Danny O’Keefe was one of the many folk-oriented singer-songwriters who flourished in the early ’70s, and while he didn’t break through to platinum success, his songs were covered by the likes of Jackson Browne, Elvis Presley, Gary Stewart, Leon Russell, Glen Campbell, Waylon Jennings, Alison Krauss, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dwight Yoakam, and Willie Nelson, to name only a few. He released a series of major-label releases during the ’70s and early ’80s before forming his own independent label. However, his 1972 album, O’Keefe, is a classic, and it contained O’Keefe’s definitive version of Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues, which was a million-selling single and subsequently became something of a standard across genres.
He had written the song in the ’60s and recorded a version on his debut for Atlantic Records, 1971’s Danny O’Keefe, which was produced by Arif Mardin. The album was a tentative affair that mixed some good songs with variable arrangements. It set the scene for the classic O’Keefe, which was again produced by Arif Mardin and was recorded in Memphis with The Memphis Boys. The quality of the songs and the performances make this something of a roots music classic. O’Keefe even credibly covers Hank Williams’ Honky Tonkin’. The biggest revelation is the new arrangement of Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues, which slows the song down considerably and makes it the classic desolation song it became.
By 1972, it was very clear that the wild, hedonistic tendencies of the ’60s came with a high personal cost and that nothing can last forever. Also, adulthood was impinging on the flower children of 1967; the Vietnam War was casting a dark shadow over the once-bright American consumer society, and the first signs of post-industrialisation were causing people to become more mobile as they had to chase career opportunities countrywide. It was against this background that Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues reached number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. In the song, Charlie is still the joker and party animal he has always been, despite the fact that his friends have moved on and many have left town to better themselves, making adult lives and building careers. The desolation that Charlie faces is a result of the painful realisation of the high cost his sustained adolescent attitudes and behaviour have actually come with. The despair is even greater because he understands that if he can’t change his behaviour and repair the psychological damage he has inflicted on himself, then his very life will be at risk.
The chart success of Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues helped its parent album, O’Keefe, to become Danny O’Keefe’s most successful album, charting on the Billboard and Country album charts. It also contained The Road, a song that was covered by Jackson Browne on Running On Empty. O’Keefe’s follow-up album, Breezy Stories, was again produced by Arif Mardin, this time in New York with the cream of New York session musicians, including the likes of Dr John and David Bromberg. The songs this time were of a similar quality to those on O’Keefe, but they were even darker, and this time there was no hit single. Danny O’Keefe was destined to be a cult singer-songwriter as far as the listening public was concerned, though he continued to be a source of quality songs for other artists. The sound he achieved on O’Keefe in Memphis was a precursor to what Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson recorded with Chips Moman a few years later, which led to unparalleled commercial success, particularly for Nelson, who included his version of Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues on his Moman-produced City Of New Orleans in 1984.
“Everybody’s goin’ away
I believe this time they’re going to stay
There’s not a soul I know around
Everybody’s leavin’ town
Some caught a freight, some caught a plane
Find the sunshine, leave the rain
They said this town’s a waste of time
I guess they’re right, it’s wastin’ mine
Some gotta win, some gotta lose
Good time Charlie’s got the blues
You know my heart keeps tellin’ me
“You’re not a kid at 33
You play around, you lose your wife
You play too long, you lose your life
I got my pills to ease the pain
Can’t find a thing to ease the rain
I’d love to try and settle down
But everybody’s leavin’ town
Some gotta win, some gotta lose
Good time Charlie’s got the blues”
