Paul Charles: 'The news is that Tom Waits has started writing again'
Paul Charles has jjust published Adventures In Wonderland. Picture: Miguel Ruiz
The music agent Paul Charles pitched for years to become Tom Waits’ agent. He was a big fan of the American singer. He’d contacted lawyers, managers, record executives, but the trail always went cold. One day in 1982, he was in a Tower Records store in London browsing. He was looking for a copy of One From The Heart, a soundtrack album for the Francis Ford Coppola film recorded by Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle, but he couldn’t find one.
He approached a store assistant and asked her, “Do you have any copies of the new Tom Waits’ album?” “Sorry, we’re all sold out,” she said proudly. Charles sussed she was a fan. Then she leaned across the counter conspiratorially and whispered to him: “You’ll never guess who I sold the last copy to. Don’t look now as he’s right behind you, but it’s Tom Waits with his wife.”
Charles turned around and there, one aisle over, was Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, his muse and song-writing partner. Charles gathered himself, walked over and introduced himself. By the end of the day, he was Tom Waits’ agent, a job he still has over 40 years later.
Working with the couple has been one of the joys of Charles’s life. They come as a team. Kathleen Brennan is a renowned music producer who has co-written songs with PJ Harvey, amongst other stars, as well as with her husband. She grew up in the United States, in a small town in Illinois, but her family background is from Cork, where she was born.
“I remember they travelled around Ireland on one of their visits,” says Charles. “It was Kathleen's birthday. They went into this hotel, and ate in its restaurant. They were having a nice meal. Because it was Kathleen's birthday, Tom decided to sing, ‘Happy Birthday’. There was a piano in the corner of the dining room. He went over to it, and sang a beautiful version of 'Happy Birthday'. He stopped playing and put down the lid on the piano. The maître d’ came up to him and Tom thought, Oh God, people are going to start making requests; I’ll be stuck here playing. The maître d’ said: ‘Excuse me, sir, but people asked would you stop playing the piano.’ Tom laughed to himself.”
There weren’t enough tickets to go around to hear him playing his piano when Waits returned to Ireland to gig in 2008. He did three shows in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, playing to 15,000 people in a large marquee, but Charles says that he could easily have sold another 20 nights. Ticket touts charged €1,000 and more for a ticket.
Charles got the idea for Waits to play in a tent after seeing Christy Moore play the Live at The Marquee Festival the previous year. “If only we could find something in Dublin like the Marquee in Cork that might work for Tom,” he said to music promoter Peter Aiken. The following day, Aiken rang Charles to let him know he’d booked the Cork Marquee tent for the gigs. Waits christened the venue the Rat Cellar. Charles says it’s not out of the question that Waits, 73, might gig again in this country.
“We all hope he will tour again. After he did the three nights in the Rat Cellar, he went home. He enjoyed the tour a lot, and the idea was to start writing. He did a bit of recording, and then he basically got distracted by the movie world for a while. The news is that he's started writing again. We've all got our fingers crossed for another return visit.”
Born in 1949, Charles grew up in Magherafelt, Co Derry. He’s worked with some of the giants of the music game over the last half-century, including Van Morrison, Jackson Browne, Ray Davies from The Kinks, and John Lee Hooker, to name a few. But there are two performers that stand out for the power of their live gigs. One is Christy Moore. (The detective inspector hero of Charles’s murder mystery novels is named Christy Kennedy, partly in homage to Christy Moore.)
“Christy Moore’s concerts are incredible,” says Charles. “Christy is one of the few artists I've known that – when he performs a show – every member of the audience feels that Christy has performed especially for them on that night. He has that direct connection. The venue might be packed to the rafters. People are up for a good night and have a few bevvies on board, but when Christy goes into a quiet song, you could hear a pin drop. He’s the real deal.”
Another performer who left Charles with an out-of-body feeling from his live gigs was Rory Gallagher. He reckons he never saw a better live band than Taste. Charles moved to London in 1967, just as Taste were about to peak for a glorious couple of years, so he got to see them as often as possible whenever they played the Marquee Club.
“The thing with Rory is that if you met him off stage and sat down with him, he was a quiet, shy gentleman,” says Charles. “Very knowledgeable in lots of things – popular music, the blues, American crime writers. He had great conversation. Time flew by in the company of this nice man, but then this different person appeared on stage. When he plugged his guitar into the Vox AC30, he also plugged himself into something. He transformed into this magic maestro.
“Rory never played to an audience. There was never a line between the audience and the artist. It was always the audience and the artist, including his band members, together for his performance. With his energy, he always made a big connection. At the end of a Rory concert, you, as part of the audience, would feel as drained as the band did because you were right there with them, part of this special thing he created on the night.”
- Paul Charles’s memoir Adventures in Wonderland is out now, published by Hot Press Books. Charles will speak at the International Literature Festival Dublin (26 May) and at the Dalkey Book Festival (18 June).
"My lasting memory of Van Morrison’s Wavelength tour is driving back on the coach to London after the final gig – the City Hall Newcastle on Monday 19th March 1979 – with Van and the band. In the early hours of the morning, Van walked up and down the aisle of the coach, an acoustic guitar slung on, acting as a human jukebox. He played every request thrown at him, and more besides. Hank Williams, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Dylan, Muddy Waters, Lead Belly, John Lee Hooker, plus every country music classic known – on and on for the 280 miles – never once struggling over a chord or a lyric."
"Richard Branson was mega-keen to sign Elvis Costello and the Attractions. He made a big play to Jake Riviera [Elvis Costello’s manager], doing the whole song and dance about how important an artist EC would become, if only Jake would sign him to Virgin Records. Richard claimed Virgin Records believed in Elvis: they knew what needed to be done and they knew how to do it. Jake listened to this pitch for an hour. 'Okay', he said eventually, 'I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll sign to you right now, here, today, if you can give me the titles of six of Elvis’ songs.' Guess what? Elvis Costello signed to Elvis Presley’s label, RCA Records."
