Songoftheday 9/6/14 - Come on baby you know there's something missing, don't find nothing no more coincidences...

Charlie Sexton - "Beat's So Lonely"
from the album Pictures For Pleasure (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #17 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10

Today's Song of the Day is by guitarist/singer Charlie Sexton, who grew up the son of a teen mom in Texas, and learned guitar at an early age, so much so that he was signed and recorded his debut album while still a minor at 16. That record, Pictures For Pleasure, was produced by Keith Forsey, who took his work with punk-pop star Billy Idol and used it good effect with Sexton's growl/moan that was a ringer for David Bowie and soaring guitar riffs like Idol's axeman Steve Stevens. The first single released from the project was "Beat's So Lonely", a tight encapsulation of that sound written by Sexton and Forsey...

"Beat's So Lonely" became Charlie's first and last (so far) top-40 pop hit, landing in the top twenty in March of 1986. Surprisingly, the single stopped lower on the Mainstream Rock chart in Billboard, peaking at #24.

Sexton wouldn't appear on his own on the Hot 100, though he managed a couple more solo hits on rock radio, with "Everyone Will Crawl" climbing to #18 in 1995. He also was a part of the trio Arc Angels, who released a critically-heralded album in 1992, but his highest-profile gig has been his off-and-on stint as touring guitarist with Bob Dylan. I'm surprised that his success as a solo artist was so brief - he certainly had a lot of record label push at first, but I guess the lack of a strong follow-up single dried that up quickly, and he's more of a live dive bar troubadour kind of musician anyway.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Here's Sexton performing "Beat's So Lonely" live in 1986...

Up tomorrow: Scotsmen want you purified.