Charlie Walker born 2 November 1926

Charlie Walker (November 2, 1926 – September 12, 2008] was an American country musician born in Copeville, Texas. He held membership in the Grand Ole Opry from 1967, and was inducted into the Country Radio DJ Hall of Fame in 1981.

Charles Levi Walker was born on a cotton farm at Copeville, Texas. Encouraged by his father, he began performing while in his teens. In 1943 he began working as a singer and guitarist with Bill Boyd's Cowboy Ramblers. In 1944 he enlisted in the US Army and was posted to Tokyo, where he served as a disc jockey for the American Forces Radio Network.

On demobilisation he headed for San Antonio, Texas where he found work on the radio station KMAC and, trading on his rural roots, became popular as "Ol' polk salad, cotton-picking, boll-pulling, corn-shucking, snuff-dipping Charlie Walker". He remained at KMAC 

for a decade, developing a career that would, in 1981, see him inducted into the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame.

                                

In 1956, he signed a contract with Decca. His first single for the label, "Only You, Only You" broke into the Top 10. It was followed by three minor hits before he switched labels, to Columbia, and took a chance on "Pick Me Up On Your Way Down", a song the then-barely known Howard had written after overhearing the line spoken during an argument in his local bar.

Elvis Presley and Charlie Walker at the Memorial at Rodgers Park - May 25, 1955 Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Festival "Meridian, Miss. in 1955. They were participating in the tribute to Jimmy Rogers. Charlie was a well-known disc jockey at the time - before he became a recording artist. This was one of the last events Elvis attended before he was so famous he needed an army to manage crowd control around him.

Further chart entries followed, including "I'll Catch You When You Fall" and "When My Conscience Hurts the Most" (both 1959), "Who Will Buy the Wine" (1960) and "Facing the Wall" (1961). Another change of label, to Epic, saw more success with singles such as "Close All the Honky Tonks" (1964), "Wild as a Wildcat" (1965) and "Don't 

Squeeze My Sharmon" (1967), a title that, somewhat improbably, referenced a then-popular brand of toilet paper. From 1965 until 1967 he proved a popular fixture at the Golden Nugget casino in Las Vegas.

In 1967 he was invited to join the cast of Nashville's famous weekly radio show, The Grand Ole Opry. Although the hits began to dry up, he maintained a presence in the recording studio, hopping from Epic to RCA and then Capitol. His final appearance in the charts came in 1975 with "Odds and Ends (Bits and Pieces)".

An engaging performer, Walker's brand of no-frills country appealed to traditionalists on this side of the Atlantic and he made several appearances at the Wembley Festival in London. In 1985 he played the tragic singer Cowboy Copas in Sweet Dreams, the Oscar-nominated biopic of Patsy Cline, starring Jessica Lange. He continued to perform regularly on the Opry until sidelined by ill health.

He had been diagnosed with colon cancer just a few months before he died at the age of 81 in Hendersonville, Tennessee, 12 September 2008.

Walker's love for country music showed whenever he took the stage. He toured every state in the U.S., as well Norway, the U.K., Japan, Italy, and Sweden. No other performer will ever be able to fill the shoes of this talented entertainer. He is one country music artist whose legend lives on.

(Compiled and edited mainly from Wikipedia & Paul Wadey @ The Independent)