Charlie Dore
Encyclopedia
Charlie Dore is an English
singer-songwriter
and actress
.
and Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw
.
Moving back to London she worked in fringe theatre and then joined Thames TV's long-running series Rainbow for 18 months, writing and performing songs with Julian Littman, whom she had met at drama school, and Karl Johnson, an actor-musician from the Tyneside Theatre Company.
A friend, blues guitarist Sam Mitchell, asked her to dep for him at Obelisk, a Westbourne Grove pancake house he played at on Monday nights. Dore co-opted Julian Littman and Karl Johnson to help pad out the long sets required and the band grew, eventually including Karl's brother Stuart Johnson on banjo and dobro, and various guests on fiddle, mandolin and guitar. This was the basis of her first band, Hula Valley. The band played a selection of bluegrass, western swing and hillbilly music as Dore was yet to resume her own song writing.
As the band grew and changed shape and name, from Prairie Oyster to Fresh Oyster to Charlie Dore's Back Pocket, original material started to flow and the band played the London pub and club circuit, regularly appearing at The Hope & Anchor, The Half Moon, Dingwalls and the Rock Garden. During this period the band personnel was still changing and included, among others, Charlie Gaisford, Ian McCann, Keith Nelson, Gus York, Garrick Dewar and Pick Withers on drums, who was also playing with the early Dire Straits
.
Island employed Joe Boyd to re-mix the album, but thought the album 'too country' and drafted in UK producers Alan Tarney and Bruce Welch to re-record several tracks, including "Fear of Flying" and "Pilot of the Airwaves", which went on to become an enduring radio classic, along the way reaching #13 on the US Billboard chart, earning Dore the Record World
New Female Artist of the Year, an ASCAP award and charting in Canada, Germany, Australia and Europe.
Although a massive airplay hit, hovering in the top 3 for many weeks, the single reached only #66 on the UK charts and Dore left Island for a deal with Chrysalis. Chrysalis teamed Dore with the record producer
, Glyn Johns
, but in an almost uncanny mirroring of the Island scenario, the company were not happy with the rootsy result and Dore was flown to Los Angeles to re-record the entire album with producer Stewart Levine at the helm.
"Pilot of the Airwaves" was the final track played by Radio Caroline
on 5 November 1990 as an unlicensed offshore radio station.
and Tim Curry
In Richard Eyre
's award winning film, The Ploughman's Lunch and during the 1980s more acting work followed, including leading roles in Hard Cases and A Killing On The Exchange for ITV, South of the Border for BBC and two productions, Whistle Stop and The Big Sweep with the iconic People Show company, the UK's longest running fringe theatre group.
Dore also appeared in Eric Idle's comedy for BBC radio, Behind The Crease, directed by Harry Thompson. This was a second collaboration, the first being a duet with Idle, Harry, which Idle had written and performed with Dore as a jokey birthday present for his friend Harry Nilsson. Nilsson loved the song so much he surprised Idle by including the original recording on his 1980 Flash Harry album.
and going on to have her songs recorded by a diverse list of artists including Tina Turner
, George Harrison
, Celine Dion
, Paul Carrack
, Ricky Ross
, Worlds Apart
, and Jimmy Nail
, for whom she wrote "Ain't No Doubt", a UK #1.
, Harry Hill
and Jo Brand
and also enjoyed a guest visit from Robin Williams
, who joined the team onstage for the an evening of improvisation.
(this song was later covered by Celine Dion
on her multi-platinum album The Color of My Love). The album also included "Time Goes By", which was remixed by Italian team Souled Out and produced a European dance hit, reaching #6 in Italy and #1 in Israel.
, Lisa Stansfield
, Hayley Westenra
, Status Quo and an unlikely second track for Celine Dion
, "Rain, Tax (It's Inevitable)", co-written with another long-standing collaborator, Terry Britten, which appeared on the multi-platinum selling A New Day Has Come album.
Between 2001 and 2003, Dore and Littman provided the score for two series of BBC drama, Two Thousand Acres of Sky
. and also a film, Roman Road (Zenith 2004). During this time she also collaborated with Simon Rogers, one half of underground dance dons Slacker, to produce Space County, a collection of ambient country music.
In 2005, Dore released Sleep All Day and Other Stories, a return to her acoustic country-folk roots, followed by Cuckoo Hill in 2006. Both albums won her excellent reviews as well as the International Acoustic Music Awards Grand Prize for the song, "Looking For My Own Lone Ranger". After years of writing commercially for others she had finally rediscovered her own voice and found her audience. "File under treasure", wrote Charlie Gillett in The Observer
's Music Magazine.
In 2008, Dore won Overall Grand Prize as well as Best Folk Award at the 4th Annual International Acoustic Music Awards.
2009 saw the release of The Hula Valley Songbook, a collection of American hillbilly, western swing and popular favourites of the 1930s, based around the set list performed by her first band and originally recorded by artists such as Jimmie Rodgers, Al Bowlley and Milton Brown. Dore toured the UK with her band, Littman, Dudley Phillips, Steve Simpson and Jake Walker, collectively known as the Hula Valley Orchestra, also opening for Jools Holland
and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra for several of his summer concerts.
In October 2009: Dore's cover of "Here Comes the Sun", a Hawaiian reggae version produced with Littman, was included in Mojo Magazine's tribute album, Abbey Road Revisited. This was this biggest selling edition of the magazine to date.
In April 2011, Dore released Cheapskate Lullabyes. Notably, the album included an unplugged rendition of "I'm Cleaning Out My House" from her previous album, The Hula Valley Songbook. It was released on CD and digitally through iTunes.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
and actress
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
.
Career
Although best known as one of the UK's most respected singer-songwriters, Dore has a multi-faceted career that includes acting in film, TV and radio, comedy-improvisation and composition for film and TV. She studied drama at the Arts Educational School, Tring and London.First years
Worked for two years in repertory in Newcastle at the Tyneside Theatre Company, starting in the touring company, Stagecoach, where she performed in theatres, schools, streets, a psychiatric hospital, Oxford University and the Swan Hunter shipyard canteen, later progressing to the more conventional auditorium where she appeared in several shows directed by Michael Bogdanov, including a rock musical version of the Bacchae, Orgy by CP Taylor, Oh, What a Lovely War!Oh, What a Lovely War!
Oh, What a Lovely War! is an epic musical originated by Charles Chilton as a radio play, The Long Long Trail in December 1961, and transferred to stage by Gerry Raffles in partnership with Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop in 1963...
and Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw
What the Butler Saw (play)
What the Butler Saw is a farce written by English playwright Joe Orton. It premièred at the Queen's Theatre in London on 5 March 1969. It was Orton's final play and the second to be performed after his death, following Funeral Games the year before....
.
Moving back to London she worked in fringe theatre and then joined Thames TV's long-running series Rainbow for 18 months, writing and performing songs with Julian Littman, whom she had met at drama school, and Karl Johnson, an actor-musician from the Tyneside Theatre Company.
A friend, blues guitarist Sam Mitchell, asked her to dep for him at Obelisk, a Westbourne Grove pancake house he played at on Monday nights. Dore co-opted Julian Littman and Karl Johnson to help pad out the long sets required and the band grew, eventually including Karl's brother Stuart Johnson on banjo and dobro, and various guests on fiddle, mandolin and guitar. This was the basis of her first band, Hula Valley. The band played a selection of bluegrass, western swing and hillbilly music as Dore was yet to resume her own song writing.
As the band grew and changed shape and name, from Prairie Oyster to Fresh Oyster to Charlie Dore's Back Pocket, original material started to flow and the band played the London pub and club circuit, regularly appearing at The Hope & Anchor, The Half Moon, Dingwalls and the Rock Garden. During this period the band personnel was still changing and included, among others, Charlie Gaisford, Ian McCann, Keith Nelson, Gus York, Garrick Dewar and Pick Withers on drums, who was also playing with the early Dire Straits
Dire Straits
Dire Straits were a British rock band active from 1977 to 1995, composed of Mark Knopfler , his younger brother David Knopfler , John Illsley , and Pick Withers .Dire Straits' sound drew from a variety of musical influences, including jazz, folk, blues, and came closest...
.
First album
She was spotted by Island Records and signed to a solo recording and publishing deal as the UK's answer to Emmylou Harris by Chris Blackwell in 1978, later that year being flown to Nashville to work with producer Audie Ashworth at his Crazy Mama's studio. Dore continued to work with Littman, her guitarist and co-writer and the first album, Where To Now, featured many of the Nashville A team, including Charlie McCoy, Reggie Young, Sonny Curtis and David Briggs.Island employed Joe Boyd to re-mix the album, but thought the album 'too country' and drafted in UK producers Alan Tarney and Bruce Welch to re-record several tracks, including "Fear of Flying" and "Pilot of the Airwaves", which went on to become an enduring radio classic, along the way reaching #13 on the US Billboard chart, earning Dore the Record World
Record World
Record World magazine was one of the three main music industry trade publications in the United States, along with Billboard and Cash Box magazines. It was founded in 1946 under the name Music Vendor, but since 1964 changed it to Record World, under the ownership of Sid Parnes and Bob Austin, both...
New Female Artist of the Year, an ASCAP award and charting in Canada, Germany, Australia and Europe.
Although a massive airplay hit, hovering in the top 3 for many weeks, the single reached only #66 on the UK charts and Dore left Island for a deal with Chrysalis. Chrysalis teamed Dore with the record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, Glyn Johns
Glyn Johns
Glyn Johns is a musician, recording engineer and record producer.-Career:He has worked with such artists as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Easybeats, The Band, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Eagles, Eric Clapton, The Clash, The Steve Miller Band, Small Faces, Spooky Tooth, The Ozark...
, but in an almost uncanny mirroring of the Island scenario, the company were not happy with the rootsy result and Dore was flown to Los Angeles to re-record the entire album with producer Stewart Levine at the helm.
"Pilot of the Airwaves" was the final track played by Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline is an English radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly...
on 5 November 1990 as an unlicensed offshore radio station.
Second album
The second album, Listen featured most of Toto as the studio band and although Dore remained a fan of both producer and band, she is well documented as saying that the re-making of the album represented an identity crisis for her as both a writer and performer. She toured with her UK band throughout 1981 and 1982, representing the UK in Tokyo at the Yamaha Song Festival and won the Silver prize at the Seoul Song Festival with her song 'Sister Revenge'.Actor
In 1983 she starred opposite Jonathan PryceJonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
and Tim Curry
Tim Curry
Timothy James "Tim" Curry is a British actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California....
In Richard Eyre
Richard Eyre
Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre CBE is an English director of film, theatre, television, and opera.-Biography:Eyre was educated at Sherborne School, an independent school for boys in the market town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset in south-west England, followed by Peterhouse at the University...
's award winning film, The Ploughman's Lunch and during the 1980s more acting work followed, including leading roles in Hard Cases and A Killing On The Exchange for ITV, South of the Border for BBC and two productions, Whistle Stop and The Big Sweep with the iconic People Show company, the UK's longest running fringe theatre group.
Dore also appeared in Eric Idle's comedy for BBC radio, Behind The Crease, directed by Harry Thompson. This was a second collaboration, the first being a duet with Idle, Harry, which Idle had written and performed with Dore as a jokey birthday present for his friend Harry Nilsson. Nilsson loved the song so much he surprised Idle by including the original recording on his 1980 Flash Harry album.
Songwriter
During this time she started to have success as a writer for other artists, initially scoring a US #4 with "Strut", co-written with Littman for Sheena EastonSheena Easton
Sheena Easton is a Scottish recording artist. Easton became famous for being the focus of an episode in the British television programme The Big Time, which recorded her attempts to gain a record contract and her eventual signing with EMI Records.Easton rose to fame in the early 1980s with the pop...
and going on to have her songs recorded by a diverse list of artists including Tina Turner
Tina Turner
Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...
, George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, Celine Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
, Paul Carrack
Paul Carrack
Paul Carrack is an English singer, songwriter and musician. Carrack has been a member of several bands including Ace, Squeeze, Mike + The Mechanics, and Roxy Music, been a session and touring musician for several others including Nick Lowe, and has enjoyed success as a solo artist as well...
, Ricky Ross
Ricky Ross (musician)
Ricky Ross, born Richard Alexander Ross is a Scottish singer-songwriter and broadcaster, most famously for his work with the rock band, Deacon Blue.-Biography:...
, Worlds Apart
Worlds Apart
Worlds Apart is an album by ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. It was released on January 25, 2005 by Interscope Records and reached #92 on the UK Album Chart....
, and Jimmy Nail
Jimmy Nail
James Bradford "Jimmy" Nail is an English singer-songwriter, actor, musician, film producer, film score composer and television writer....
, for whom she wrote "Ain't No Doubt", a UK #1.
Comedy
In 1990 she co-founded comedy-improvisation troupe, Dogs On Holiday, which hosted and performed at its own Soho venue, The Hurricane Club. The club, which ran for six years on Saturday nights with a mixture of improvisation and stand-up, played regular host to the emerging careers of comedians such as Mark LamarrMark Lamarr
Mark Lamarr is an English comedian, radio DJ and television presenter.-Early life:Lamarr was born in the Park South area of Swindon and has three elder sisters. His father is Irish...
, Harry Hill
Harry Hill
Harry Hill , is a Perrier Award–winning English comedian, author and television presenter. A former medical doctor , Hill began his career in comedy with the popular radio show Harry Hill's Fruit Corner.-Personal life:Hill was born in Woking,...
and Jo Brand
Jo Brand
Josephine Grace "Jo" Brand is a BAFTA winning British comedian, writer, and actor.- Early life :Jo Brand was born 23 July 1957 in Wandsworth, London. Her mother was a social worker. Brand is the middle of three children, with two brothers...
and also enjoyed a guest visit from Robin Williams
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
, who joined the team onstage for the an evening of improvisation.
Solo album
In 1995 Dore ventured back into the recording studio to record her own album, Things Change (Black Ink/Grapevine), which included the original version of "Refuse To Dance", featuring actor Alan RickmanAlan Rickman
Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman is an English actor and theatre director. He is a renowned stage actor in modern and classical productions and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company...
(this song was later covered by Celine Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
on her multi-platinum album The Color of My Love). The album also included "Time Goes By", which was remixed by Italian team Souled Out and produced a European dance hit, reaching #6 in Italy and #1 in Israel.
Recent career steps
Always busy and in demand as a songwriter and collaborator, over the next decade she continued to produce hits for a string of artists including German pop idols No AngelsNo Angels
The No Angels are an all-female pop trio from Germany, consisting of band members Lucy Diakovska, Sandy Mölling, and Jessica Wahls. Critically acclaimed, the band has won dozen of awards and prizes since their establishment in the early 2000s, including three ECHOs, a World Music Awards, a NRJ...
, Lisa Stansfield
Lisa Stansfield
Lisa Stansfield is an English singer and songwriter.-Early years:Stansfield was born to Marion and Keith Stansfield in Heywood, Lancashire, in England, where she attended Redbrook School, Rochdale. Her first television appearance was on a talent programme in the Granada TV area in 1982...
, Hayley Westenra
Hayley Westenra
Hayley Dee Westenra is a New Zealand soprano, classical crossover artist, songwriter and UNICEF Ambassador. Her first internationally released album, Pure, reached No. 1 on the UK classical charts in 2003 and has sold more than two million copies worldwide...
, Status Quo and an unlikely second track for Celine Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
, "Rain, Tax (It's Inevitable)", co-written with another long-standing collaborator, Terry Britten, which appeared on the multi-platinum selling A New Day Has Come album.
Between 2001 and 2003, Dore and Littman provided the score for two series of BBC drama, Two Thousand Acres of Sky
Two Thousand Acres of Sky
Two Thousand Acres of Sky was a TV drama which aired on BBC Television from 2001 to 2003. It is also syndicated in the United States on PBS. It was created and written by Timothy Prager. The Executive Producer was Adrian Bate....
. and also a film, Roman Road (Zenith 2004). During this time she also collaborated with Simon Rogers, one half of underground dance dons Slacker, to produce Space County, a collection of ambient country music.
In 2005, Dore released Sleep All Day and Other Stories, a return to her acoustic country-folk roots, followed by Cuckoo Hill in 2006. Both albums won her excellent reviews as well as the International Acoustic Music Awards Grand Prize for the song, "Looking For My Own Lone Ranger". After years of writing commercially for others she had finally rediscovered her own voice and found her audience. "File under treasure", wrote Charlie Gillett in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
's Music Magazine.
In 2008, Dore won Overall Grand Prize as well as Best Folk Award at the 4th Annual International Acoustic Music Awards.
2009 saw the release of The Hula Valley Songbook, a collection of American hillbilly, western swing and popular favourites of the 1930s, based around the set list performed by her first band and originally recorded by artists such as Jimmie Rodgers, Al Bowlley and Milton Brown. Dore toured the UK with her band, Littman, Dudley Phillips, Steve Simpson and Jake Walker, collectively known as the Hula Valley Orchestra, also opening for Jools Holland
Jools Holland
Julian Miles "Jools" Holland OBE, DL is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer, and television presenter. He was a founder of the band Squeeze and his work has involved him with many artists including Sting, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, The Who, David Gilmour and Bono.Holland is a...
and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra for several of his summer concerts.
In October 2009: Dore's cover of "Here Comes the Sun", a Hawaiian reggae version produced with Littman, was included in Mojo Magazine's tribute album, Abbey Road Revisited. This was this biggest selling edition of the magazine to date.
In April 2011, Dore released Cheapskate Lullabyes. Notably, the album included an unplugged rendition of "I'm Cleaning Out My House" from her previous album, The Hula Valley Songbook. It was released on CD and digitally through iTunes.
Albums
- 1979 Where To Now on LP/TC(Island) and reissue CD on CherryRed/Lemon Records
- 1981 Listen on LP/TC(Chrysalis) and reissue CD on CherryRed/Lemon Records
- 1981 Listen on LP(Chrysalis) Japanese pressing WWS-81446/VIP-4113
- 1995 Things Change on CD
- 2005 Sleep All Day and Other Stories on CD
- 2006 Cuckoo Day on CD
- 2009 The Hula Valley Songbook on CD/mp3
- 2011 Cheapskate Lullabyes on CD/mp3
Singles
- 1979 "Pilot of the Airwaves"
- 1979 "Fear of Flying"
- 1981 "Listen"
- 2005 "Sleep All Day"
- 2005 "Cartoon"
- 2007 "Some Kind of Love"
External links
- [ Charlie Dore biography and discography] at Allmusic websiteWebsiteA website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
- http://www.myspace.com/charliedoremusicCharlie Dore's official MySpaceMySpaceMyspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
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