Wednesday, 17 March 2010

Radio presenter, musicologist and writer (20 February 1942 – 17 March 2010), noted for his book The Sound of the City, his promotion of world music, and for discovering and promoting Dire Straits, Graham Parker, Elvis Costello and Ian Dury.

Charlie Gillett


It wasn't until I started reading the obituaries that I realised how many things associated with music that I really enjoy have some link to Charlie Gillett, who passed away after a long illness on 17 March 2010, aged 68.

I did, however, have a fair idea of who he was, though that came through his writing and musical anthologising rather than his work as a radio presenter.

He was also, as the photo accompanying the obituary in Britain’s Telegraph suggests, the inspiration behind the CD shelves in Hughesy's office. Having gazed enviously at Charlie's set-up, I decided against a similar multilayer sliding arrangement because
(a) I didn't have that many CDs,
(b) Constructing something that would hold that many CDs would be viewed as a waste of money by certain co-residents of the Little House of Concrete and
(c) Had I attempted to acquire enough CDs to fill those shelves I'd be getting it in the neck for buying too many CDs.
Still, a man can look on in envy and dream....



Charlie Gillett first rose to prominence with The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll which mightn't have been the first book written about the history of rock & roll, but was one of the first to tackle the subject from an academic viewpoint rather than a fan or critic's perspective.

Hardly surprising, as the published version was based on his MA thesis at New York's Columbia University.

I knew of The Sound of the City long before I owned a copy.

Had I realized what I was missing - the work is an invaluable source when you're looking at the strands that wove together to make the hybrid beast we came to know as rock & roll, and subsequently simply as rock - I wouldn't have missed buying the copy of his second book, the long out of print Making Tracks: The History of Atlantic Records. I saw a copy on the shelves of a convenience store in Townsville's North Ward in 1974, and while money was tight at the time, in hindsight I should've bought it then, as I haven't seen a copy since.

By the 1970s he was presenting a show called Honky Tonk on Radio London, and was part of the writers' collective that founded the monthly Let It Rock, which may have lacked some of the fan fervour of ZigZag, but made up for it in authoritative attention to detail. Wish I still had my copies...

Without those old copies of Let It Rock or a subscription to Rock’s Back Pages I can't verify that Charlie conducted the interview with Dr John that was my introduction to some of the names credited on Dr John's Gumbo.

A Gillett-compiled album Another Saturday Night produced a minor hit in the shape of Johnnie Allen's Cajun version of Chuck Berry's Promised Land but also included the first version I'd heard of the Bobby Charles classic Before I Grow Too Old.

British fans had their first exposure to Dire Straits, Graham Parker and Elvis Costello through demos played on Gillett's Sunday morning Honky Tonk.

While much of the later Dire Straits material wasn't quite my cup of tea, those first few times I heard Sultans of Swing are indelibly etched on my consciousness, and while my interest in Parker's work tapered after he parted company with The Rumour, I remain a huge fan of Elvis Costello to this day.

But if there's one thing that apparently set him apart from most of his mainstream radio presenter colleagues it was the fact that Gillett only played music that he actually liked, and in that regard was one of the prototypes for the people who present their own shows on community radio, playing (largely) selections from their personal collections.
As such, I can claim him as, more or less, the spiritual godfather of Fools Gold and High Class Music/Just Another Sunday, the two weekly shows I presented on the local community radio station.

Like most community radio presenters I went seeking interesting new material to play over the airwaves, but not many of us searched as far and wide as Gillett, whose discoveries included Youssou N'Dour, Salif Keita and Portuguese fado singer Mariza.

When it comes to the I play what I like and I like what I play mindset, nothing sums it up better than Gillett's rejection of the offer of the presenter's chair for the long-running BBC TV music show The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Now why on earth, you may be wondering, would someone knock back a chance like that?

Simple.

Given that the position would involve interviewing the likes of Yes and Emerson Lake & Palmer, Charlie Gillett felt that he wouldn't have anything to discuss with them.

Says it all, doesn't it?
Says it all, doesn't it?

Says it all, doesn't it?