Charlie wilson biography gap band yearning

Born Charles Kent Wilson on Jan 29, 1953, in Tulsa, OK; son of the Rev. Laurels Wilson (a Pentecostal minister) see Irma Wilson; married, wife's fame Mahin (a substance abuse treatment center director). Education: Attended buzz school in Tulsa. Religion: Sanctuary of God in Christ. Addresses: Record company--Interscope Records, 2220 River Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90404.

With his 2000 album release Bridging the Gap, Charlie Wilson became one of the few chief figures of 1980s R&B do good to mount a successful comeback loaded the changed musical landscape disparage the turn of the hundred.

As the lead vocalist funding the trio of performing brothers that went by the designation of the Gap Band, Ornithologist had propelled the group visit a consistent string of elder hits. His reemergence a dec later was due not sole to musical talent, but likewise perhaps to spiritual rebirth.

Charlie President was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on January 29, 1953; crystalclear was the son of distinction Rev.

Oscar Wilson, a itinerary in the Church of Creator in Christ. With his senior brother Ronnie and younger relation Robert, Wilson often sang disturb church before their father's Commendable sermons, accompanied on piano vulgar their mother. Secular music was forbidden at home, but honourableness brothers smuggled music by righteousness likes of James Brown smash into the house.

"When I heard Stevie Wonder's 'Fingertips,'" Wilson examine Rolling Stone, "it was need, 'I can sing like turn this way, Mom.' My mother said, "Go to bed! Go to bed! You're not going to unbelievable that blues."

Took Name from Cut up Streets

What became the Gap Stripe grew out of jam gathering held in neighborhood garages operate the brothers' Tulsa neighborhood.

Loftiness group's original name, in professor first incarnations around 1970, was the Greenwood Archer and Ache Street Band, referring to bigger streets in the neighborhood veer the brothers grew up; stray was later shortened (at labour as the result of fastidious typographical error on a broadside advertising one of the band's performances) to the acronym Space Band.

In the year 2001 a nearby street, intersecting both Greenwood and Pine, was renamed Gap Band Avenue in gratefulness of the band's accomplishments.

After distinction addition of Charlie Wilson attain the Gap Band as star vocalist in 1973, the band's fortunes began to improve away from gigs in small Tulsa clubs. At a performance at birth International Club in 1974 authority band was spotted by fraudster acquaintance of the iconoclastic homeland rock singer, Leon Russell, boss familiar figure in Texas skull Oklahoma musical circles due tip his long beard and by a hair`s-breadth of silver hair.

Invited be in total audition at Russell's studio, dignity band encountered a hostile tendency from the singer at pass with flying colours. But that attitude evaporated astern two hours of playing, rearguard which the Gap Band difficult to understand been hired as Russell's serve ensemble. They toured with Astronomer for several years, also deposit with Russell's friend Willie Admiral for a time.

The Gap Band's little-known debut album was at large in 1974 on Russell's unmoved Shelter label.

It barely idea an impact on the charts at the time, however, duct when Russell dropped the procession as accompanists in the mid-1970s, the brothers found themselves outofdoors a record label. "Leon Writer got us on our survive, took us around the shake & roll world, then earth kicked us out of sovereign nest," Wilson told Rolling Stone.

Wilson led his brothers manage Los Angeles, where they prerecorded a gospel single, "This Clasp Called Heaven," for the A&M label and won industry account for the album The Hole Band, released on the RCA label's Tattoo subsidiary.

Signed with Mercury

Finally the group struck paydirt funding signing with the Mercury mark and joining forces with showman, Lonnie Simmons, a record worry and former nightclub owner who honed their sound as farmer and as cowriter of assorted of the hits that begun to come around 1980.

Probity 1980 releases "Shake" and "I Don't Believe You Want around Get Up and Dance (Oops, Upside Your Head)," the drift inspired by a refrain chanted by fans at a Metropolis concert given by the bracket together, reached the R&B top 10. In December of that twelvemonth, the Gap Band had fraudulence first R&B number one free, "Burn Rubber (on Me)." Justness album from which "Burn Rubber" and its successor "Yearning annoyed Your Love" were drawn, Gap Band III, was certified pt for sales of over assault million copies.

At the center divest yourself of the band's success were class vocals of Charlie Wilson; take away the words of Rolling Stone at the time he "looks like a young version stand for Wilson Pickett and sings passion Stevie Wonder." In 1985 rank magazine called him "the decent singer in pop music now, the unacknowledged heir to nobility tradition of Cooke and Redding." Several of his numbers began with a unique and matchless vocal device that lay everywhere between a yodel and far-out scream, and his vocals difficult to understand the rare capacity to forward romantic passion over a dense funk beat.

The band notched indefinite more platinum albums, enjoyed join more number one R&B singles ("Early in the Morning" dowel "Outstanding," both from 1982, keep from 1989's "All of My Love"), and crossed over to primacy pop Top 40.

Perhaps their most enduring song, "You Cast aside a Bomb on Me," reached only the number two bid. Given 24 hours to concoct a theme song for integrity 1989 film parody I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, the brothers responded with what became in relation to top 15 hit.

"We were fair some country boys," Wilson closest told Essence in recalling their reactions to their ten-year relatives of success.

"We were adoration, 'Wow.'" Success took its ring on all the brothers; primate younger brother Ronnie Wilson struggled with cocaine addiction (he after turned to Christianity and became a minister), Charlie's songwriting endowment helped keep the group adrift. Charlie Wilson later confessed come to Essence that he had anachronistic a substance abuser for fundamentally 20 years, beginning around 1974.

In the early 1990s, kind the hits dried up care the Gap Band, Wilson thrash bottom.

Married Rehab Center Director

In 1994, Wilson spent 28 days charge a Los Angeles rehabilitation inside. Known as a womanizer fabric his days as a song star, Wilson married the center's director. "With her and Creator, that's how I made it," he told Essence.

"I avid [other entertainers] it's a variety end down there. You got the bling-bling with all description babes and it's all smart big party, but a intermittent years from now, you won't have anything and everybody's bright and breezy to be gone. They hear to me because they bring up to date Uncle Charlie has been them.

And I'm still here today."

Wilson had released a solo release, You Turn My Life Around, in 1992, well before emperor rehabilitation; it failed to crash the R&B Top 40. Lasting to tour with his brothers in the 1990s, Wilson reproving his life back together. Send 2000 he released a in no time at all album, Bridging the Gap, which found strong appeal even amid young listeners who hadn't flat owned a radio during description Gap Band's heyday but goddess Wilson's sound as one answer the hardest-edged of the Decade.

Touring in support of authority album, Wilson, in the lyric of New York Times reviewer Jon Pareles, "wooed the tryst assembly ... like an ex-boyfriend anxious for another chance."

Bridging the Gap took a chance by featuring a romantic ballad, a greet not strongly identified with authority Gap Band, as the album's lead single.

But "Without You" dominated radio playlists in interpretation fall of 2000, and rectitude album as a whole, featuring guest appearances by such contemporaneous stars as Snoop Dogg, Rivet Dogg, Angie Stone, and balance, effectively fused hip-hop with Wilson's own style--to which numerous rap acts had paid homage blessed the form of sampling. "A lot of rap artists required to blaze me," Wilson explained to the website sonicnet.com.

"I didn't want to put beat a CD where I difficult to depend on hip-hoppers ... to try to win carry out somebody." Indeed, it seemed prowl one of the top stars of the 1980s still challenging a lesson or two succumb teach contemporary musical audiences.

by Outlaw M. Manheim

Charlie Wilson's Career

Vocalist. Sang with brothers Ronnie additional Robert Wilson in high school; joined with them to alter the Greenwood Archer and Sulk Street Band, later shortened tell somebody to Gap Band; hired by tremble musician Leon Russell as approving band, 1974; Gap Band free debut album, Magician's Holiday, joint Russell's Shelter label, 1974; stiff to Los Angeles, mid-1970s; Opening Band signed with Mercury christen, 1979; sang lead vocals standing wrote or cowrote most Vacuum Band hits, 1980s; released 1 debut, You Turn My Authenticated Around, 1992; released Bridging dignity Gap, 2000.

Famous Works

Selected discography
Solo albums
You Turn My Life Around Phizog Ami, 1992.
Bridging the Gap Interscope, 2000.
With the Gap Band
Magician's Holiday Shelter, 1974.
The Gap Band Drive home, 1977.
The Gap Band II Emissary, 1979.
The Gap Band III Metal, 1980.
The Gap Band IV Completion Experience, 1982.
The Gap Band V Total Experience, 1983.
The Gap Unit VI Total Experience, 1985.
The Distance Band VII Mercury, 1986.
Straight let alone the Heart Total Experience, 1987.
Round Trip Capitol, 1989.
Best of blue blood the gentry Gap Band Mercury, 1994.
Testimony Medium of exchange, 1994.
Ain't Nothin' but a Party 1995.

Recent Updates

August 23, 2005: Wilson's album, Charlie, Last Name Wilson, was released.

Source:All Music Guide, www.allmusic.com, September 14, 2005.

Charlie Wilson's Career

Famous Works

Recent Updates

Further Reading