CHARLIE’s LIFE IN PICTURES

PHOTO GALLERIES

Charlie Smalls Is as Robust As His Score of ‘The Wiz’

By Cleveland Amory

Los Angeles Times, Sunday, August 29, 1976

Beverly Hills

CHARLIE SMALLS, the man who bagged a Tony — on his first toss — for the score of “The Wiz,” turned out, on meeting him in person at the pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel, to be as robust and irresistible as his music. Only slightly less irresistible were the bagels, lox and stuffed eggs we couldn’t help but notice on the cabana table. “You’re right,” Smalls chuckled, “they’re not on the menu. I’ve been out here for a month, and I couldn’t take it any more. I’m homesick. I went out and found a deli this morning and brought them in.”

For a total unknown to come out of nowhere and win a Tony was, to say the least, unusual. Where, we asked, had he been all his life? “Studying. Learning,” Smalls said quickly. “Since I was 3 years old, my life has been music. When the other kids were out playing ball, Charlie was practicing. Can you believe I still don’t know how to play baseball?” he laughed. We wondered if three wasn’t a little young to begin, even for a genius. “Maybe. My mother had studied music. She didn’t want me to be a musician because they didn’t make enough money — so she locked the piano practically as soon as I could walk.” Smalls laughed. “It didn’t work. I was a hellion even then. I found a hammer and broke the lock, and from that time on, she couldn’t drag me away from that piano. Finally,” he went on, “she told me, ‘Okay, if that’s really what you want’ — so I started music lessons. I went on to 14 years at Julliard, and I loved every day of it.”

Somehow, we hazarded, his music didn’t strike us as the work of a scholarly shut-in. “That music — may be you’d call it ‘sophisticated funk’ — is a combination of all the music I ever knew. I wrote it all from my heart. The lyrics — they’re my life story — I became the characters to create the characters. I used everything that happened to me on my way here. And believe me, some of it wasn’t so good before it got turned into a song. I’d take a bad thing and make a song out of it. I’ve made the bad experience work for me and turn it to good. I also turned it into money, and that’s productive, too.” He tapped his foot to the tape deck and leaned forward. “It took me three years to finish the score. I’d start work at 11:30 at night, when everybody else went to bed. I had to reach a certain level of energy — plug into the cycle of music that’s going on all the time in the heavens.” He pointed, grinning at our politely confused countenance. “It’s touching a moment from outer space — a creative moment — and whatever comes, maybe lyrics first, maybe music, that’s what you put down.” We nodded uncertainly. “If you’re not ready for it when it hits,” Smalls continued, “it’s gone. It can take you three months to get it back. You know, I feel I was born to create music. When all the neighborhood kids were auditioning for ‘West Side Story’, I remember saying to myself, ‘Charlie, you don’t want to play in that — you want to write it.'”

Where, we asked, do you go from instant and total success? “Who knows? I’ve got a lot more music in me. As it is, they took two of my favorite songs out of the show because they needed time. The problem is, I started out at so high a level, I’ll really have to break my brains to top it. Suddenly,” he went on, “I’m in the 50 per cent tax bracket, and I didn’t even know there was one.”

What, we wanted to know, did he do for fun? “I have fun, that’s all. I am fun, man. Once you learn how to live on $5 a week — and have a good time — when you do get the money, then it’s all fun.” We asked him, finally, to sing one of his songs for us. He started, his rich baritone almost at a whisper, “Now that I know that I wasn’t born yesterday — that I’m full-grown — I can stand on my own — nothing’s going to get in my way. ‘Cause I know I’m going to make it this time…”

“MERRY CHRISTMAS, CAROLINE”: 
CHARLIE’S SONG FOR THE PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER

April 1962

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Airman 3rd Class Charles E. Smalls, 18, a pianist and glockenspiel player with the 579th Air Force band in Newburgh, composed “Merry Christmas, Caroline,” in honor of the President’s daughter and sent it to the White House. Recently, he received a reply signed by Ralph A. Dungan, a special presidential assistant, which said in part:

“THE PRESIDENT has asked me to thank you for your kindness in sending him your song. Your thoughtful greetings are very much appreciated by the President and he extends to you his best wishes.”
Caroline’s song is not Small’s first attempt at writing tunes. In his last three years he has turned out 40 songs, including some rock ‘n’ roll. One number, “Bopp’n Pappy,” was recorded. Smalls has also composed several jazz instrumentals.

The musician, son of Airman First Class and Mrs. Charles H. Smalls, was launched in his field at the age of three, when he began piano lessons. He appeared in his first concert two years later.

SMALLS, who also has played the Saxophone, attended Juilliard School of Music for six years and graduated from High School of Performing Arts after his Air Force hitch.