Fwd: [Harp-L] Any West Virginians?




Yes, he was born in Oak Hill.


i think his parents divorced, one moved to miami...so charley grew up in miami,

He moved to Fla before he started playing harp. I think he was 6 1/2. Then he started playing at 9? Maybe he started in W. Va. Maybe Fla. Who knows for sure? He WAS splitting his time between the two parents.

Don't anyone get all excited. I was only tossing that in to get a plug for Fla. He IS definitely a West Virginian (at heart). :)
He and the missus have a condo down here in Ft. Myers at "The Landings". It is an exclusive raquet and yacht club, where they spend some of their cold weather time.


on his 'harpin the blues' album he
does a brief recitation about hearing that lonesome train whistle back in
west virginia....

I had a similar experience. Way back when I was a little boy in the dirty mill town suburb of Pittsburgh (known as Sharpsburg), we lived about 60 feet from the railroad tracks. Every night as I lay in my crib, I would listen to the coke trains coming down from the ovens upriver. When they got to the edge of our town (about a mile away), they would blow their steam whistles to let the mills down river know to: 'Get ready, here comes the coke'.


Eventually, my father started to be posted to Europe with the state dept. (he was in the immigration & deportation services), and I got to travel. But I will always remember the trains and that's the reason I play harp today. The sound of those whistles (NOTHING is like a true steam whistle), is STILL the most laconic, morose, sad, lonely, sound I have yet to hear.

I LOVE it.

Jo-Jo







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