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Charlie's CD! "Subversive Epiphany"

 

 As you might have guessed Charlie flies well below the radar of conventional commerce, so if you'd like some of his music drop an email to:

(This address isn't click-able to foil the spam robots.)

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The musical world of Charlie Robertson...

 From Doug Spears' Traveling Road Journal 5/011/2009 @ Gamblefest:

"I stuck around to hear Charlie's set. He is just one of those amazing songwriters who can see every little thing from every possible perspective and picks the one that should be obvious, but which you hadn't considered to write about. It just knocks your socks off. He is also given to unpredictable commentary that makes you laugh until you hurt. You shouldn't miss any chance to hear Charlie Robertson. "

New England bard Chuck Hall said this in the credits from his "The St Simon's Tapes":
"I'd like to thank...Charlie Robertson for relieving me of the pressure of writing the most amazing songs ever"

From legendary Flick Coffeehouse staple and award winning producer George Blackwell:
"Forged in a furnace of over 40 years in writing, Charlie Robertson takes unlikely people and situations and infuses them with soul and humor and turns them into remarkable works of art."

In the "Dalai Lama's Birthday" a man recovering from depression describes his German therapist. ....
"He drums his fingers on his desk and scribbles out reports
Addicted to the process ... bored with the results."

In "Life In Parentheses" an ambitious young nail-tech describes her clueless boyfriend Travis as not being able to spell GED but:
" .... he's hard as nails and he's wired on dope and he smells like lust and motel soap."

In "Roy Orbison" a jilted Lothario takes an imaginary car ride with Roy:
"Past places where the laws don't care ... the Nuns flip the bird and the whores quote
Shakespeare"
In "Wild Frontier" a couple trying to make it through the storms of romance implore:
"Stay with me through the hard parts .. .it gets better from here
Love is a coward asleep in the trees and the leaves sure turned early this year"

In "Honey Mustard" the story of a loveable peep show manager's whirlwind romance
with an adult film star:
"They don't serve Velveeta in a 4 star restaurant
And love's not what you settle for ... when you can't get what you want"

In "17/26" the topography of the city bus routes in North Jacksonville, Florida are
annotated with:

"They name elementary schools for mysterious women on the North side of this town
They sound like Pentecostal bombshells with Christian cleavage never letting their
defenses down"

In "Our Mutual Friend" the 'friend' of concern being communicated is as much the
town the friend lives in as the friend himself:
"He can see his father painting pictures of his mother in a bathing suit...circa 1962
When they lived in a big fine house with a wrap around porch on Algonquin Avenue
Mama looked like a movie queen with her hair jacked up and a gap toothed grin
A tendency to mumble in ninth grade Spanish ... a black Continental and a taste for gin"

This is just a taste of the musical world of Charlie Robertson .... a manic depressive
mission home worker brooding over a lost love .... an old Archbishop slipping into
the early stages of dementia .... an apocryphal father and daughter street singing duo
in Coastal Mississippi ... a man returning home from a war whose only wish is to
dance again with his sweetheart Corrine ... a person's far from paranoid fear of an
ominous specter that follows him called "The Elegant Stranger".

Set to memorable arrangements framed with simple but bizarre chord voicings ... heart
felt and subtly inventive vocals and populated with characters whose stories are told
by no other and like no other ... the songs of Charlie Robertson are one of a kind pieces
that have been spread by word of mouth in whispers, shouts, and standing ovations in
the darndest places .... The Raven Gallery in Detroit.. .. Earl of Old Town in Chicago ....
The Last Resort in Athens, Ga .... The Great Southeast in Atlanta ... Exit Inn in Nashville
.... Red Mule in Norfolk .... Lion's Share in Miami .... Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill and
dozens of colleges and universities in a career that started in the early seventies and
ended abruptly in the late seventies. Why? .... He says music had become " .. about 7%
of what I was doing so I let my living be something else so music could get the 1 00%
it deserved." He has continued to perform at quality venues and be in demand.

He's opened show and shared bills with Townes Van Zandt, Jimmy Buffett, Michael
Smith, Steve Martin, Tom Paxton, Odetta, Taj Mahal, Steve Goodman, Guy Clark,
Waylon Jennings, Doc and Merle Watson, The Newgrass Revival, Roy Bookbinder,
and was part of Gamble Rogers hand picked traveling Florida Folk Revue named
"Cassadaga Stories" which included Will McLean, Paul Champion, Jim Ballew,
Teri DiSario, Elizabeth Corrigan and Bob Patterson.

We share the same language, but Charlie Robertson hands it back to us in a way that
we've never heard in stories of people we know but nobody else sings the praises of
.... he is brilliant. .. exasperating ... fascinating ... challenging ... the master of heartbreaking
hilarity and uneasy listening music and well worth an evening of your life! !!! !

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Charlie's Gigs...

Theater of Memory - Gainesville FL Saturday October 21st - 7:30 - 9:30 pm get your tickets here! https://www.theatreofmemory.org/events ****** Come hear Charlie  at "Coffee Talk" at  The Melrose Center! 11 am to 1pm.  Thursday, Dec 21st, 2023 308 ST Rd 26, Melrose, FL ! https://the-melrose-center.org/