their youth. The music and musicians I've loved since I was a kid is the music that they made into hits and the musicians that they made into stars in the first place. And they treated me like I was a star - they rocked and they rolled, they danced and clapped and sang along. We laughed, cried, and sang together. It was unbelievable. I didn't have to change a thing musically either - I played the same repertoire as always - rock 'n' roll, classic country, rhythm and blues, boogie woogie and gospel. The only thing I had to watch out for was to not play too many slow songs - they wanted to rock! And the fact that I was being allowed to musically "minister" to, or serve, this Greatest Generation, the people responsible for my kids not being Japanese or German citizens today, and have the time of my life doing it, was awesome. Compare this holy experience to the decades of playing for drunks screaming "SKYNYRD!", and you'll understand why I feel like I'm the luckiest guy in the world. It was wonderful, it was a revelation, and it was God. My friend the activities director then asked me two big questions: one, if she could book me (and pay me) to come back next month and two, if it would be okay if she called the facility next door and told the activities director there about me. Two big questions with two easy little answers - YES and YES! Now, eleven months later, I'm performing at over THIRTY health care facilities and loving it, playing good music for good people, uplifting their spirits, while they uplift mine. It's a win-win deal. Everybody wins - the residents love it, the staffs at the facilities love it, the families of the residents love it, I love it, my family loves it - I'm home before dark, and I believe God loves it because I'm using the gifts He gave me to do good for others and myself. Seeing someone who might have served with General Patton (and who, due to Alzheimer's, might not recognize their own children) singing every word of a Hank Williams song is what it's all about for me and what I believe music is for - to minister to the spirit, to calm the savage beast. The legendary singing cowboy Roy Rogers, recalling his first auto trip to depression-era California in 1930, said, "One night we drew a small crowd to listen to me sing with my father and cousin. They were people like us, camping out and mostly pretty hungry. You could tell most of them hadn't smiled in a long, long time. But now they smiled, listening to the music. It made them happy; kept the dark away for a little bit. That's what I learned that night: I learned what music is for." Well, Lightnin' Charlie finally learned in 2006, after only twenty-two years of being a professional musician, what music is for. Fredrick Buechner said, "You know you're doing God's will when your greatest joy and the world's greatest need meet." Added to this joy is the fact that there is absolutely no work involved for me - I don't have to haul, set up, and tear down amps and a sound system. I come in playing my acoustic guitar and singing. I also play the facility's ever-present piano and sing without amplification. So I'm never too loud, and more importantly, I'm able to stroll around and sing to, for, and with my audience, rather than standing in one spot behind a microphone and singing at them. This allows me to book two, three, and even four of these one-hour shows in a single day. And I can even bring my kids to work with me. What a miracle! It shows me what can happen when we let go and let God." 

So nowadays, Lightnin' Charlie is busier than ever playing concerts in churches, performing arts centers, music festivals, nursing homes and assisted living centers, private parties and reunions, on national and international television and radio, by himself, with his wife Beth, and with the Upsetters, playing to people who love him and his music. Charlie says, quoting James Dean from the movie 'Giant', "I'm a rich boy - I'm a rich 'un!"

Some other notable happenings for Lightnin' Charlie in 2006 include: 
   * playing full gospel concerts at churches
   * making the cover of Marquee Magazine
   * being voted "Favorite Musician/Group In The Mountain South" by the readers of
     Marquee Magazine
   * performing concerts at prestigious performing arts centers such as the Paramount
     Center For The Arts, the Niswonger Performing Arts Center, and the Lincoln Theater
   * performing on national television on PBS-TV's syndicated "Song Of The Mountains"
     concert series
   * releasing a live concert DVD "Lightnin' Charlie By Request"
   * playing a concert inside a local prison
   * having several songs from "A New Leaf" played on radio stations all over the world
     and being played regularly on XM satellite radio
   
Lightnin’ Charlie, when asked to sum up his life and career in music, tells it like this, “Every dream I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times. I learned very early in life that, without a song, the day would never end. Without a song, the road would never bend. Without a song, man ain’t got a friend. Without a song. So I’ll keep singing a song."