Bobby Charles
bobby charles, “tennessee blues”
from: bobby charles, 1972
In American popular music there can be said to be two broad categories: those artists who are on everyone’s lips and those whom fate has kissed with anonymity. Bobby Charles would, of course, seem to belong seamlessly to the latter. Many have covered this classic, but none with the winsome matter of factness of its author, that hits you with world weariness like a sledge hammer. Its instrumental guitar intro done by Amos Garrett, is among the lonliest I have ever heard and beckons you into the home of that special resignation that only the choicest of blues can deliver. The lyrics summon a ring of truths whose origins may have come from the tablets on Mt. Sinai. Feelings of disappointment and yearning are ably supplied by the accordionist, Garth Hudson of the Band fame. Here, he has so comfortably unwound a difficult message, you may wish it would never end. But don’t take it from me, I’m not one of the experts, just someone whose neck hurts. If “Tennessee Blues” really touches you, as only songs of its special pedigree can do, it will never let go.
“If I had my way
I’d leave here today I move in a hurry
I find me a place where I could stay
And not have to worry
A place I feel loose
A place I could lose, these Tennessee Blues
I Find me a spot on some mountain top
With no one around me
Valleys and streams birds in the trees
With lakes that surround me
A place I feel loose
A place I could lose, these Tennessee Blues
A place to forget all my regrets
And keep just the good times
Some place I could sleep with nothing but peace
Feel free at all times
A place I feel loose
Some place I could lose, these Tennessee Blues
Some place I could lose, these Tennessee Blues
”
