#1356: Midnite Blues by Charlie Rich
Peak Month: May 1962
9 weeks on Vancouver’s CFUN chart
Peak Position #19
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube.com: “Midnite Blues”
Lyrics:: “Midnite Blues”
Charles Allan Rich was born in 1932 in eastern Arkansas, in the village of Colt (population 267 in 1930, and 378 in 2017). His father was a hard-drinking sharecropper and his mother was a Bible-thumper. From the third grade he studied piano. As he grew into his youth, Charles became an athlete and played football. He was also raised on gospel, country, jazz and blues, and learned to play the saxophone. After graduating from high school he began to study music in college. During the Korean War he was drafted into the United States Air Force and posted in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma Rich joined a group called the Velvetones who played jazz and R&B. Alan Cackett writes that Charlie Rich’s group played in “hard-nosed joints.” Cackett explains, “A hard-nosed joint is one in which the musicians perform behind poultry wire for their safety.”