Hobo [CD]

Charlie Winston recently featured on Radio 4’s Today programme: “Pop singer bloke from Suffolk is huge in France, but can’t get arrested here”. As is so often the case with a subject other than politics or economics, they didn’t quite get hold of the story.

This album has spent many weeks in the French top ten and has gone platinum. Its first single, Like a Hobo, made number one over there in April. Understandably, it has a strong Euro flavour, though mercifully falling short of a strong Eurovision flavour.

It is odd, the way an artist can capture the imagination of one country but not his own. Murray Head, back in the 70s, wrote Say It Ain’t So, Joe – a wonderful song, piped in every bistro, but virtually ignored here. So why the French but not us? The two singers both have a lightness and agility of the voice, but that’s where the similarity ends: Head was really an actor who dabbled in song, while Winston is clearly a full-blooded musician.

Hobo’s production is organic and fun, Winston’s vocal refreshingly untreated. There’s a light agility about his songs too, ranging from the straightforward chick songs – I Love Your Smile stirs thoughts of Randy Newman collaborating with a bunch of New Orleans’ finest, and Soundtrack to Falling in Love – to silliness on My Life as a Duck and Kick the Bucket, songs which might prove just a little too twee for domestic consumption. In fact that could be it – maybe that tweeness, combined with the cheeky chappie image (stubble, frayed fedora hat), might be a bit too much for our Anglo-Saxon scepticism.

The outstanding track, and the most UK friendly, is Calling Me. Here, Winston has avoided over-arranging, sticking just with a guitar, some fabulous harmonica playing from Benjamin Edwards and a flutter of keyboards. Where occasionally style has triumphed over substance on this album, here quality shines through.

It would be a loss for us if Winston were to be consigned to the list of artists who only cracked it abroad, though he shouldn’t really complain: euros buy yachts just as easily as pounds. --Nick Barraclough

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A platinum selling artist in France, Charlie Winston heads home with his debut UK album - Hobo. Every now and then a British artist finds success abroad before their homeland discovers their talent. In the case of Suffolk musician Charlie Winston it is the French who have first embraced his unique blend of quirky alternative folk-rock-pop sending his debut single ‘Like A Hobo’ to the top of the charts on its release in January. The child of musician parents and brother of folk singer Tom Baxter, Charlie grew up in a hotel in Suffolk through which passed an endless procession of itinerant artists, orchestras, actors and thespians. Charlie developed a deep love for the performing arts and entertainment whilst nurturing his musical talents. After several years of busking his way around Europe, writing music for theatre and dance productions, and playing in bands Charlie decamped to Paris when Peter Gabriel's Real World Records licensed ‘Like a Hobo’ to the French label Atmosphériques - Winston had left an EP at Gabriel's flat while babysitting - and within weeks he was at the top of the charts and being declared a national superstar by a nation that had fallen for his soulful voice and instantly catchy melodies. Tracks: In Your Hands / Like A Hobo / Kick the Bucket / I Love Your Smile / My Life As A Duck / Boxes / Calling Me / Tongue Tied / I’m A Man / Soundtrack To Falling In Love / Generation Spent / Every Step / My Name

Charlie Winston grew up, with his folk-musician/hotelier parents and his musical siblings, in a Suffolk hotel through which passed an endless procession of itinerant artists, orchestras, actors and thespians. Such an environment had a great impact on Charlie giving him a deep love for the performing arts and nurturing his musical talents. At the age of eight he learned to play the drums, before turning his hand to the piano when he was ten (Great Balls Of Fire was the first song he played) and two years later writing his first songs. Aged seventeen Charlie relocated to London, studied music at Brunel ("I later realised that I got too caught up in the 'technicalities' of music, I had become engrossed in the world of Jazz and Minimalism"), subsequently leaving college penniless and piano-less. Living in "a shitty apartment in Clapham" with his brother (Tom Baxter) the only instrument he played was a beaten up bass found "just lying around". So with Charlie now playing bass they formed the band 'Baxter', a period that lasted three years and that Charlie regards as his degree course - An Introduction To The Real World Of Music. Charlie's musical development continued - writing music for theatre productions (The Almeida, Sadler's Wells, The Gate, The Unicorn and others) and writing and playing music for short films, dance productions, TV adverts as well as producing and recording records with various artists. "This was a fantastic training ground for me. I learned to write to a brief with a deadline. This became an invaluable discipline, and a very important part of my 'process'. A little pressure can produce a lot." Singing or playing with many different bands on either bass, piano or percussion, Charlie wrote and arranged music for brass and strings including the London Symphonietta and the BBC Concert Orchestra and came to the fore of the stage as lead singer in an eight piece reggae band "it brought out my strength as a front man". In his early twenties he picked up the guitar for the first time "it helped me focus on the beauty and simplicity of songwriting and storytelling once again - the precise things that had drawn me into writing in the first place when I was in my teens." In 2003, when Charlie was recording bass for his brother Tom's album at Real World Studios, he was introduced to Peter Gabriel and became friends with Peter's daughter Mel. "Although I had a new EP that I was anxious to give him, I decided to wait until he knew me as a person first, before introducing him to my music. It turned out to be the right choice." A year later, when he was babysitting for Peter's son, Charlie finally gave him his EP - in return Peter gave him a recording contract, produced his first album 'Make Way' and invited Charlie to open for him on his European tour. A Volkswagen television advert, in which Charlie was the voice of a dog who unleashed a mightily impressive rendition of the classic Spencer Davis Group song 'I'm a Man', became a global smash and is also now a YouTube classic. Charlie's story then moved to France where he had come to the attention of record label Atmosphériques who introduced him to Mark Plati (David Bowie, The Cure, Louise Attaque) with whom Charlie recorded his second album 'Hobo'. The "Hobo" sessions took place primarily in Paris, at the Pigalle Studios, with brass and strings added in London and the finishing touches added at Plati's New York studio. The core of the record sees Charlie on guitar, piano, and "vintage" keys (Wurlitzer-Celest-Hammond), Ben Edwards on his harmonicas, Daniel Marsala on the bass and Medi on the drums. Featured in all the main French press, Charlie has performed on the influential TV show Taratata an unprecedented three times and on Le Grand Journal in both Paris and at the show's Cannes Film Festival opener. He is currently on an extensive sold out headline tour of France and has been invited to play at all the major summer festivals in France Belgium and Switzerland.