Charlie Walker

Charlie Walker, the country vocalist, is primarily recalled today thanks to his 1958 honky-tonk staple titled "Pick Me Up on Your Way Down," which also marked the professional debut for its writer, the then-obscure Harlan Howard. Born November 2, 1926, in Copeville, Texas, Walker took up performing during his teenage years after his father, who farmed cotton, urged him to do so. He joined Bill Boyd's Cowboy Ramblers in 1943 as a singer and guitarist, yet the next year he entered the U.S. Army, where he worked as a disc jockey for the American Forces Radio Network while stationed in Tokyo. After the conclusion of World War II, Walker made his home in San Antonio and secured a position as an announcer at the local station KMAC. There he earned the moniker "ol' polk salad, cotton-picking, boll-pulling, corn-shucking, snuff-dipping Charlie Walker," remained employed for ten years, and built such influence that the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame welcomed him in 1981. Even as his reputation grew on the airwaves, Walker kept up his musical performances, joining Imperial Records in 1952 to issue several singles that drew little attention, among them "I'm Looking for Another You," "Out of My Arms," and "Stay Away from My Head." Imperial dropped him midway through 1953, but he appeared on Decca a year afterward and notched a regional success in the summer with "Tell Her Lies and Feed Her Candy." By the end of 1955 he had entered the national country rankings via "Only You, Only You," yet further Decca releases did not match that level of achievement, prompting his departure from the label in 1957; he briefly landed at Mercury, where he put out two more singles, "Dancing Mexican Girl" and "I'll Never Let It Show." Midway through 1958 he moved to Columbia, which gave him "Pick Me Up on Your Way Down," composed by the aspiring tunesmith Howard while the latter operated a forklift at a printing plant in California. The track's driving shuffle beat and its catchy, phrase-turning title propelled it straight into the country Top Five, thereby launching both men professionally. Although Howard went on to become one of Nashville's most productive and acclaimed songwriters, Walker never recaptured equivalent sales peaks; subsequent releases such as "I'll Catch You When You Fall," "When My Conscience Hurts the Most," and "Who Will Buy the Wine" reached the charts, but after the 1963 single "There's Where Katie Waits" Columbia ended the relationship. More than twelve months passed before Walker returned to recording with the Epic effort "Close All the Honky Tonks." A modest success arrived in mid-1965 courtesy of "Wild as a Wildcat," and two years later the novelty piece "Don't Squeeze My Sharmon," drawn from the Charmin toilet paper slogan, brought him additional notice. Following a period fronting shows at Las Vegas's Golden Nugget casino, he received an invitation in 1967 to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry, where his energetic and humorous numbers kept him a crowd favorite across his forty-year tenure with the institution. He persisted with studio work into the 1970s, achieving his final chart entry via the 1974 Capitol single "Odds and Ends." In 1985 Walker made his first appearance on the big screen, portraying the ill-starred country performer Cowboy Copas in the Patsy Cline biographical film Sweet Dreams. Several months after colon cancer compelled him to step down from his Opry responsibilities, he passed away on September 12, 2008.