In 2021, 70 years after Charlie Gracie released his first single and a year before his passing, the singer told Vintage Rock how he was trading in rock’n’roll before the term was coined.
Many people think rock’n’roll appeared out of nowhere in 1955, when Bill Haley And His Comets topped the charts with (We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock, or the following year when Elvis Presley exploded internationally with Heartbreak Hotel.
Charlie Gracie was among the first wave of rock’n’rollers to find international success when he scored the three-million-selling No.1 hit Butterfly in the spring of 1957. But he’d been making records for a long time before that. Gracie’s first single, Boogie Woogie Blues, released in 1951, is as rock’n’roll – or, indeed, rockabilly – as anything that followed in the second half of that decade.
“They didn’t call it rock’n’roll then,” says Gracie today. “They called it rhythm and blues, or race music, because most of it was coming from Black people.”
For Charlie, and other musicians coming through in the same era, the music developed as the result of a combination of influences. “My mother was a big country fan, so I used to listen to Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Eddy Arnold. My father liked swing: Tommy Dorsey and the big bands, so my head was full of those arrangements. Then I would listen to the Black radio stations, rhythm and blues.
“You put the three of them together and that’s how rock’n’roll became rock’n’roll. I was playing it before they coined the phrase rock’n’roll – and I was happy to be a small part of it.”
Rockin’ Philadelphia
Gracie was born Charles Anthony Graci (no ‘e’) on 14 May 1936, in a poor neighbourhood in south Philadelphia. “My father was a dark-complexioned Sicilian – a handsome man. He could have been a movie star. I look more like my mother, with blue eyes and light skin,” Charlie explains.
For the first 10 years of his life, Gracie lived with his parents and grandparents in a two-bedroomed row house – a terraced house in UK terms – that measured just 12-feet wide. “No bathroom,” he recalls. “We had an outhouse. You’d think we were farmers, but thousands of us lived that way in those days.
“It was all immigrants in the area. There were a lot of Italian Americans, but also Irish, Polish and Black people. My grandparents were immigrants from Sicily and spoke hardly any English, so by the time I went to school I was bilingual. It’s come in handy over the years, touring.”
Gracie’s dad spent 30 years working in the steamy environment of the John B Stetson hat company. “My father played a little bit of guitar for fun. He played harmonica and tap danced. He loved showbusiness, but his people, being immigrants and the way things were in those days, said, ‘Forget about it. You need to work. We need that $10 that you’re going to bring in’. So he never got there, but he lived it through me.”
It’s Fabulous
The singer recalls the day that Graci Sr decided his son was going to live a different life. “I was 10 years old and it was right after the war. My father saved up $15 to buy a suit. This was in 1946 when people were making $35 a week. He said, ‘Let’s take a walk,’ and we headed down to South Street, which became famous in the song.”
Gracie, ever the entertainer, breaks off to sing the Orlons’ 1963 smash, South Street: “‘Where do all the hippies meet? South Street’. Remember that?
“It wasn’t famous at the time. It was a mill area: haberdashery shops, shoe shops, pawn shops. Every time we passed a pawn shop, he’d hesitate. Finally, he said, ‘To heck with the suit, Charlie, pick an instrument and make something of yourself, because I don’t want you to work like a donkey, like I have all my life’.
“I’m 10 years old and what did I know?” Gracie chuckles. “Harry James at the time was a famous trumpeter. He was married to Betty Grable, the movie actress. So I said, ‘How about a nice trumpet, dad?’ He said, ‘Naw, you don’t want that. Get a guitar and you’ll be a one-man-band’. And that’s how I became a guitarist.”
Gracie’s father insisted he study with a good teacher and by the age of 15, he was playing in local bars. His biggest influence was Arthur Smith’s instrumental Guitar Boogie, from which he learned to put equal emphasis on rhythm and melody.
A Taste Of The Big Time
His big break came on a talent contest run by Paul Whiteman that was broadcast simultaneously on radio and television in Philadelphia, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. “Whiteman was a famous orchestra leader in the 30s and 40s. I sang Bill Haley’s Rock The Joint and won five weeks running. I won an RCA 45 exchanger, $100 worth of records of my choice and, finally, a refrigerator! The whole street came out to see the refrigerator!” Gracie remembers, laughing. “We had an icebox before that.”
Just as importantly, his final appearance was heard by Graham Prince, owner of the New York-based Cadillac Records. “The next day, I got a telegram offering me a record contract.”
Gracie’s first release was the self-penned Boogie Woogie Blues, on which he was joined by a number of top-class musicians, including jazz pianist Luther Henderson and double-bass player Bobby Haggart, known best for his 1938 instrumental hit Big Noise From Winnetka.
Boogie Woogie Blues wasn’t a hit, but it did give Gracie a taste of the big time when he performed it on the Philly-based TV show American Bandstand while still not quite 16 years old.
Gracie cut further sides for Cadillac, including Rockin’ An’ Rollin’ in 1952, before moving to the Philadelphia-based 20th Century Records. None of his records gained much traction, however, until local pianist and songwriter Bernie Lowe decided that Gracie would be the next Elvis.
“I’ll never forget, this guy came over to my house and said, ‘Charlie, I’d like to record you. I’ve just borrowed $2,000 from my brother to start a record company called Cameo’. So on a cold December night in 1956, we went into the city and cut two tunes, Butterfly and [its B-side] Ninety-Nine Ways.”
Maximum Exposure
The pop-slanted Butterfly was penned by Lowe and Cameo co-founder Kal Mann, but in a deal typical of the time, the writing credit on the single went to Anthony September, a pseudonym of Tony Mammarella, the producer of American Bandstand, which ensured the single received maximum exposure. “By March, we had a No.1 hit,” says Gracie. “It changed my whole life.”
Lowe and Mann went on to write (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear for Elvis and Remember You’re Mine for Pat Boone, plus Wild One, We Got Love and Good Time Baby for later Cameo signee Bobby Rydell. Meanwhile, catapulted into the big time, Gracie found himself on stage at the Paramount Theatre in New York and on tour with Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, The Everly Brothers, Eddie Cochran and Brenda Lee. “All on one show!” he says. “It cost two bucks to come and see us! We were all young fellas, we never thought it would last. People are still playing our records.”
Gracie became particularly close friends with Cochran. “He came to my home in Philadelphia and my mother made him Italian red sauce. He loved it. Then he had that terrible accident in Chippenham. It was too early for him to go, man. I still miss him to this day.”
Cool Baby
Gracie also appeared in the iconic 1957 film Jamboree, singing Cool Baby, alongside performances by a roster of greats including Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Fats Domino and Frankie Avalon. The same year, he released the follow-up hit Fabulous, which reached No.16 in the United States and No.6 in the UK. Gracie’s overseas sales led him to become only the second American rock’n’roller, after Bill Haley, to tour the UK, including prestigious appearances at the London Hippodrome and London Palladium.
He was booked to co-headline a variety bill with British vocalist Dorothy Squires (then wife of Roger Moore), but when Squires learned that Gracie had the more prominent billing, she pulled out of the tour in a blaze of newspaper headlines that only increased ticket sales.
“It’s funny how things work out in life,” Gracie muses. “It was a mixed-age audience because people were coming to see a variety show. But there were a lot of young people, because they considered me to be one of the Teddy boys. I wore what we called zoot suits: peg pants, square shoulders, big lapels. So I looked like they did and that enhanced my popularity.
“They went bananas, screaming and hollering. I thought, ‘these people are crazy! Who would like me that much?’”
Top Of The Pops
With the money he was making, the young star bought his parents a house in the suburbs. “It was time to pay them back for the opportunity they gave me,” he says.
Gracie’s hits continued in the UK with I Love You So Much It Hurts, Wanderin’ Eyes and Cool Baby, although the last two failed to chart Stateside. “My biggest hit in England was Wanderin’ Eyes, believe it or not,” he says of the 1957 single, which hit No.6. Gracie’s run at the top, however, ended in a row over royalties.
Cameo and its subsidiary, Parkway, went on to have success with artists including Chubby Checker and Bobby Rydell. But although the sales of Butterfly had bankrolled the label, Gracie didn’t feel Lowe had given him his share of the proceeds. “I said, ‘If you don’t pay me, I’m gonna sue you’. He said, ‘Well, get in line’,” Gracie says, laughing dryly. “Ain’t that wonderful?”
They settled out of court, but Gracie hadn’t realised what a closed club the music business was in those days – and that anyone who rocked the boat could find themselves out in the cold. He continued to record for labels such as Coral, Roulette, Felsted, President and Diamond, and made some fine records, including Doodlebug, Angel Of Love and The Race, but radio and television exposure dried up overnight. Simply for standing up for his rights, Gracie was effectively blacklisted.
“My career took a nosedive like the B-29, man. Boom! I went from the bottom to the top and back down to the bottom. I always worked, but when you’re making $1,000 a night and then you’re making $100 a night, that’s a big difference!
“It was tough to have to live through that, but I was a strong kid and had nothing to hide, I’d done nothing to hurt anybody. I went out and started working the clubs as a solo artist, just me and my guitar. Five sets a night, six nights a week. My callouses had callouses!”
Can’t Stop Rock’n
Gracie went on that way for the best part of 20 years until a Canadian fan called Richard Grows reissued his Cadillac and 20th Century material as Early Recordings on the Revival label in 1976. The records went down a storm in the UK and Europe, where the rockabilly revival was in full swing and original rockers from the 50s were in huge demand.
“I didn’t go back to England for 20 years, because my wife and I raised our kids and I didn’t want to leave them alone in the house,” says Gracie. “I finally went back in 1979 and started playing some of the smaller clubs – and the places were packed! I’ve been going back ever since then, sometimes two or three times a year. Not only Britain, but France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy, Finland… I was grateful, because it gave me another shot.
“I was always competitive and the flame’s still there, you know? I still do 25 to 30 dates a year in the States, without counting Europe. I’m not making big money, but I make a nice living. In 2019, I did a 24-city tour with Marty Wilde and the theatres were packed.”
In 2011, Gracie celebrated his 75th birthday by once again cracking the US Top 100 with the airplay hit Baby Doll. In 2021, at the age of 85, he was back on the UK airwaves with the appropriately titled – and exceedingly hot – Can’t Stop Rock’n. What does he do to keep his voice and health in such good shape? “Nothing!” he laughs. “I still smoke! It’s too late to stop now, don’t you think? A Mediterranean diet is all I can tell you. And lots of sweets.”
Perhaps a happy marriage to Joan, his wife of 60-plus years, helps because for all the ups and downs of his career, Gracie comes across as a wholly contented man. “I can’t complain,” he signs off. “It’s been a great life.”
After dealing with COVID-19 complications since the spring, Gracie died in Philadelphia on 16 December 2022, at the age of 86. Read Deke Dickerson’s tribute here
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