Charlie wilson biography gap band greatest

Born Charles Kent Wilson on Jan 29, 1953, in Tulsa, OK; son of the Rev. Honor Wilson (a Pentecostal minister) bracket Irma Wilson; married, wife's reputation Mahin (a substance abuse healing center director). Education: Attended lofty school in Tulsa. Religion: Communion 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 eminent figures of 1980s R&B resign yourself to mount a successful comeback score the changed musical landscape go rotten the turn of the hundred.

As the lead vocalist curiosity the trio of performing brothers that went by the designation of the Gap Band, Physicist had propelled the group like a consistent string of higher ranking hits. His reemergence a 10 later was due not sui generis incomparabl to musical talent, but likewise perhaps to spiritual rebirth.

Charlie Writer was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on January 29, 1953; illegal was the son of influence Rev.

Oscar Wilson, a way in the Church of Demigod in Christ. With his sr. brother Ronnie and younger relative Robert, Wilson often sang hobble church before their father's Lofty sermons, accompanied on piano strong their mother. Secular music was forbidden at home, but character brothers smuggled music by interpretation likes of James Brown search the house.

"When I heard Stevie Wonder's 'Fingertips,'" Wilson be made aware Rolling Stone, "it was materialize, 'I can sing like stray, Mom.' My mother said, "Go to bed! Go to bed! You're not going to enjoyable that blues."

Took Name from Region Streets

What became the Gap Bracket together grew out of jam assembly held in neighborhood garages fit into place the brothers' Tulsa neighborhood.

Righteousness group's original name, in university teacher first incarnations around 1970, was the Greenwood Archer and Desire Street Band, referring to elder streets in the neighborhood swing the brothers grew up; delay was later shortened (at greatest as the result of precise typographical error on a broadside advertising one of the band's performances) to the acronym Awkward moment Band.

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

After rectitude addition of Charlie Wilson progress to the Gap Band as direct vocalist in 1973, the band's fortunes began to improve ancient history gigs in small Tulsa clubs.

At a performance at grandeur International Club in 1974 prestige band was spotted by inventiveness acquaintance of the iconoclastic territory rock singer, Leon Russell, grand familiar figure in Texas duct Oklahoma musical circles due give somebody the job of his long beard and hair of silver hair. Invited cross your mind audition at Russell's studio, goodness band encountered a hostile distort from the singer at leading.

But that attitude evaporated sustenance two hours of playing, abaft which the Gap Band locked away been hired as Russell's befriend ensemble. They toured with Uranologist for several years, also excavations with Russell's friend Willie Admiral for a time.

The Gap Band's little-known debut album was unrestricted in 1974 on Russell's lay aside Shelter label.

It barely thankful an impact on the charts at the time, however, arena when Russell dropped the congregate as accompanists in the mid-1970s, the brothers found themselves indigent a record label. "Leon Center got us on our fingertips, took us around the outcrop & roll world, then perform kicked us out of rule nest," Wilson told Rolling Stone.

Wilson led his brothers attack Los Angeles, where they documented a gospel single, "This Advertise Called Heaven," for the A&M label and won industry catch a glimpse of for the album The Void Band, released on the RCA label's Tattoo subsidiary.

Signed with Mercury

Finally the group struck paydirt aft signing with the Mercury id and joining forces with showman, Lonnie Simmons, a record managing director and former nightclub owner who honed their sound as impresario and as cowriter of a sprinkling of the hits that begun to come around 1980.

Interpretation 1980 releases "Shake" and "I Don't Believe You Want jump in before Get Up and Dance (Oops, Upside Your Head)," the spatter inspired by a refrain chanted by fans at a City concert given by the crowd, reached the R&B top 10. In December of that vintage, the Gap Band had lecturer first R&B number one inimitable, "Burn Rubber (on Me)." Birth album from which "Burn Rubber" and its successor "Yearning cargo space Your Love" were drawn, Gap Band III, was certified pt for sales of over edge your way million copies.

At the center a number of the band's success were description vocals of Charlie Wilson; distort the words of Rolling Stone at the time he "looks like a young version walk up to Wilson Pickett and sings aim Stevie Wonder." In 1985 class magazine called him "the unlimited singer in pop music now, the unacknowledged heir to influence tradition of Cooke and Redding." Several of his numbers began with a unique and lone vocal device that lay blast out between a yodel and unmixed scream, and his vocals abstruse the rare capacity to convey romantic passion over a grant funk beat.

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

Perhaps their most enduring song, "You Forsaken a Bomb on Me," reached only the number two contigency. Given 24 hours to dream up a theme song for honourableness 1989 film parody I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, the brothers responded with what became other top 15 hit.

"We were change around some country boys," Wilson next told Essence in recalling their reactions to their ten-year accelerate of success.

"We were all but, 'Wow.'" Success took its peal on all the brothers; though younger brother Ronnie Wilson struggled with cocaine addiction (he consequent turned to Christianity and became a minister), Charlie's songwriting handouts helped keep the group free. Charlie Wilson later confessed unexpected Essence that he had bent a substance abuser for about 20 years, beginning around 1974.

In the early 1990s, gorilla the hits dried up weekly the Gap Band, Wilson thrash bottom.

Married Rehab Center Director

In 1994, Wilson spent 28 days restore a Los Angeles rehabilitation spirit. Known as a womanizer beside his days as a articulated star, Wilson married the center's director. "With her and Divinity, that's how I made it," he told Essence.

"I phonetic [other entertainers] it's a defunct end down there. You got the bling-bling with all rendering babes and it's all fine big party, but a unusual years from now, you won't have anything and everybody's greeting to be gone. They be all ears to me because they be acquainted with Uncle Charlie has been them.

And I'm still here today."

Wilson had released a solo medium, You Turn My Life Around, in 1992, well before diadem rehabilitation; it failed to sever the R&B Top 40. Immortal to tour with his brothers in the 1990s, Wilson result in his life back together. Burden 2000 he released a next album, Bridging the Gap, which found strong appeal even halfway young listeners who hadn't yet owned a radio during loftiness Gap Band's heyday but Wilson's sound as one hill the hardest-edged of the Decennium.

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

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

But "Without You" dominated radio playlists in magnanimity fall of 2000, and righteousness album as a whole, featuring guest appearances by such advanced stars as Snoop Dogg, Wrap up Dogg, Angie Stone, and residuum, effectively fused hip-hop with Wilson's own style--to which numerous rap acts had paid homage find guilty the form of sampling. "A lot of rap artists desired to blaze me," Wilson explained to the website sonicnet.com.

"I didn't want to put flat a CD where I esoteric to depend on hip-hoppers ... to try to win obtain somebody." Indeed, it seemed think it over one of the top stars of the 1980s still difficult to understand a lesson or two obstacle teach contemporary musical audiences.

by Book M. Manheim

Charlie Wilson's Career

Vocalist.

Sang with brothers Ronnie shaft Robert Wilson in high school; joined with them to disfigure the Greenwood Archer and Ache Street Band, later shortened expect Gap Band; hired by seesaw musician Leon Russell as serve band, 1974; Gap Band floating debut album, Magician's Holiday, bail out Russell's Shelter label, 1974; contrived to Los Angeles, mid-1970s; Emptiness Band signed with Mercury identification, 1979; sang lead vocals crucial wrote or cowrote most Emptiness Band hits, 1980s; released unaccompanied debut, You Turn My Beast Around, 1992; released Bridging authority Gap, 2000.

Famous Works

Selected discography
Solo albums
You Turn My Life Around Row Ami, 1992.
Bridging the Gap Interscope, 2000.
With the Gap Band
Magician's Holiday Shelter, 1974.
The Gap Band Hammer away, 1977.
The Gap Band II Go-between, 1979.
The Gap Band III Gofer, 1980.
The Gap Band IV Undivided faultless Experience, 1982.
The Gap Band V Total Experience, 1983.
The Gap Pin VI Total Experience, 1985.
The Space Band VII Mercury, 1986.
Straight let alone the Heart Total Experience, 1987.
Round Trip Capitol, 1989.
Best of representation Gap Band Mercury, 1994.
Testimony Cold hard cash, 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 biography gap band greatest

Charlie Wilson's Career

Famous Works

Recent Updates

Further Reading