Charlie Sexton
a.k.a.
Charles Wayne Sexton
A KINDER, GENTLER CHARLIE SEXTON
A Guitar Prodigy Grown Up
Charlie Sexton was the first -- and arguably, the most talented -- of the line of teen guitar prodigies to emerge in the past two decades. The lanky Texan got quite a bit of attention for his fretwork in the late '80s, but he wasn't thrilled with the attempts to sell him as a preening rock star -- so he packed up his axe and embarked on a decade-long journey through the ranks of sidemen and producers. That put him into close contact with artists like Bob Dylan (for whom he played lead guitar for several years) and Lucinda Williams (one of many performers to have used him on the other side of the studio glass). Eventually, Sexton got his groove back and decided to reenter the fray as a solo artist, emerging with Cruel and Gentle Things. The disc marks a departure of sorts for Sexton, in large part because he spends so much time behind the piano, but fans will instantly recognize that the spirit is the same. Sexton went over a litany of things -- cruel, gentle, and otherwise -- with Barnes & Noble.com's David Sprague.
Barnes & Noble.com: Why did you choose to pull back from your solo career back in the mid-'90s?
Charlie Sexton: Essentially, what happened was I had a really clear idea of what I wanted to do and what I felt was honest and where I needed to be. If I wasn't going to be given the opportunity to do that, I wasn't going to play the game anymore. I was going to try to do things I felt strongly about and felt sincere about, and go that route. It enabled me to work with great people whom I completely respected and thought did really, really, really good work. It was just as satisfying. I wasn't so self-absorbed or pompous as to think, Well, if it's not my thing, it can't be any good.
B&N.com: Did the pressures to get all glammed up weigh heavily on you?
CS: It didn't help me, by any means. Given my age and the fact that my focus was on the music, I wasn't really aware that it was going on to the extent it was. By the time I realized what was going on, the damage had already been done, so to speak. All through that, I just wanted to go into the studio and make records.
B&N.com: Was Cruel and Gentle Things recorded over a long period of time?
CS: The time frame ended up being quite a long span -- the oldest song was written about eight years ago. I struggled with a lot of the tracks and recut most of them so many times. I chalk it up to being "thorough," but I'm really hard on myself and spend a lot of time essentially getting nowhere. I always believe that when you first write a song, you really understand what it is, where it needs to go, and sometimes taking more time pushes you away from that.
B&N.com: You're credited with playing just about everything on the album. Does having someone around as sounding board matter to you?
CS: It does. I kind of broke my own rule because I've always said that no matter how talented a person is, they should have someone else to bounce ideas off. Not to compare myself to him, but take someone like Sly Stone...he pretty much did whatever was in his head. The recurring thing that kept happening to me on this album was that I'd record something and play it for someone and they'd say they were really excited about it, but then I'd get down to recording it seriously and think something was wrong.
B&N.com: You play a great deal of piano on this album, which seems to come out of left field. What prompted you to try that?
CS: The thing with the piano and me is that had I had a family who could afford a piano or stayed in one place long enough to have one, I'd have been doing this all along. Any time I got anywhere near a piano, I'd sit down and play. My father would always joke that I was like that with any instrument, though. I actually borrowed a sax from someone at one point when I was younger, but unfortunately, I'm a smoker and that doesn't help with the wind.
B&N.com: Is writing songs on piano much different from writing on guitar?
CS: Completely different. You can get places on piano that you can't get on guitar, and the other way around. Guitar is considered a rock 'n' roll instrument, and even though you have the Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard aspect of piano, it's essentially an orchestral instrument. And I'm sort of a poor man's orchestral guy -- a low-down George Martin.
B&N.com: How did you end up collaborating with Steve Earle [who co-wrote "Dellingham Lane"]?
CS: I'd started writing the song quite a while before the album and it was pretty well on its way. Then the label wanted us to go in and write with a bunch of fools they thought would write hit songs -- so I came up with a compromise and said I'd go and write with Steve, who's a really good friend. I showed up with heaps of pages, and he helped me condense the song. It would have been hard for us to sit down in a room and write together, but he threw me some zingers that really made the song work.
B&N.com: Has it been difficult to get back in the mind-set to be in the spotlight as a frontman?
CS: Honestly, I'm pretty shy, so it's difficult to get up there in any form. But I'm completely different as a person than I was the last time I did that. I'm a different kind of fool these days. [laughs]
September 2005
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