Obituary: Charles Sawtelle
Paul Wadey
* 03/29/99
The Independent - London
(Copyright 1999 Newspaper Publishing PLC)
* THE SELF-proclaimed "Greatest Show in Bluegrass", Hot Rize was for
12 dazzling years amongst the finest outfits in the genre, marrying
superb musicianship with showmanship.
* Bluegrass was developed by the great Bill Monroe in the 1930s and
1940s and is characterised by "high lonesome" vocals, driving rhythms
and instrumental virtuosity played out on fiddle, mandolin, guitar
and dobro. Born out of the mountain music of the rural South and the
blues and field hollers Munroe heard as a youngster, it has
transcended its origins to become a universal form.
The quartet of Tim O'Brien (mandolin, fiddle, vocals), Pete
Wernick (banjo, harmony vocals), Charles Sawtelle (guitar, vocals)
and Nick Forster (bass, vocals) came together as Hot Rize in 1978.
O'Brien, Wernick and Sawtelle - a sometime steel guitarist from
Austin, Texas - had been members of the Drifting Ramblers in 1976 and
both Wernick and Sawtelle performed on O'Brien's Biscuit City album
Guess Who's in Town. Working as a group seemed a natural
progression, and with Forster on board in 1979 they cut an eponymous
debut album for Flying Fish. In common with their later releases it
expertly combined covers of standards with newer material, some of
* which has now entered the bluegrass/acoustic repertoire.
* Like many other bluegrass musicians, Hot Rize feted those
performers who had given the genre its initial impetus in the 1940s
and 1950s. They were particularly drawn to the music of Lester Flatt
and Earl Scruggs and took their name from "hot rize", the "secret
ingredient" in Martha White Self-Rising Flour, which, through its
sponsorship of their segment on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, became
indelibly associated with Flatt and Scruggs.
A sophomore effort, Radio Boogie was released to acclaim in 1981
and followed three years later with a fine live set, Hot Rize In
Concert. In the meantime, they had unveiled their alter egos, Red
Knuckles and the Trailblazers, a hot Fifties-style country swing band
with a penchant for sunglasses and song titles like "Wigwam Wiggle".
Sawtelle, masquerading as "Slade", contributed bass. Originally an
amusing part of their live act, the Trailblazers took on a life of
their own and cut two albums, Red Knuckles And The Trailblazers
(1982) and Shades Of The Past (1988).
In 1985, Hot Rize jumped labels to Sugar Hill and recorded
Traditional Ties with its excellent version of O'Brien's "Walk The
Way The Wind Blows". Ninety eighty-seven saw the release of Untold
Stories, by which time O'Brien's other projects were taking up more
and more of his time. Take It Home (1990), perhaps the band's finest
album, proved its swansong and that same year they split.
The band's members went on to enjoy varying degrees of success
with O'Brien maturing into a top-flight singer-songwriter. Sawtelle
* - long enigmatically nicknamed "the Bluegrass Mystery" - formed the
Colorado-based Charles Sawtelle and the Whippets and began an
association with fellow musician Peter Rowan that saw him become a
* fixture of the bluegrass festival/concert circuit.
Paul Wadey
* Charles Sawtelle, bluegrass guitarist: born Austin, Texas 1946;
died Nashville, Tennessee 20 March 1999.
