By Steve Hubrecht
[email protected]
Guitar-slinging Australian-born Chicago blues legend Michael Charles will be plucking his way to Radium Hot Springs in a few weeks.
Charles had been set to play at the Horsethief Creek Pub and Eatery, where he had previously done several shows, way back in spring 2020. But then up popped the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, cancelling Charles’ Canadian tour, including his Radium show.
Fast forward two years, and with things finally opening up, Charles is back on the road and set to play the Columbia Valley once again, with two free concerts at the Horsethief.
The guitar virtuoso is delighted to be heading here again, saying he had very fond memories of the other shows he’s done at the Horsethief in the past.
“The audience has alway been really great, and wow, what a beautiful place,” Charles told the Pioneer. “I’m really glad it looks like we’re on to better times, with the pandemic quieting down.”
Charles has been a touring musician for nearly four decades, and says that being on the road “feels like home” to him, so he’s glad to be back at it.
He grew up in Melbourne, Australia, where he began playing guitar at the age of four or five.
“My dad had a guitar, and would pluck on it from time to time. So when I was very young I began trying to mimic him. I was so young when I started, in fact, that I actually can’t remember not being able play,” said Charles. “In those days, if you listened to music, you listened to whatever was on the transistor radio. So for me, as a kid, that meant listening to a lot of Elvis and the Beatles. Everybody listened to them in those days. Then as I got older, there was a lot of Cream, Derek and the Dominoes, CCR, and the Guess Who.”
As Charles began to play more seriously, those were the songs he learned to play. “So I thought it was all rock music, and it was, but it has its roots in the blues. So I was learning to play the blues without realizing I was learning to play the blues.”
As he became an adult, Charles became an accomplished blues musician, known throughout Australia. At one point, almost 30 year ago, Charles got an invitation from renowned blues guitarist Buddy Guy to come to Chicago. “That’s the kind of invitation you don’t say ‘no’ to,” recalls Charles. “I did a gig at Buddy Guy’s Legends Club, and met guys like Junior Wells and Sugar Blue. Just to be on stage with them, to play with them, that was an education. It felt like they were handing me a glove, and my hand just fit right in.”
So Charles decided to stay in Chicago, getting various visas to extend his time there, until eventually he became an American citizen.
“It’s funny, you never know where life is going to take you,” he said.
Charles set up base in Chicago, and continued to play and record blues music. Eventually, after a few decades had gone by, Charles’s agent got a call: Charles was going to be inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
“It was surreal. Getting into the hall of fame was never something I expected, so it’s a huge honour,” he said. “It’s pushed me to be better, because now I feel obligated to try to live up to that standard.”
When the pandemic struck, forcing everybody to stay home, it came as a shock to Charles, who had been touring since he was 13 years old.
“It felt like somebody was sliding down the garage door on me,” he said. “At first it was just a pause. Surely this will just be a few weeks, maybe a few months. Then after one year, I realized this was a long term thing, and I needed to shift gears. I got in the studio, started writing songs and releasing them on social media. It was really an effort to keep myself busy, to not go crazy just sitting around waiting for COVID-19 to end.”
One of those songs — Get Your Vaccine — attracted quite a bit of attention on social media and he ended up on television as a result. The song, as you may guess from the title, promotes people getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
“It was a bit different for me to do something like that. My songs almost never focus on social or political issues. But, with this one, I thought ‘hey, I should let people know where I stand on this.’ I guess you can say it was my contribution to helping get us out of the pandemic,” said Charles. “It was just a short ditty, not even two minutes long. But, to be honest, given the division about vaccines, and given that this ended up on television, I was expecting some negative comments on YouTube. But I didn’t get any really nasty ones in the end, so it wasn’t bad at all.”
The free concerts at the Horsethief are on Sunday, May 15 and Monday, May 16, with each show running non-stop for three hours, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Call the Horsethief Creek Pub and Eatery at 250 347 6400 for more details.
