A big step forward
Popular sideman Charles Arthur is fronting a new group

BY BILL CRAIG
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT Apr 29, 2004


Charles Arthur must have missed an important class in rock'n' roll college. He obviously skipped the session on ego.

On any given night in any given central Virginia club, you can find him sitting in with Johnny Hott's Piedmont Souprize, Page Wilson's Reckless Abandon or Chez Roue. But while you've very likely heard Arthur, you're equally likely not to have heard of Arthur. And he's just fine with that.

"I'm probably the most happy in the back," said Arthur in a recent phone interview. "I don't care if anyone notices me or not. I just like to hang and be a part of the music. I like to just back people up. I'm very happy being just a supporting musician."

But Arthur's be-heard-and-not-seen days are diminishing. Over the past year and a half, he's been trying out life under the spotlight as the frontman for Charles "King" Arthur and the Spacious Guys.

The trio (Arthur, Carter Blough on bass and percussionist Kris Krull) gives Arthur a little more control over the licks he knocks out. "I like to think of our music as an eclectic mix of American music," Arthur said. "There's some rockabilly, some country, some rhythm and blues and some gospel. It's a mixture of vocals and instrumentals. It's a chance for me to do some things that I don't normally get to play with other bands."

Though it's new territory, Arthur has taken a shine to that spot in the center of the stage.

"I am finding it kind of enjoyable to be out front every now and then. I have found that over the years I'm a sideman at heart but a sideman who has very strong opinions about how he wants things to sound."

In addition to his heavy rotation on the Richmond club scene, Arthur has toured outside the state with singers and songwriters such as Slaid Cleaves, Caroline Herring and Wayne "The Train" Hancock. The joys of being a dad of a 2-year-old daughter have cured Arthur of white-line fever.

"I really enjoy being at home. I'm 40 years old. If I was in my 20s, I'd love being on the road all the time. But right now, I enjoy having a home and a family. It's worked out beautifully. I get to go out just enough to add some spice," he said.

One of the reasons that Arthur is in such demand as a supporting picker is that he's yet to meet an instrument he doesn't like.

"Electric guitar and acoustic guitar are really my thing along with lap steel and dobro. I've been playing a little piano in my shows with the Spacious Guys."

He's also playing autoharp recently and claw-hammer banjo. He owns a bunch of fiddles and tinkers with upright bass.

"The things that I gig on are guitar, steel guitar and dobro. I'm trying to get autoharp in there. I really enjoy that."

All that instrumental talent was developed largely without the benefit of formal training.

"I took sporadic lessons here and there, but I only had about a dozen guitar lessons. . . . I learned a lot by reading. I learned some theory by reading about it. If you understand the fundamentals of music, all you have to do when you pick up a new instrument is figure out the mechanics of it. . . . I don't have to reinvent the wheel; I just have to figure out how to make the noise."

The musicians he works with are grateful that Arthur's learned how to make all those noises. In addition to his live gigs, you can hear his picking on albums by, among others, Cleaves, Wilson, Gary Gerloff and the Taters.

"Reckless Abandon is all about spontaneity, pickin' off the top of your head and tastefully making it fit," Wilson said. "Charles totally fits into that concept. He's one of the best accent pickers I've ever played with. Very few clams come from that man."

And Arthur hopes that in the not-too-distant future, you'll find one of his very own albums in your favorite music store.

"I've always been a backup musician. My heroes have always been sidemen. I've been doing this band of my own for about a year and a half. I'm just trying to figure out what am I. Am I solo guy? Am I a band guy?"