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Charlie Feathers

Charlie Feathers

The hiccup-voiced rockabilly originator behind 'Tongue-Tied Jill' and 'Bottle to the Baby,' later canonized by Europe's rockabilly revivalists and praised by Greil Marcus.

APPLE MUSIC

A Man In Love

Charlie Feathers

About

MOODS · energetic · hiccup-vocal · raw · twangy · rural · vintage rockabilly · theatrical · quirky · honky-tonk · spirited · Southern · nostalgic

BIOGRAPHY

Charlie Feathers was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1932, one of six children of tenant farmers during the Great Depression. He began working at age ten and learned guitar from Junior Kimbrough, whom he called 'the greatest musician in the world.' He started as a session musician at Sun Studios before recording for Flip, Sun, Meteor and King Records. His best-known sides, including 'Peepin' Eyes,' 'Defrost Your Heart,' 'Tongue-Tied Jill' and 'Bottle to the Baby,' showcased a theatrical, hiccup-styled vocal delivery. Later albums New Jungle Fever (1987) and Honky Tonk Man (1988) featured his son Bubba Feathers on lead guitar. His final album, Charlie Feathers (1991), appeared on Elektra/Nonesuch's American Explorer series and drew praise from Robert Christgau and Greil Marcus, who called him 'a quirky, sometimes doggedly weird rockabilly survival.' He was inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame and featured on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour.

WHY THEY'RE COOL

Feathers' theatrical, hiccup-styled rockabilly vocals helped shape the genre's wilder edges and influenced later singers including Lux Interior of The Cramps. Largely overlooked in his own era, he became the first living artist embraced by European rockabilly revivalists in the early 1970s, and critics like Greil Marcus later championed his idiosyncratic style, calling his final album 'a quirky, sometimes doggedly weird rockabilly survival.'

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