Fuzionz Magazine and TV Interview's Legendary Singer Charles Wright

Here's a sneak preview of our interview with Legendary Singer Charles Wright. Check the full version out in our upcoming digital issue.

The music pioneer is best known for his hits “Express Yourself” and “Do Your Thing.” Wright was born in the Mississippi Delta, but he and his family would later move to Los Angeles, California, where he would connect to the beginning of his fate. He attended a school called Manual Arts Vocational School. On his first day, he was introduced to the world of music, something he had never given any thought about getting into. As Wright walked the campus, a peculiar sound caught his attention. “I never heard anything like it before. I heard that sound coming from behind one of the bungalows and so I followed my ears. It stopped and I had to wait for it to start again. I followed my ears to out behind one of the bungalows and there was four guys singing a doo wop song and it was so beautiful, so I came back during lunch time and they has some other students standing out listening to them. I came back again the next day and the next day and the next thing I know is I sure want to be a part of this, but I had no knowledge of music, whatsoever,” Wright told me in a recent interview. Although he had no musical training, the only exposure he had to music was a little piano they had in the house they had moved in. His sister taught him four chords on the piano. During the same time, Wright would hear music by Jesse Belvin, an American R&B singer, pianist and songwriter of the 1950s era. “He was a great singer and had a beautiful voice, most different than anybody’s voice,” described Wright. After hearing his record on the radio, Wright went to the nearest phone booth, looked up Belvin’s number and gave him a call. “He was the only Belvin in Los Angeles, at the time. I called him a couple of times until I got him. I told him, “Mr. Belvin, I love the way you sing. You sing so beautiful and I want to sing that one sound just like you. He gave me some of the best advice I ever had. He said, “Boy, get your own style and leave mine the “F” alone. I thought that would be a compliment. He asked me had I ever heard of a singer by the name of Johnny Ace? I said Yeah, I like the way you sing, but you, you…,” Wright said. He said, “Boy if you don’t get it by now, I’m hanging up.” Wright would go on to tell him that he wanted to be a part of his music, so Belvin invited Wright to come over to his house. “We had so much fun, when I left there I was hooked, so I decided to start me a vocal group,” said Wright.

Wright started his group, but was uncertain of what he was doing, so he took advice from Belvin and contacted a gentlemen who had a studio, not far from where Belvin lived. Wright went by and asked him to listen to the group and he told Wright to get it together and come on. “We worked and worked and finally got it together and I took my group over there one night. My cousin sings like a songbird automatically. He sang the first two songs. Then I got up to sing and I started singing and the man said, “Hold it, hold it, hold it! Brother, don’t you ever try and sing lead. You stay in the background. Don’t never try to sing lead. [Laughing] So there was a tunnel not far from where I lived and I used to go in the tunnel and I would practice by myself and listen to the echo in the tunnel. I wrote a song and I went back over there by myself and played the piano and a chorus of the song I had made up and he said, “Oh No! Next time I go into the studio and record anybody, I’m taking you with me and I’m recording you.” So he had a recording session and just as he said, he invited me over, but when we got to the session, we only had fifteen minutes left and so I song two songs in that fifteen minutes time and made my first hit record,” Wright said.