Sometimes we get a second chance. Bothell’s Charlie Spring did. He performed music from age 15 to 26, then gave it up for a day job and family responsibilities.
He worked in sales a long time before burning out, then injured his back driving a truck for a nonprofit agency. While recovering in 2000, he picked up the guitar and reconsidered his options.
Tonight, the singer-songwriter will perform in Everett in a double bill with Hettel Street Blues.
It will be one of hundreds of shows that he does each year (his sales techniques still work), performing singer-songwriter concerts but also singing two or three times a day for seniors and the disabled.
The latter has “developed into a full-time occupation. I have a lot of senior gigs that pay the bills.”
Wearing his singer-songwriter hat, Spring will perform originals as well as covers. For his day jobs, he’s had to take a different approach.
“I used to be hung up on singing my own songs, especially back in the old days. But for the seniors I had to develop an incredible repertoire.
“I haven’t written a song in three years. I’ve been on this journey, learning about 300 songs, a lot of old cowboy songs, Hank Williams stuff, Elvis, Nat King Cole, lots of old ’60s folk songs,” he said.
Spring also works with Performing Hearts, a Seattle organization that takes music to those, including the homeless, whose situation prevents them from buying tickets. The organization pays musicians, for instance, to perform at Tent City.
“It was a really cool concept.”
Spring has produced one CD with original material and one covering songs that are in the public domain.
He also plays the harmonica. He was the frontman for a blues band in 1965, which he calls “the first white-boy blues band in the Seattle area,” the 31st Street Blues Band. His band backed up John Lee Hooker when he came to town, as well as Albert Collins.
While that dates Spring, he cautions against stereotypes: “I’m not an old guy, I’m a musician!”
| 7:30 tonight, Flying Pig, 2929 Colby Ave., Everett; $5-$10, all ages; 425-339-1393. |
One of Spring’s originals is “A Grateful Man.”
“I’m really grateful for just being alive … I really believe in living in a state of gratefulness because it’s just the best state to live in, living in the consciousness of being grateful for everything you have, and I’m not talking about anything materialistic.
“I give thanks for every day of my life. It seems that things go good if you just remember that,” Spring said.
“I am a grateful man.”
And one getting a second chance to perform his music.
Charlie Spring performs tonight in Everett.
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