Charlie Gracie obit

Charlie Gracie, Early Rocker Who Hit #1 With ‘Butterfly,’ Dies at 86

 

He was not on the list.

Charlie Gracie, the pioneering early rocker whose 1957 #1 single “Butterfly” provided the Philadelphia-based Cameo-Parkway labels with their first hit, has died. His death, on Dec. 16, 2022, in his lifelong hometown of Philadelphia, was confirmed by the Cameo-Parkway fan page on Facebook. The Charlie Gracie Rock Hall Facebook page, which serves as his official headquarters on the social media site, has not officially announced his passing but said that the page would issue an announcement to fans on Monday. Gracie was 86.

Gracie was highly influential on the ’60s generation of rockers. Paul McCartney covered “Fabulous,” Gracie’s #16 followup to “Butterfly,” and Van Morrison invited Gracie to open for him on a tour. Other admirers included Graham Nash and Stephen Stills: Nash once said that his sister was such a huge fan that when she eyed the singer dropping a cigarette butt on the floor, she picked it up and stuffed it in her pocket as a souvenir. “She still has it to this day,” he said.

He was born Charles Anthony Graci on May 14, 1936, in Philly, on the very same day that fellow hitmaker Bobby Darin was born. Gracie spent his first 10 years living with his grandparents, immigrants from Sicily. When his father suggested he learn an instrument, Gracie chose the saxophone, but his father convinced him to play the guitar instead. Gracie’s talent on the instrument proved prodigious, and he continued to play it when he performed into his later years.

Gracie began to perform locally in his teens, and at 15, he made a series of appearances on the simulcast radio/television program hosted by veteran  jazzman Paul Whiteman, who had once been the most popular bandleader in the country. Offered a recording contract by the New York-based Cadillac Records, Gracie cut his first single, “Boogie-Woogie Blues,” which did not chart. Neither did subsequent sides for Cadillac or 20th Century, but when Gracie met a pianist named Bernie Lowe on the set of the Whiteman show in 1956, his career began in earnest: Lowe was launching his own label, Cameo Records, and signed Gracie.   

Late that year, at a Philly recording studio, Gracie cut two songs written by Lowe and his partner, Kal Mann, “Butterfly” and “Ninety-Nine Ways.” By April 1957, “Butterfly” was the most-played jukebox record in the country, and aided by appearances on the Dick Clark-hosted local dance program American Bandstand, “Butterfly” rose to the top of the national Billboard chart.

Another Lowe-Mann composition, “Fabulous,” fared well but missed the top 10. Both songs also charted high in the U.K., and Gracie became a star overseas as well. He was unable to follow those initial successes with another hit, however, and due to a squabble with the Cameo executives over royalty payments, he was dropped by the label in 1958, also losing his exposure on Bandstand in the process.

Gracie continued to record for other labels and to perform live, but he never recaptured the fame he enjoyed in the late 1950s. The Cameo-Parkway catalog was not commercially available for many years, and Gracie, therefore, did not enjoy the level of radio airplay that other early rockers did. It wasn’t until 2006, when the ABKCO label finally released a compilation of Gracie’s Cameo-era material, that the original recordings became available once again.

A 2011 single, “Baby Doll,” received some airplay and a new album, For the Love of Charlie, produced by Al Kooper, was also released. Gracie also published an autobiography, Rock & Roll’s Hidden Giant.

The owner of Cadillac Records, Graham Prince, heard one of Gracie's early radio performances, contacted the young musician and signed him to a recording contract. This association yielded the single "Boogie Woogie Blues" backed with "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter". The record led to Charlie's first appearance on Bob Horn's American Bandstand television program, four years before Dick Clark became the host. After cutting two more singles for Cadillac, including one called "Rockin' 'n' Rollin'" in 1952, Charlie moved on to 20th Century Records, where he put out another four sides. The discs he made embraced a wide variety of styles: jump blues, gospel, and country boogie with the influences of Big Joe Turner, B.B. King, Louis Jordan, Roy Acuff, and Hank Williams.

By 1956, Philadelphia had given birth to the new Cameo record label. Its founders, in search of a strong talent, signed Gracie later that year. With a $600 budget, this new union went into the recording studio to record "Butterfly" backed with "Ninety Nine Ways".[2] It became a hit record, reaching #1 in jukebox plays in the Billboard chart. Gracie received a gold disc for the two million plus sales. His only other Top 40 hit was with a song entitled "Fabulous" the same year,[2] which reached number 16. This track also reached number 6 in the UK. Two other substantial sellers followed: "Wandering Eyes", his third Billboard Top 100 hit, which peaked at number 71 (another number 6 in the UK), and "Cool Baby" (also a top 30 hit in Britain). The financial success of these hits bankrolled the Cameo label, which became a dominant force in the music industry for several years.

Gracie's personal appearances grew until he performed and headlined some of the biggest venues of that time: Alan Freed's rock and roll shows at the Brooklyn Paramount, The Ed Sullivan Show, American Bandstand and the 500 Club in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He appeared in the 1957 film Jamboree and toured with Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley and his close friend Eddie Cochran.

Gracie became only the second American rock and roller to bring this new art form to the British concert stage. His two extensive tours in 1957 and 1958 were topped off by headlining the Palladium and the Hippodrome in London. In the audiences, among Gracie's fans, were future rock musicians Graham Nash, and members of the Beatles. These performers and many other well-known acts have credited Gracie as an influence. George Harrison referred to Gracie's guitar technique as 'brilliant' in a March 1996 interview with Billboard; Paul McCartney invited Gracie to the premiere party of his 1999 release which paid tribute to the early pioneers of rock music.

According to the documentary film Wages of Spin, Gracie sued Cameo Records for unpaid royalties and in retaliation was blacklisted from the radio and American Bandstand. Per the film, Bandstand host Dick Clark had a relationship with the record company and was paid $14,000 for services related to Gracie's song "Butterfly".