THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 12, 1995 TAG: 9506100058
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUE SMALLWOOD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
WITH HIS lens-friendly cheekbones, big Bowie baritone and pair of popular mid-'80s solo albums, Charlie Sexton was a bona fide pop idol by age 16.
The esteemed Texas guitarist - who was a protege of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan and recorded with Ron Wood, Bob Dylan and Keith Richards - is now 26. This is a more worldly-wise Sexton, as his excellent new album, ``Under The Wishing Tree'' by the Charlie Sexton Sextet, reflects.
The LP, a mature song cycle mixing rootsy musical influences, atmospheric textures and personal, often bittersweet lyrics, was many years in the making, Sexton explained recently from Memphis.
``About five years ago I moved back to Texas to write because I wasn't able to do it as much or as well as I wanted to in Los Angeles where I was living,'' he said. ``I had a concept for many years that I was working on . . music - things that don't have to be real pop-y or rock and roll.
``(But) I had started so young and my first record, I had that song that did pretty well (``Beat's So Lonely'' from 1985's ``Pictures For Pleasure''), so for a couple of years I was under this stupid impression that that was what I was supposed to do. Then I finally realized that there really was no reason that I couldn't do what I wanted to do. So I moved back to Texas, locked myself in the studio and worked for a long time.''
Sexton brings those songs to The Abyss in Virginia Beach on Thursday night.
Most of ``Wishing Tree's'' songs, many penned with longtime collaborator Tonio K., are autobiographical - hardly surprising given Sexton's dramatic life. His mother was 16 when he was born and she moved to Austin not long after, where the toddling Sexton picked up guitar in the city's bars and saloons. His father was in jail while Sexton was a kid, then eventually split. Childhood summers were spent with his intensely religious grandparents.
Those Bible-school summers inform the swinging strum of ``Sunday Clothes,'' an accordion- and mandolin-tinged ode co-written with James McMurtry.
``I wanted to write a song that sort of paid tribute or gave thanks to the influence my grandparents had on me growing up,'' Sexton reflected. ``That's sort of a tricky thing to do, to write a song about your grandma.''
``There's several songs on the record that even the craft didn't really enter the picture,'' he explained of constructing his life-sketching lyrics. ``You break it down line by line and it's all for real, which is kind of a hard thing to do. I used to always say that no matter who the writer is, they're always lying a little bit. But there's several songs on this one that are pretty much (my life) verbatim.''
Sexton recorded ``Under The Wishing Tree'' with five other musicians, a sextet that included ex-Bodeans Michel Ramos (keyboards, accordion) and Rafael Gayol (drums), as well as Sexton's brother Will, also a talented musician. The touring Charlie Sexton Sextet is actually a quintet that features Poi Dog Pondering violinist Susan Voelz.
Sexton formed the Sextet after the dissolution of his last band, the blues-rocking Arc Angels, which included guitarist Doyle Bramhall II (another Vaughan protege) and bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton, Vaughan's onetime rhythm section. The Arc Angels released one album in 1992.
``It really was a fluke that the band ever made a record or anything,'' Sexton said. ``We were just going to do some gigs down the street in Austin just for fun. But before we knew it `the machine' was around the corner. And that was fine . . . though I'd always assumed we'd do at least two records. Unfortunately, Doyle Bramhall's (drug) problems interrupted that idea.''
Obviously no stranger to the music industry machine, Sexton still looks back a bit bemusedly on the early ``pin-up boy'' moments that effectively launched his solo career.
``I didn't really have much to do with it,'' he said. ``I just did a record. I was just sort of in the middle of it. When the first record came out, certain areas of the world where I would go, it would be close to something like out of `A Hard Day's Night.' It just got way out of hand.
``I was, in a lot ways, just a victim of circumstance,'' he concluded with a laugh. ILLUSTRATION: MCA photo
A more worldly-wise Charlie Sexton, second from left, will bring his
band to Virginia Beach on Thursday.
Graphic
IN CONCERT
Charlie Sexton Sextet with Mary Karlzen
When: 9 p.m. Thursday
Where: The Abyss, 1065 19th St., Virginia Beach
Tickets: $5, at door only. 422-0748.
by CNB