Charlie Dore is an English singer-songwriter and actress.
Although best known as a singer-songwriter, Dore has a multi-faceted career that includes acting in film, TV and radio, comedy-improvisation and composition for film and TV. She studied drama at the Arts Educational School, Tring and London.
Dore worked for two years in repertory in Newcastle at the Tyneside Theatre Company, starting in the touring company, Stagecoach, where she performed in theatres, schools, streets, a psychiatric hospital, Oxford University and the Swan Hunter shipyard canteen. She later progressed to the more conventional auditorium, where she appeared in several shows directed by Michael Bogdanov, including a rock musical version of the Bacchae, Orgy by C.P. Taylor, Oh, What a Lovely War! and Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw.
Moving back to London she worked in fringe theatre and then joined Thames TV’s long-running series Rainbow for 18 months, writing and performing songs with Julian Littman, whom she had met at drama school, and Karl Johnson, an actor-musician from the Tyneside Theatre Company.
A friend, blues guitarist Sam Mitchell, asked her to deputise for him at Obelisk, a Westbourne Grove pancake house where he played at on Monday nights. Dore co-opted Julian Littman and Karl Johnson to help pad out the long sets required and the band grew, eventually including Karl’s brother Stuart Johnson on banjo and dobro, and various guests on fiddle, mandolin and guitar. This was the basis of her first band, Hula Valley. The band played a selection of bluegrass, western swing and hillbilly music as Dore was yet to start her own songwriting.
As the band grew and changed shape and name, from Prairie Oyster to Fresh Oyster to Charlie Dore’s Back Pocket, original material started to flow and the band played the London pub and club circuit, regularly appearing at The Hope & Anchor, The Half Moon, Dingwalls and the Rock Garden. During this period the band personnel was still changing and included, among others, Charlie Gaisford, Ian McCann, Keith Nelson, Gus York, Garrick Dewar and Pick Withers on drums, who was also playing with the early Dire Straits.
She was spotted by Island Records and signed to a solo recording and publishing deal by Chris Blackwell in 1978, later that year being flown to Nashville, Tennessee to work with producer Audie Ashworth at his Crazy Mama’s studio. Dore continued to work with Littman, her guitarist and co-writer and the first album, Where To Now, featured many of the Nashville A team, including Charlie McCoy, Reggie Young, Sonny Curtis and David Briggs.
Island employed Joe Boyd to re-mix the album, but thought the album ‘too country’ and drafted in the British record producers Alan Tarney and Bruce Welch to re-record several tracks, including “Fear of Flying” and “Pilot of the Airwaves”. The latter went on to become an enduring radio favourite, reaching #13 on the US Billboard Hot 100, earning Dore the Record World New Female Artist of the Year, an ASCAP award and charting in Canada, Australia and Europe.
Although an airplay hit, the single only reached number 66 on the UK Singles Chart, and Dore left Island for a deal with Chrysalis Records. Chrysalis teamed Dore with the record producer, Glyn Johns, but the company were not happy with the result, and Dore was flown to Los Angeles to re-record the entire album with producer Stewart Levine.
On 5 November 1990, “Pilot of the Airwaves” was the final track played by Radio Caroline as an unlicensed offshore radio station.
The second album, Listen featured most of Toto as the studio band. She toured with her UK band throughout 1981 and 1982, representing the UK in Tokyo at the Yamaha Song Festival and won the Silver prize at the Seoul Song Festival with her song “Sister Revenge”.
Selected Discography
Listen
Cherry Red Records 2009
Where To Now
Cherry Red Records 2009
Tracks: Pilot Of The Airwaves, Falling, Sad Old World, Where To Now, Sleepless, Fear Of Flying, Wise Owl, Hula Valley, Pickin' Apples & Sweetheart.
Musicians on the Where To Now album: Charlie Dore, Trevor Spencer, Jerry Carrigan, Karl Himmel, Alan Tarney, Gary Taylor, Tommy Cogbill, Mike Leech, Dale Sellars, Reggie Young, Sonny Curtis, Julian Littman, Cliff Hall, Bobby Wood, David Briggs, Mel Collins, Charlie McCoy, Jerry Carrigan, Farrell Morris, Johnny Christopher & Julian Littman.
Listen
Chrysalis Records 1981
Where To Now
Island Records 1979
Tracks: Pilot Of The Airwaves, Falling, Sad Old World, Where To Now, Sleepless, Fear Of Flying, Wise Owl, Hula Valley, Pickin' Apples & Sweetheart.
Musicians on the Where To Now album: Charlie Dore, Trevor Spencer, Jerry Carrigan, Karl Himmel, Alan Tarney, Gary Taylor, Tommy Cogbill, Mike Leech, Dale Sellars, Reggie Young, Sonny Curtis, Julian Littman, Cliff Hall, Bobby Wood, David Briggs, Mel Collins, Charlie McCoy, Jerry Carrigan, Farrell Morris, Johnny Christopher & Julian Littman.