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Chizmo
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CD:
"Up All Night" with CHIZMO CHARLES!
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Pittsburgh
Blues Society Review
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Chizmo Charles every Wednesday!!
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W. Liberty Ave. Dormont, PA
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Chizmo Charles is Pittsburgh's Senior Statesman of the Blues!
75+ years young and baby, he still got it!
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05/13/2005
'Chizmo' sings the blues, spends half century entertaining crowds
By Julie Toye , For the Herald-Standard
"Chizmo" Charles Anderson has earned his reputation
as "Pittsburgh's Senior Statesman of the Blues" for
good reason.
Anderson has been singing all styles of music to captive audiences
for more than half a century. It might have been 60 or 70 years,
but Anderson was busy being Pittsburgh's third-best jitterbug
dancer through his late 20s.
With dancing as his passion, the Polish
Hill/Lawrenceville native sang along at home to Billy Ekstein,
Joe Williams and Ray Charles records and got comfortable with
the songs.
He initially ignored musician friends who urged him to sing
with their bands. He didn't think he would like singing.
But Anderson found his nitch and second home when he stood on
stage to sing 50 years ago. He remembers his first night out
singing on Pittsburgh's North Side and the first song he sang
in public. He sang "Everyday I Have the Blues," with
drummer friend Eugene Betts' band.
"That's still a swinging song," Anderson said of the
1952 tune that opened his current day act at the Blues Caf?
on Pittsburgh's South Side.
Anderson laughed when he recalled that he had no idea what a
musician named Lefty in Betts' band meant when he asked what
key Anderson wanted the song played.
"I knew what a car key was," he said of the foreign
musical jargon that he learned over time. From that night, he
went on to perform with groups such as the Debonnaires and Unity,
a polka and country band, before making a name for himself in
the blues and R&B clubs.
"I've sat in with everyone in Pittsburgh," Anderson
concluded of the years in between. His vinyl musical influences
such as Ekstein, Charles, Lena Horne, Nancy Wilson, Tony Bennett
and Frank Sinatra helped prepare him for the next show and the
next band.
He began a seven-year stretch with The Mystic Knights in the
late 1980s and sang lead on a few tunes on the 1991 CD "Live
Blues Breakout." It included the song, "Spread Yourself
Around," featured with video of Anderson and the band in
a beer television commercial.
In 2003, Anderson's previously released and acclaimed CD, "Up
All Night," was reissued on Decade Records. The project
involved an impressive gathering of talent that included drummer
Ron "Byrd" Foster, acoustic pianist Dr. James Johnson,
acoustic bassist Bobby Boswell, Fender bassist Del Rey Reynolds,
lead/slide/rhythm guitarist/producer James M. Dougherty Jr.
and the late James King on harp.
"Up All Night" also included other former Mystic Knights,
Gil Snyder and drummer Tom Garner. Joining them were mighty
saxophonists Robbie Klein, Rick Modery and Kenny Blake, trumpet
player Danny Donohoe and background vocalistsChuck Beatty, Michelle
Michelle. New Jersey's Chris Franchese played rhythm guitar
on one song to round out Anderson's finely tuned 12-piece studio
band.
Following the CD reissue, Anderson toured the northeastern part
of the country and opened a few times for one of his idols,
blues legend B.C. King. It wasn't Carson Street, but New Englanders
baked him a 75th birthday cake, gave him Pittsburgh hugs by
proxy and posted his birthday pictures with them on their inn
Web sites.
These days Anderson plays with two R&B bands on a regular
basis. For the past 14 years, he has played the Saturday happy
hour at the Blues Cafe. Then, there's his Tuesday evening shows
at Station Square's Crawford Grill and his occasional shows
with just him singing along with a pianist.
He has received some radio airplay on public radio WYEP's Saturday
evening blues shows and weeknights on "Nightflight: The
Original Quiet Storm" aired on WLSW with host Ron Chavis.
It's easy to watch Anderson work and forget that he's not 60
anymore when he gets things bluesy and jumping with "Bed
Bug Boogie" or "Standing On Shakey Ground."
It's even so much easier to forget his age when he turns down
and volume with "Love Won't Let Me Leave," a song
reserved only for the real singers in the world such as Anderson
to sing from the heart.
Anderson is known for mingling with the crowd, singing from
the tables or audience and for getting hugs or pats on the back
from everyone walking by him.
He's well known for singing to the ladies or couples in the
audience. Audiences naturally focus full attention on him as
he works the room of wall-to-wall smiles on the rowdiest R&B
number or the prettiest of the softer ballads.
With his crowds, there's none of that distracting room chatter
that some artists experience when singing new or slow music
at half the usual volume.
National blues acts who play the Pittsburgh Blues Festival leave
town remembering his expert showmanship and his humor working
the largest audiences and venues the same way he does the small,
intimate clubs. Younger musicians learn invaluable lessons from
him on and off stage.
"Chizmo has a wonderful way of interacting with the audience.
He can make just about any situation work onstage," said
guitarist and bluesbiz.com editor Jim Hamel of what he has learned
first from being a fan and how from playing in the Tuesday night
band.
"He is a walking musical history lesson," Hamel added.
"Every day there is something new to learn from him. He
lived and worked through so many important periods in our musical
culture.
Hamel also described Anderson as the most fun singer a band
could want.
Blues lady Jill West also has nothing but heartfelt praises,
love and respect for Anderson.
"I was actually pretty terrible in the beginning,"
West said. "Chizmo was there early on in my career being
very supportive and very encouraging."
West said Anderson provided good constructive criticism on how
to improve her vocals with her band, Blues Attack, and helped
transform her show in the first-rate act that she and the band
are known as these days.
She admires Anderson's smooth ability to transition from one
musical genre to another without missing a beat. She also praised
him for jamming with everyone "from the pros, the rookies
to the wannabes" who gathered earlier in 2005 to pay tribute
to him following a physical attack on him by home invasion robbers.
Fellow act R&B/jazz singer Billy Price also has nothing
but utmost praise for Anderson.
"Chizmo is a great blues singer, a great entertainment
and most importantly, a nice man," Price said. "He
brings a big smile to my face every time I see him, which isn't
as often as I would like."
When the music at the Blues Cafe stops, Anderson talked about
his more recent return to the recording studio. He sings lead
on two songs written by arranger/producer Norman Nardini on
the upcoming release of Zack Wiesinger's first album.
Wiesinger is an 18-year-old guitar phenomenon who first took
the local blues scene by storm two years ago and joined West's
Blues Attack last year.
"Chiz is a Pittsburgh treasure," Nardini said. "He
is a fantastic, high-level singer."
Nardini thinks Anderson is "under recorded" and should
have had more opportunities to record. Nardini would like the
opportunity to produce Anderson's next CD.
Although Anderson has done little recording, Nardini said, "That
doesn't take away from who he is, and that is a great, incredible
singer."
As Anderson celebrates his golden anniversary as a singer and
his upcoming 78th birthday, he has no intention of cutting back
his hours singing. Instead, he said he would like to go in a
little different direction again.
"I can't do what I want," he said referring to the
limitations a singer who doesn't play an instrument sometimes
faces. Anderson would like to resume singing polkas, country
music or Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett standards.
"I'd love to sing 'Fly Me to the Moon.' That's a great
song, one of my favorites," he said. Anderson wants to
sing songs made famous by great singers he loves such as Ekstein,
Williams, Bennett, Sinatra and Nat King Cole.
However, some of Pittsburgh's best blues musicians backing him
don't seem eager or willing to go in those directions.
Surely, some already established polka or standard band would
welcome Anderson and his smooth, polished vocal talent to sit
in sometime.
There's a whole new crowd of women or couples out there who
deserve to have polkas or "Fly Me to the Moon" sung
to them in his trademark "up-close and personal" style,
and a whole new crowd of friends waiting to give him a hug or
part on the back as they pass by him.
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