He’s best known for adding his soulful harmonica to some of the greatest songs in country music like “Old Dogs, Children & Watermelon Wine,” “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool” and many more.
But Charlie McCoy is a multi-talented musician who has also played the guitar, bass, keyboards, vibraphone, and other instruments on countless other songs, not only in country but other genres, too, during his six decades as a Nashville session player. He’s received many awards and accolades, and on July 13th received the honor of becoming an official member of the Grand Ole Opry.
“The Opry is the longest running live music show in the world,” McCoy says. “It’s pretty incredible. The band is so great, and the background singers, too. And of course, it’s the best audience in the world! It’s like a huge family and I’m so proud to be a part of it.”
McCoy has been an integral part of the country music scene since shortly after arriving in Nashville in 1959. But he didn’t start out playing country music.
“I was an 18-year-old rock and roller and Mel Tillis heard me (in Miami, Florida) playing Chuck Berry,” McCoy recalls. “He told me to come to Nashville and he’d get me on records.”
McCoy says that was like showing steak to a wolf.
When he got to town, he auditioned for both Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley, legendary producers responsible for the Nashville sound. They told him he was “pretty good,” but “we don’t do that kind of music here.” It was disappointing, but then Bradley invited McCoy to sit in and watch a recording session.
“I said sure, I had nothing else to do,” he remembers. “And I went back and watched 13-year-old Brenda Lee record one of her first hits. And when I heard that first playback, I said I don’t want to be a singer anymore, I want to do this.”
And by this, he meant become a “session” musician. His first break came when he was asked to play harmonica at a recording session for a 20-year-old young unknown singer from Sweden. Her name was Ann Margret.
A week later, McCoy got called to a second session – this one with Roy Orbison. And when a song they recorded called “Candy Man,” which prominently featured McCoy on the harmonica – soon became a hit, McCoy was on his way.
“After the song hit the radio,” he recalls, “my phone started ringing. And thank God, 61-years later, it’s still ringing.”
It was his ability to play so many different instruments, and use whichever one was needed, to make both song and singer shine, that led to him becoming so successful. He became known as a “utility man.”
“People would call and say, ‘Look, I don’t know what you’re going to play, but put everything you’ve got in your car,’” McCoy says. “Or they knew they had one song for the harmonica, then they’d run the next song and say, ‘What do you hear on this one?”
He put those skills to good use. He played bass harmonica on Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” the saxophone on Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman,” and trumpet on Bob Dylan’s “Everybody Must Get Stoned.”
And he played acoustic guitar, harmonica, organ, vibraphone and more on the soundtrack for the 1965 Elvis Presley film Harum Scarum.
It was a lucky break that led to the opportunity to play with Elvis. Someone with the movie company changed the date for the Nashville recording of the soundtrack at the last minute. When the film rep called to reschedule, the musicians who normally recorded with Elvis were booked for something else. He was told Elvis would have to record with a different band.
“We were all kind of concerned,” McCoy says. “How is Elvis going to be? He’d worked with those guys exclusively and now there’s a bunch of strangers in here. But Elvis walked in the door, walked up to each one of us, shook our hand, and said, ‘Thank you for helping me.’ And from that time on, it was fantastic. I ended up being on 13 albums with him.”
Although it’s McCoy who plays the harmonica in a song called “Hard Luck” (featured in Harum Scarum, in true Hollywood style, an actor is featurined “playing” the song.
“I had a big solo in there, a scene where he comes out of his place and he’s just had a fight with his girlfriend and he sings a song called “Hard Luck.” And I played harmonica all over it. And of course they wanted a movie with pantomime in it.”
McCoy also played on the albums Bob Dylan would famously record in Nashville. In fact, McCoy played a role, although he didn’t know it at the time, with getting Dylan to come to Nashville in the first place. During a trip to New York, McCoy was invited by producer and friend, Bob Johnston, to meet Dylan at a recording studio.
“I went to the studio and Bob introduced me to Dylan,” McCoy explains. “And Dylan didn’t say hello, he said, ‘Hey, I’m getting ready to record a song, why don’t you grab that guitar over there and play along.’ And I said okay. The song was called “Desolation Row” and it was 11 minutes long.”
It would end up on Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited album. Later that year, McCoy got a call telling him to book a band because Dylan was coming to Nashville. It was a big deal because back then, folk singers had a not-so-positive opinion of recording there.
“There were no folk-rock people recording here before Blonde on Blonde. And after that came out, it was like the floodgates opened. It was Joan Baez, Buffet Sainte-Marie, The Byrds, Leonard Cohen. I mean the list goes on and on and on.”
It’s difficult to calculate how much actual music has been influenced by McCoy’s talent. And he’s still at it. There are countless stories of unique approaches he’s taken to add something special to songs that are deeply entrenched into the American culture. One is the “Orange Blossom Special.” It’s a fiddle song, but when Johnny Cash recorded a vocal version in 1965, McCoy came up with a harmonica solo to fill in the gap. Then, years later, he created a full-length harmonica version that’s now become his signature song. He plays it almost every virtually every time he does a live performance.
And for all that he’s added to other artist’s music, he created quite a bit of his own. He’s recorded 45 albums of his own and is currently working on his own – a gospel album. Some of those albums, were back when he had his own band called “The Escorts” (between 1963 and 1971). They played heavy rhythm & blues.
McCoy has written and published a book recounting his many years in music and the stories of the artists he’s worked with through the years. He shares his experiences as an artist in his own right, and the many years he worked on the TV show “Hee Haw.”
At 81, McCoy is grateful for all he’s experienced, and excited about the opportunities ahead. Now that he’s been welcomed into the Opry, he’ll be making a lot more appearances on that famous stage.
“My life has been like a fairytale,” he says. “The blessings just never seem to stop, and I’m so thankful for all of it.”
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