Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band

Clarksdale to Los Angeles

Charles Williams Wright was born on April 6, 1940 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the seventh of twelve children, raised on a cotton plantation and moved to Los Angeles at 12. His father did not allow secular music at home. His mentor Jesse Belvin told him to stop copying him and find his own sound. He sang and played in doo-wop groups including the Turks, the Twilighters, the Shields and the Gallahads, recorded as Little Cholly Wright in 1956, and briefly worked in A&R at Del-Fi Records, where he was responsible for "Those Oldies but Goodies (Remind Me of You)" by Little Caesar and the Romans in 1961. In 1958 he co-wrote "No Other Love" for the Blossoms.

In 1962 he formed Charles Wright and the Wright Sounds and for about three years, ending in 1968, held a residency at the Haunted House nightclub in Hollywood. In 1967 the producer Fred Smith, who owned the Keymen label, coined the name Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, and the single "Spreadin' Honey" reached number 73 on the Hot 100 and 44 on the R&B chart. Session work led to a Warner Bros. contract, making them the label's first R&B band, according to Wikipedia. Wright disavows their debut LP, Hot Heat and Sweet Groove (1967).

The hits

A live taping at the Haunted House on May 18, 1968 became part of Together (1968) and the single "Do Your Thing", number 11 on the Hot 100. "Till You Get Enough" (1969) and "Love Land" (1970, number 16) followed, then "Express Yourself" in August 1970, number 12 on the Hot 100 and number three on the R&B chart. The 1971 follow-up album You're So Beautiful produced "Your Love (Means Everything to Me)", number nine on the R&B chart. Wikipedia compares the long grooves of the Express Yourself and You're So Beautiful albums to Sly and the Family Stone, the Isley Brothers and Parliament-Funkadelic, and Wright describes the sound as between Otis Redding and James Brown.

Al McKay left in 1969 for Earth, Wind and Fire, and after the 1971 album Gadson, Dunlap, Ray Jackson and Blackmon left to work with Bill Withers on Still Bill (1972) and Live at Carnegie Hall (1973). Wright went solo on Warner Bros. with Rhythm and Poetry (1972), then ABC with Doin' What Comes Naturally (1973) and Ninety Day Cycle People (1974).

Reissues and legacy

Rhino Handmade issued Live at the Haunted House (May 18, 1968) and Puckey Puckey: Jams and Outtakes 70-71 in 2008, in editions of 5,000, with liner notes by Oliver Wang. The Austin Chronicle's Raoul Hernandez wrote that the live set has just snapped every vertebra in the room. Varese issued a 16-track best-of in 2018, with two unreleased tracks, "Happiness" and "Remember That Thing", and Real Gone Music reissued Express Yourself in January 2020; PopMatters scored it 8 out of 10. Wright published a memoir, Up: From Where We've Come, in 2016, and gave an oral history for NAMM on January 18, 2020. He told the Austin Chronicle in 2008 that he still owns his publishing and refused to sign it away.