Charlie & The Wide Boys

Barely remembered today except by the most attentive of pub rock scholars, Charlie & the Wide Boys were a good-time rock & roll band cut firmly in the mold of the Faces and the Rolling Stones who arrived in London during summer 1973. Formed in the English southwest by vocalist Charlie Ainley and former Van Der Graaf Generator saxophonist Guy Evans, the sextet deserves some recognition for pioneering what has since become the archetypal power pop image of skinny ties and tight trousers. Their two-man vocal team, Ainley and Greg Phillips, also drew attention, while the band's reputation for hell-raising was second to none. By the end of the year, Charlie & the Wide Boys had signed with the Anchor label to cut an EP, 1974's Charlie & the Wide Boys. Fiercely independent, the group maintained their base in their native Cornwall even at the height of their London success -- it was a decision which ultimately proved their undoing, particularly at a time when other bands on the pub rock circuit seemed to be playing somewhere in the city every night of the week. An album was recorded, but even Anchor swiftly lost faith in the band and shelved it. It ultimately appeared more than two years later as Great Country Rockers, by which time Charlie & the Wide Boys had already broken up. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide