A Brief History of The Charlatans

Made up originally of West Midlanders Martin Blunt, Rob Collins, Jon Brookes and John Baker, The Charlatans moved to Cheshire after recruiting lead singer Tim Burgess and released their first single 'Indian Rope' back in 1990. It may even have been on vinyl, if you remember such a thing. 'Indian Rope' proved to be a hit and got them a record contract with Beggars Banquet where they immediately released possibly their best known song, 'The Only One I Know.'

The nineties saw the band establish themselves as Britpop legends, releasing a series of hit albums and touring the USA (although they had to change their name to The Charlatans UK as another band had the same name there already). Sadly it wasn't all plain sailing as keyboard player Rob Collins was killed in a car crash during the recording of their fifth album, 'Tellin' Stories'. For a while the band considered splitting up but Primal Scream keys man Martin Duffy joined and contributed to mega hit 'North Country Boy' a year later.

A change of record label to Universal also saw a change of direction to a more country and soul influenced sound. Subsequent albums such as 'Wonderland' might not have achieved the success of their nineties releases but they kept the band a big name in America supporting the like of The Rolling Stones and The Who on tour. In the last few years The Charlatans have been pioneers in music downloading, teaming up with radio station XFM to release a completely free album online. Their tenth studio album, 'You Cross My Path', has just been released and the band are currently touring to packed out venues nearly 20 years after they got together...


Watch our interview with Tim Burgess at Transmission with T-Mobile

Look at some nice pictures of The Charlatans...

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