Byrd, Charlie Lee
(16th September 1925-30th November 1999)
He
was a jazz and classical guitarist born in Suffolk, Virginia and who grew
up in Chuckatuck, Virginia.His father was a mandolin player and his brother, Joe, was also a musician
that he would work with extensively during his career.When he was ten his father taught
him how to play the acoustic steel guitar, throughout his teens he would
play plectrum guitar in local groups, and when he was seventeen he became a
member of the school orchestra after he had entered Virginia Polytechnic
Institute.He was only there
for months when he received the call-up for the US Army during WWII and
while being stationed in Paris he saw combat, but also continued performing
in an Army Special Services band.During his time in Paris he saw Django Reinhardt play and from then
on he would become one of his influences in his post-war career. When he
finished his service, and wanting to continue with his music career, he
went to New York to attend the Hartnett National Music School and
concentrate on jazz theory and composition.After changing his usual style of instrument to a
classical guitar he moved to Washington D.C. and in 1954 he went to Europe
where he studied under Andres Segovia.Returning home to the US he teamed up with the
bassist, Keeter Betts, and together they would play gigs before being
snapped up by the Woody Herman Band with whom they would make a short visit
to Europe on a "goodwill" tour.He toured South America in 1961 and when he came back he
met up with Stan Getz and introduced him to some of the bossa nova
recordings by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto he had brought
back.They decided to record
these songs themselves and the resultant Jazz Samba appeared in the
Billboard pop album chart.Throughout his career he has
performed with artists including Cal Tjader, Joe Marsala, Freddie
Slack, Laurindo
Almeida
, Herb Ellis, Barney
Kessel and many others as well as being in the trio known as The Great
Guitars.He was the owner of
two jazz clubs in Maryland, had recipes appear in the book Jazz Cooks,
wrote Charlie Byrd's Melodic Method for Guitar and owned a boat
called "I'm Hip".He was made a Knight of the Rio Branco by the government of Brazil
and the Community Arts Alliance of Maryland named him a "Maryland Art
Treasure".He died at one
of his clubs in 1999 aged 74 suffering from lung cancer.
