Charlie Feathers

• Genre: Rockabilly

About

Born in the same North Mississippi hill country area as R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, Feathers brought the same intensity and hypnotic abandon for which those two bluesmen are known to his own revved-up hybrid of Rockabilly, country and blues. Feathers recorded for Sun Records in Memphis, but he always resisted Sam Phillips' efforts to turn him into a straight country singer, which led him to record for other small regional labels such as Meteor and King. He never had more than regional popularity until the European Rockabilly revival of the 1970s made him a cult star abroad and at home. Feathers is a singer of amazing power and nuance, whose voice is as distinctive as that of Howlin' Wolf or Hank Williams. Throughout a career where he was burned repeatedly by bad deals and broken promises, he stuck to his own very clear vision of what his music should be: a genre-blurring gumbo of country, blues and Honky-Tonk. It may have cost him financially, but no one can take away his recorded legacy. Feathers died in 1998 at the age of 66.

- Tom Heyman