Artist Guide

"Mississippi Boy "

Charles Wilson

February 1, 2014: NEW ARTIST GUIDE ALERT!

Charles Wilson is now the #34-ranking Southern Soul artist on Daddy B. Nice's new 21st Century Top 100 Countdown.

Go to Daddy B. Nice's new 21st-Century Artist Guide to Charles Wilson.

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See "Tidbits" below for the latest updates on Charles Wilson.

To automatically link to Charles Wilson's charted radio singles, awards, CD's and other references, go to "Wilson, Charles" in Daddy B. Nice's Comprehensive Index.

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Daddy B. Nice's Original Profile of Charles Wilson: June 14, 2008

THE ULTIMATE STORY BEHIND "MISSISSIPPI BOY," THE SOUTHERN SOUL SONG NOBODY BUT THE FANS KNEW WAS A CLASSIC

Your Daddy B. Nice first heard a song called "Mississippi Boy" way back in 2003, and it knocked me out with its bluegrass ambience and infectious rhythm--its pure Southern Soul originality.

"I'm tired of the city life.
Everything's much too fast.
I'm used to old dirty roads,
And the smell of country grass."

It was as if Fats Domino had time-traveled to the 21st century and deposited a gem. I didn't catch the name of the artist--it sounded like "Will T."--but to this day your Daddy B. Nice remembers the exact words WMPR deejay Queen Bee used to close out the song.

"Ahhh, just a Mississippi boy," she sighed. "Got that Mississippi mud on my boots."

Since then, readers of Daddy B. Nice's Artist Guide on Charles Wilson have been familiar with the long-running saga of "Mississippi Boy," the Floyd Hamberlin-written song that was recorded under obscure circumstances by an even more mysterious artist who hasn't been heard from since. That would be Will T.

Now Floyd Hamberlin, Jr.--who, in case you haven't noticed, has become the hottest songwriter in Southern Soul--weighs in on the song's murky beginnings.

"First of all," Hamberlin told your Daddy B. Nice recently. "Charles"--meaning Charles Wilson--"had nothing to do with the 'Mississippi Boy' song."

Well, "nothing" may be an exaggeration.

Will T.'s "Mississippi Boy" was first published in an obscure compilation album from Wilson Records (Charles Wilson's own label) in 2003. It was subsequently released as a bonus track (along with Earl Duke's "Salt In My Sugar Bowl," another Hamberlin tune) as a bonus track on Charles Wilson's If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It CD (2005), even though Wilson himself didn't play or sing on it. Wilson later recorded his own version of "Mississippi Boy"--very faithful--and released it on his Sexual Healing album (2006). Wilson's version of "Mississippi Boy" was also a bonus track on his latest CD, The After Party .

In any case, Ecko Records eventually released the tune in a gender-switching, high-octane version: Denise LaSalle's
spectacular 2007 Southern Soul hit, "Mississippi Woman."

Maybe it was because Daddy B. Nice and a few deejays made such a commotion about "Mississippi Boy" that Wilson's appreciation of the song's "hit quotient" grew over time. The fact remains, however, that Wilson (who has been marketed as Southern Soul's "Mississippi Boy" in recent concert advertising) was peculiarly unaware of the track's potential at the outset.

"Charles had the opportunity to record 'Mississippi Boy,' and should've done the song himself first," CDS Records' CEO Dylann DeAnna admitted to your Daddy B. Nice last year. "Charles missed his chance. Now Denise (LaSalle) has the big hit with it."

But the same dismissiveness--"Mississippi Boy" was a kind of happy accident--can be said for the man who recorded the song, Floyd Hamberlin, who described it to your Daddy B. Nice recently as an "experiment song."

However, for Hamberlin to say Wilson had "nothing to do with the song" is a bit of a stretch. What Hamberlin means is that "Mississippi Boy" was his--Hamberlin's--song, his project. He'd like to get a little credit for it.

Hamberlin maintains that Wilson co-opted his work, reneging on a joint effort by Wilson and Hamberlin to be entitled Southern Soul Chicago--a great title, by the way.

"What happened there was," Hamberlin said, "I was going to put out a compilation album called Southern Soul Chicago. Charles and I was going to do a split label on the project. I wrote the songs. I recorded them. I did the artwork for the CD. And I sent the the finished product to Charles, artwork and all. Then, behind my back, Charles changed the artwork to Charles Wilson's Soul and Blues. And he went on to press. I couldn't do anything about it."

So what about Will T.? What about "Mississippi Boy"?

"The city's so high-tech.
I don't want to rattle my brain.
Lord knows I'm a country boy.
I want to go back to where I came."

"It was an 'experiment' song," Hamberlin said. "I didn't have anyone to sing this song one Saturday afternoon. I told my partner to go out and find me somebody to sing this song."

Like (I was thinking) your brother-in-law? Like the Fed-Ex deliveryman? Like the weekend janitor?

"I'm just a Mississippi boy,
I've got Mississippi mud on my boots.
I'm just a Mississippi boy
I want to go back to my roots."

"My partner brought this guy in," Hamberlin continued. "And he said his name was Will T. We called him guilty," as in Guil-T.

Hamberlin's memories reminded me of what I loved about "Mississippi Boy" in the first place. Even now, when I knew that it had really been recorded in Chicago, the sound of the song made me imagine two or three guys playing in a rustic setting, off-the-cuff, sitting on hay bales in an old converted barn, with wooden barrels in the background and straw on the floor--the kind of place you could spit in, if you were the spitting type.

"We laughed through the whole recording session because we thought the song was funny," Hamberlin said. "And that's how 'Mississippi Boy' came about."

So, after this, when you hear the name "Will T," think not of a person, but an idea--a vision--of originality, of humor, of playfulness. Think of creativity unfettered by demands of technical perfection or media hype. Think of having fun. Think of experimenting. Think of taking chances. It's often the rough-hewn songs (whatever their technical means) that capture the effervescent and irrepressible joy of creation, and more truly carry on the Southern Soul--and indeed the whole rhythm and blues--tradition.

"Mississippi Boy" is a textbook example.

DBN

The above piece ran on Daddy B. Nice's Corner in May 2007 under the title "The Final Word On "Mississippi Boy": The Experiment That Became a Southern Soul Classic"

For more on the genesis of "Mississippi Boy," scroll down to "Tidbits" section of the Charles Wilson Artist Guide.


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Daddy B. Nice's Original Critique:

I'll be frank. My interest in Charles Wilson has as much to do with Wilson's recent work as a remote, behind-the-scenes, talent magnet and producer as it does with his career as a performer. In the latter role he has long ago proved himself. Recording "It's Sweet On The Backstreet", the mid-nineties, John Ward-produced tune that helped define Ecko Records as a Southern Soul label, would by itself merit him a place on Daddy B. Nice's Top 100 Southern Soul chart.

Wilson's honey-rich vocal on "It's Sweet On The Back Street" was the quintessence of easy-going, mid-tempo soul-blues at a time (1995) when the term "southern soul" was more of a geographical label--a regional "bin" to throw out another unappreciated blues or soul record--than an actual musical movement and genre.

"There was a time,
When I always stayed at home.
Never played around.
Never did my woman wrong.

But then I met this little girl.
Now every night I'm tipping out,
Meeting at some cozy little place,
That only the two of us know about."

But the mystery surrounding Wilson's recent activity is an illustration of what any chronicler of the chitlin' circuit is up against. There's a vast ocean--underground water table, if you will--of music out there, along with all the attendant confusion that accompanies deep and dark places. And, as in the rest of life, the chase--the hunt--the search for that ever-elusive new music--is more satisfying (and more of an obsession) than listening to what is familiar.

Your Daddy B. Nice first heard a song called "Mississippi Boy" in 2003, and it knocked me out with its bluegrass ambience and infectious rhythm--its pure Southern Soul originality.

"I'm tired of the city life.
Everything's much too fast.
I'm used to old dirty roads,
And the smell of country grass."

It was as if the Fats Domino of "I'm Going To Be A Wheel Some Day" had time-traveled to the 21st century and deposited a gem from the vault. I didn't catch the name of the artist--it sounded like "Will T."--but to this day your Daddy B. Nice remembers the exact words WMPR (Jackson, Ms.) deejay Queen Bee used to close out the song.

"Ahhh, just a Mississippi boy," she sighed. "Got that Mississippi mud on my boots. I sent that out to none other than my son, Danny Rico. I don't know why he like that song so much, but he like that song about Mississippi mud. I guess he got a little bit of it on his shoes."

"Mississippi Boy" (Bargain-priced If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It CD) gained another fan that day, and your Daddy B. Nice spent the next two years (two years!) searching everywhere for the title and/or artist, while the track faded back into the obscure mists from which it came.

Not long after that, driving up "north" in Southern Soul territory, past WBAD in Greenville, Ms., to where another chitlin' circuit radio station--KKFA in Helena, Arkansas--holds sway, I encountered another don't-drive-off-the-road, hold-onto-your-hat Southern Soul radio hit with a slinky beat and a blue-collar vocal, and again I didn't quite hear the name of the artist.

The song was "In My Sugar Bowl," and I convinced myself that "Sugar Bowl" was by up-and-comer Earl Duke (of somewhat limited "Mr. Fix It" fame), wondering with no little exasperation why such a can't-miss track could have been left off his debut disc, Down For You (Mardi Gras, 2004).

Finally, two long years later, in April of 2005, Charles Wilson released the CD If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It on Delta Entertainment Records. "Mississippi Boy" was on it, and between wild dances around the living room blaring it at top volume, your Daddy B. Nice noted another track in the credits. Sure enough, it was the "Sugar Bowl" song--the real title was "Salt In My Sugar Bowl"--but it was the same slinky tempo, the same bass-line-from-heaven, and the same laid-back vocal.

"When I came home last night,
I knew something was strange.
Oh, my little sugar bowl,
She wouldn't answer when I called her name."

If these two songs were indeed Charles Wilson's, they represented a rejuvenation of his career, which--although he has recorded many creditable songs since--arguably peaked in the mid-nineties, with his It's Sweet On The Backstreet CD (Ecko, 95). That album had tremendous staying power and influence on the Southern Soul artists just emerging at the time, and "It's Sweet On The Backstreet" remains a chitlin' circuit classic.

On the other hand, if the tracks were by, respectively, a "Will T." and "Earl Duke," why weren't they credited to those artists, and what were they doing on a Charles Wilson album? Both "Mississippi Boy" and "Salt In My Sugar Bowl" were written by the terrific Southern Soul composer, Floyd Hamberlin, Jr. (author of Artie "Blues Boy" White's classic, "I Can't Afford To Be Broke") who recently wrote all of the material for Cicero Blake's comeback album, Ain't Nothing Wrong, on Mardi Gras Records.

The most baffling thing about the If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It CD is that all the regular tracks--even the Hamberlin, Jr.-written tunes--are blues cuts you've heard a thousand times before, while the three "bonus" songs, including "Mississippi Boy" and "Salt In My Sugar Bowl" plus a third track titled "Don't Ride My Pony" by Sharon Scott, dazzle with their idiosyncratic Southern Soul style.

But one has to search hard to find anything that quickens the pulse among the "regular" tracks. And you come away from the album wondering if Wilson, Hamberlin, Jr. and company appreciate what they have forged in these two mini-masterpieces, "Mississippi Boy" and "Salt In My Sugar Bowl," which in tandem signal a great new direction for Southern Soul.

Maybe they do, and maybe that's why they featured two such otherwise obscure songs on a Charles Wilson album. If so, they have done Southern Soul a great favor.

--Daddy B. Nice

About Charles Wilson

Charles Wilson was born in Chicago in 1957. A child prodigy and nephew of Little Milton Campbell, Wilson was already performing and recording in the Windy City before he was old enough to shave. His first national exposure came touring with Bobby Rush, and opening gigs with Bobby "Blue" Bland, Otis Clay, Tyrone Davis and others solidified his R&B credentials.

Wilson's career faltered as R&B was eclipsed by disco and funk in the 70's and 80's, but Atlanta-based Ichiban Records resuscitated Wilson's commercial prospects in 1991 with the release of Blues In The Key of C. The album, on which Little Milton played guitar, was well-received in chitlin' circuit markets.

Wilson took another artistic step when he moved to Ecko Records in the mid-nineties. It's Sweet On The Back Street (1995) featured Southern Soul-style material such as "In The Room Next To The Room" and "It's Sweet On The Backstreet," and also straight blues such as "Fannie Mae," setting up a southern-soul-to-blues template (with a little "urban R&B" thrown in from time to time) that Wilson would use on a series of subsequent Ecko discs.

The John Ward-penned "Keep It A Secret" (from 99's It Ain't The Size CD) was a minor chitlin' circuit hit, as was "I'll Be Your Lover" (from 00's Mr. Freak CD). "Why Don't We Get Together," "Hoochie Booty," and "Let's Stomp," also from Mr. Freak, showed Wilson's Southern Soul style maturing. Goin' Jukin' was recorded for Ecko in 2001.

However, eager for a change, Wilson moved to Greenville, Mississippi and started his own record company in 2001, recording CD's under his own name and also signing and recording other artists.

Ecko Records released The Best Of Charles Wilson in 2006. The compilation contains "In The Room Next To The Room," "It's Sweet On The Back Street" and other Ecko Records hits, including the overlooked "Two Steps Behind," recently made into a chitlin' circuit hit by Jerry L.

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Charles Wilson's Discography:


1991 Blues in the Key of C (Ichiban)

1995 It's Sweet on the Backstreet (Ecko_

1997 Why? (Traction)

1998 Love Seat (Ecko)

1999 It Ain't the Size (Ecko)

2000 Mr. Freak (Ecko)

2001 Songs from the Vault (Wilson)

2001 Goin' Jookin' (Ecko)

2002 You Got to Pay to Play (Wilson)

2004 If Heartaches Were Nickels (Delmark)

2005 If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It (Delta)

2007 The After Party (CDS)

2008 Pay Myself First (CDS)

2009 Troubled Child (Severn)

2011 That Girl Belongs To Me

2012 Think About What You Got

Tidbits

1.

October 31, 2005.

Daddy B. Nice wants to thank the website Blues Critic for information on Earl Duke's "Salt In My Sugar Bowl" and Will T.'s "Mississippi Boy." According to the website, the songs were first issued a couple of years ago on a compilation/sampler entitled Soul Blues Vol. 2 (Wilson Records). That would be Charles Wilson's record company, of course.

This rings true. It accounts for my hearing them long before they came out on the Charles Wilson disc. I also remember hearing deejays say "Soul Blues Vol. 2."--not to be confused with Soul Blues Hits Vol. 2, an Ecko Records sampler, which is where I kept hitting a dead end. DBN.

2.

October 1, 2006.

I like David Brinston's new radio single, "Mississippi Boy" ("Mississippi's Where It's At"). It's further proof that Brinston is beginning to once again "loosen up," and get back to that place he was "in" when he recorded "Party 'Til The Lights Go Out."

But did he have to use the title "Mississippi Boy," thereby stealing some of the much-needed spotlight from Will T.'s excellent but super-obscure "Mississippi Boy"? Why do people do one another like that?

Lest people think I'm being hard on Brinston, let me remind them of how highly I regard Brinston's own super-obscure and so-hard-to-get yet excellent Fly Right CD (Suzie Q). DBN.

3.

April 6, 2007.

To my knowledge, as of this date, Will T. has never scored an album deal. "Mississippi Boy" (by Will T.) remains one of those rare songs whose very obscurity lends it a romantic allure. And ironically, David Brinston's "Mississippi Boy," which has gotten far more airplay in the last year, has proven to be Brinston's best and most lasting track in a long time. Life is stranger than fiction. DBN.

4.

April 21, 2007.

Ecko Records' John Ward has sent me an "advance" copy of the new Denise LaSalle song from her upcoming CD. The title? It's "Mississippi Boy" redone as "Mississippi Woman," and it looks to your Daddy B. Nice like it's hit-bound. The promo copy has no less than five takes, featuring soul-blues, delta blues, and extended mixes.

5.

June 10, 2007.

Denise LaSalle's "Mississippi Woman" has become a bona fide chitlin' circuit hit. And the hype surrounding the release has proven to be justified. The song is aging extremely well, and looks to become one of Denise's best-loved songs in recent memory.

6.

June 19, 2007.

Now this will be of particular interest to Charles Wilson fans. Thanks to Dylann DeAnna (of Blues Critic) once again for alerting me to the fact that Charles Wilson does--now--have his own version of "Mississippi Boy" out, and sending me a copy. It's from Wilson's latest CD, Sexual Healing (Hitmakers USA, 2006). Here's the data:

Sexual Healing
Release Date: July 11, 2006
Label: Hitmakers USA
Tracks:
Title Composer Time
1 Sexual Healing Wilson 4:19
2 Check Yourself Wilson 4:54
3 Mississippi Boy Hamberlin 3:10
4 If You Can Do It Wilson 3:56
5 I Love You Too Much Wilson, Scott 4:59
6 Just Enough Love Thigpin 3:49
7 If It Ain't Broke (Don't Fix It) Wilson, Coleman 4:26
8 Back and Forth Hamberlin 3:34
9 All Caught Up Hamberlin 3:08

I'm very surprised I haven't heard Charles Wilson's "Misssissippi Boy" on chitlin' circuit radio outlets. I have heard the intriguing and easy-on-the-ears tune, "Check Yourself (Before You Wreck Yourself)."

So how, you ask, does the Charles Wilson "Mississippi Boy" measure up to the Will T. original and the LaSalle version? Well, it doesn't benefit from the transformation the song undergoes being done by a woman, nor does it explore the rhythmic textures and arranging highlights the Ecko/LaSalle mixes did.

In keeping with his "if it ain't broke don't fix it" philosophy, Charles Wilson's "Mississippi Boy" toes very close to the shores of the Will T. version. There are glimpses in the vocal when Wilson hints that he might just bust out and wail in that inimitable, honey-soaked tenor of his, redefining the song, but the moments quickly pass, and the recording returns to familiar territory.

(P. S. Although, a day later, I'm already digging it a lot more: "SAY HOWDY HOWDY HA. SAY HOWDY HOWDY HA!!" DBN.)

So--to summarize. "Mississippi Boy" on Wilson's If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It CD is really the Will T. version. "Mississippi Boy" on Wilson's new Sexual Healing CD is Charles Wilson's version. "Mississippi Boy" by David Brinston is a different song altogether. And "Mississippi Woman" by Denise LaSalle is a faithful version of the Will T. song from a female perspective.

Ultimately, it's a compliment to the art of the songwriter, Floyd Hamberlin: the evolution of a song. DBN.

7.

Charles Wilson's "Plumber Man" is a good record. It is unquestionably main-line Southern Soul music, something close to being this year's version of William Bell's "New Lease On Life," a gentle but substantive groove, emanating karma of a reassuring sort. And we all need that.

But what is it with Charles Wilson always doing these stone-cold duplicate copies of previous artists' hits? "Plumber Man" is a rendition of James Smith's chitlin' circuit hit, published first in an album of the same name and subsequently in a James Smith "Greatest Hits" CD. "Mississippi Boy" is a knock-off of Will T.'s "Mississippi Boy," about which I've written extensively in the past.

(See below.)

What makes it more puzzling is that in both cases--"Mississippi Boy" and "Plumber Man"--Wilson impeccably recreates the originals. He adds only a little embellishment--the equivalent of shining an apple--not only imitating the originals down to minor aspects of the arrangements but appropriating them, almost as if they were his in the first place.

For all your Daddy B. Nice knows, it was Charles Wilson who came up with key elements of one or both of those hits. You never know about these things until you get two songwriter-producer-artist types in the same room together with a good cop, a bad cop, flood lamps and no bathroom breaks.

That's a joke, of course. And even if Wilson is faithfully copying the originals, adding only his seasoned, Southern Soul vocal phrasings (and he has the honey-throated pipes to do it), there is not a thing in the world wrong with that.

Indeed, there is a long and storied tradition: it's called the Law of the Jungle, i.e. the Music Business. In the golden age of R&B radio, there were always two or three versions of the same song floating around, competing for prominence on the charts. It was a sign of the musical vigor--and dog-eat-dog atmosphere--of the times.

And more recently, in 1999, James "Plumber Man" Smith's "Mr. Lover Man" and "Play On It" were both redone by Chuck Roberson on his Love Power CD. So from a Southern Soul perspective, it's good to see obscure Southern Soul songs resurfacing, finding a larger audience--which is the case here.

But it is curious. And when Southern Soul interviewer extraordinaire Dylann DeAnna finally gets around to interviewing Charles Wilson, I hope they get into that "faithful copy" thing.

(11-5-07) DBN.

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Postscript: Dylann DeAnna wrote back that---

"As regards Charles Wilson, it was my idea to have him do "Plumber Man". He'd never heard it. I really like James Smith's version and thought it could be a hit. Smith can sing but Charles is better so that's why it's a hit now. It sounds the same--but more polished--because it's the same producer.

I've heard a few people say (and I was worried you were going there) that Charles stole poor James Smith's song but that's plain silly. Smith had a two-plus year run of the song and it didn't get the airplay it deserved. Now it is. In fact this song is going to get much bigger over the next few months I predict. . .

As far as Mississippi Boy it was Charles who christened the guy Will T, which was a play on Wilson Records. Charles had the opportunity and should've done the song himself first but missed his chance. Now Denise has the big hit with it."

8.

November 30, 2009: NEW ALBUM ALERT

Troubled Child (Severn Records)

Recommended singles:

"Put Something Into It"

"Troubled Child"

9.

December 1, 2009:

Your Daddy B. Nice is featuring "Bad Boys Of Southern Soul"--Charles Wilson and Carl Sims--in December 2009. Is Charles really a "bad boy"? No, he's a full-grown man who has been on the Southern Soul scene for a solid twenty years and on the greater R&B scene since his childhood in the seventies.

But he does have a reputation for all of the things fellow musicians love to hate: appropriating the music of others, fighting with producers, riding roughshod over songwriters and anyone else lacking the strength to resist.

Is this necessarily "bad"?

Let's put it this way. Very few musicians have NOT been accused of the things Charles Wilson has been accused of.

Through it all, Charles Wilson just keeps publishing music--one of the most consistent and prolific Southern Soul artists on the scene.

If there's any one criticism that does stick to the teflon-coated Wilson, it's that in his increasingly obsessive search for a breakthrough in contemporary Southern Soul, he has become a musical chameleon, trading styles as frequently as an upper East-side Manhattan career wife switches outfits.

Is this in itself unique?

Again, no. Ask musicians like Lenny Williams or Glenn Jones or--amongst the younger set--Bigg Robb or T. K. Soul.

But the many "faces" of Charles Wilson have called into question the underlying soulfulness behind the music. Wilson has never lacked for vocal and arranging technique. His efforts have become increasingly slick and smooth, as evidenced by the recent, generally excellent The After Party . In it Wilson eschews the rough but sugary style of his turn-of-the-century albums with John Ward's Ecko Records for what can only be called a hybrid of urban R&B and Southern Soul.

That's the case with Charles' latest album, Pay Myself First (CDS), which includes two widely-circulated singles of the year:

"You've Got That Sex Appeal" (which recently made a strong showing on the popular American Blues Network); and "Pay Myself First"--the title tune--which is very Charles Wilson-like in theme.

Pay Myself First was released in March of 2009.

Wilson's newest--or even newer album--Troubled Child (Severn Records) was released in May and has flown completely under the radar for reasons only Wilson may understand. Certainly, Wilson markets like a son-of-a-gun when he chooses, so the fact that Troubled Child came in the Southern Soul front door and slipped out the back without so much as a single track getting a promotional push (so far as I know) is puzzling.

Just out--another polished, uptempo single, this one not collected on an LP--called "I Dance Better". See Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "Breaking Southern Soul Singles: December 09."

This one's produced by Mel Waiters, with whom Charles recently released another high-profile single: "Something About You."

--Daddy B. Nice

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10.

March 6, 2011: NEW ALBUM ALERT!

Bargain-Priced That Girl Belongs To Me CD

Comparison-Priced That Girl Belongs To Me CD

Recommended Singles: "That Girl Belongs To Me" (w/ Willie Clayton), "Something Different About You" (w/ Mel Waiters), "I Can Dance Better" (w/ Mel Waiters)

11.

October 21, 2012: NEW ALBUM ALERT!

Sample or Buy Charles Wilson's new THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU GOT CD.

Listen to a medley of samples from Charles Wilson's Think About What You Got CD on YouTube.

Honorary "B" Side

"Plumber Man"