One Hit Wonder

One Hit Wonder

Charlie was a one hit wonder. To outside observers he was a phenom who showed up on You Tube one day, sang “Methuselah”, the song he had written, while playing a Gibson acoustic guitar and sitting alone on a barstool. Overnight he had millions of fans clamoring to see him live and on TV. Downloads of his song pushed the song to number one in America and Europe. Everybody wanted him, all the Late Nights clamored to book him.

Life was good, until it wasn’t.

Consult Records signed him to a five record deal, subject to renewal if both parties agreed. Charlie flew to New Orleans for his first professional studio recording. The A and R man for the label wanted to do an album. Since Charlie had no new songs in his pocket, they asked him to write some new ones while the label picked a dozen or so that they thought fit Charlie's style and musical range.

After a week of recording, using the best session musicians New Orleans had to offer, they had seven cuts that were just so-so, so the label decided to release only one of the songs to test the water. The water was too cold.

The record had none of the sincerity and oomph of his big hit, no one wanted to play it, and his fan base proved to be built on shifting sand. It took only months for Charlie and the record label to mutually give up on each other. Charlie found that the agent who was so anxious to represent him was now always busy and didn’t return his calls. He was told that advertising, travel, fees, and recording costs had left him almost penniless. He had not even known that he was responsible for recording costs.

Charlie moved into an airbnb, wandered the bars in the French Quarter, and ate beignets, muffalettas, and shrimp po-boys instead of dining at Commander's Palace. Then one night he was at Preservation Hall and met a fortune teller. For five bucks and a hurricane drink at Pat O’Briens, she threw some wet tea leaves on the table and told him his fortune.

She told him that his future was dependent upon his going back to his past, and starting over from where he originally started. That he had no future in the mud of the Mississippi or the bars on Bourbon Street.

Charlie, on reflection, agreed with her, bought her a second hurricane, gave her a twenty instead of five, and went back to his B&B. The next day, carrying his guitar and a duffle bag stuffed with tees and jeans, he boarded a bus that with changes in Memphis, Washington D.C., and Frederick, Maryland, would get him back to his grandfather's farm near Harpers Ferry.

That was three days ago. Today, after hugging, sleeping, eating, and soul searching, Charlie stood in front of the old barn into which he had years earlier disappeared and taught himself to play the guitar on a cheap Sears and Roebuck Silvertone. He opened the sagging, paint deficient door to the barn and went inside. Immediately he felt a cloak of comfort wrapping him, and he silently teared up as a tenseness that he did not know he had passed from his body into the ether.

He stood there, just looking around, and remembering how he had been at one with the old barn and how music, rather than being written, used to just emerge from his fingers and his lips. It was a good memory and a good feeling.

He selected a bale of hay to sit on, took his Gibson from its case, and sat down. He did not finger any chords. He did not pick any strings. His guitar pick remained in his shirt pocket.

Several minutes later his right hand involuntarily started tapping out a beat on his leg, then slowly moved to the body of the guitar. Ta ta ta thump ta ta ta thump ta ta ta thump it went. A humming began to accompany the beat.

Grandfather Mike, drinking a cup of coffee at the kitchen table, heard the music coming from across the field. He looked across the table at his wife and said, “You hear that Betty? Charlie’s back.”