I first heard Carlton Basco's stunning funk opus "Don't Chain My Soul" through fellow collector Pete Beaver via a private minidisc swap some years ago, the song is a thunderous explosion of syncopated funk, released on the independent label Freedom Records out of Louisiana. Very little, in fact nothing had been documented about Carlton's life, or that of Freedom Records. So it was a huge thrill to receive an email out of the blue from Carlton's daughter Dawn, thanking me for some kind word's I'd written about "Don't Chain My Soul" in a previous excavation on SoulGeneration. Dawn's email inspired me to find out more about Carlton, so firing off a series of emails to her regarding her father's life and career and tracking down Grady Bates (who's name also appears on the 45), both trails led to Carlton's brother, Charles. Charles enthusiastically volunteered an evening of his life to reflect on his memories of Carlton and to lend an insight into who this mysterious figure was.

Interview conducted with Charles Basco on 12th January 2006 by Martin Lawrie What dates were you and Carlton born Charles? Carlton was born in '44, it was February 17 th , there was 22 months difference in our ages, he was the younger brother I was born in 42. Yep I'm starting to get up there! Did you grow up in a musical family? Oh yeah. We had a big piano in the house and everyone played except one sister, but she could remember lyrics and sing a bit. Our daddy, played a little guitar, just lightly and a little fiddle. I do fiddle, I do Roy Clark type shows, except, I hope its better. This little community we grew up in, Bayou Pierre Louisiana, seems like they were all interested in music, all these Basco's. You see, this area is full of Basco's, we are a big family community here. Our great grandfather John Adout Basco came here in 1822. They had 22 kids! That's what we were told. He had a big estate you see, lots of room, a lot of land, and they all played music. Year's later the civil war came on and I believe half decided to go and half decided to stay. We lost quite a few uncles in the civil war. They all liked to play a little fiddle and guitar. Our grandpa was the youngest, his name was Napoleon, his mother allegedly had him when she was in her sixties! Now I am not sure if I really believe that. They tell me he was probably the greatest fiddle player in this country. One of my uncles, he called himself Cap Basco, Cap as in the Captain, he won the state fiddle in 1926 or 28 with a tune called Pretty Polly. So there's always been lots of music in the family. Carlton and I grew up in a rural area, just an average family in the country, we had 5 older sisters and a baby sister.   Her name was Charlotte, and she passed on a few years ago. Now Charlotte could really sing, but she chose to be a teacher as was her older sisters. When we grew up, every sat night there was a dance somewhere.   Someone would "give a dance" at their house (house dances), that's what Carlton and I did back then. As soon as Carlton and I grew up we went off and started playing the clubs. Things like the local catholic dances at first. Did you sneak off to the Juke joints to play? We could have, we'd go down to the Juke Joints to drink a soda and listen to music, we were 14 and 15 years old. Sometimes, I'd slap my quarter on the counter for some beer. 'Uncle Lukes' it was called, it was a place you could go when you were in high school, listen to the juke, drink a beer, listen to Fats Domino. Carlton did a lot of Fats Domino's music. That influenced Carlton a lot. Yeah, that Dave Bartholomew / Fats Domino sound is hard to beat! Sure is, in this area, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, they were huge, their songs were the big things here. Yea, it seems as though they appealed to the white audience a lot more than the black folks in this area. Some of the black folk saw them as 'Uncle Toms'. What kind of stuff were you playing back then? Fats Domino, Ray Charles, oh that kind of stuff, that was the most popular in this area, a couple of Elvis' records, Little Richard - of course we had to play a few country tunes, Ray Price, stuff like that. You see this part of Louisiana is like a melting pot, there are many different cultures in this area, in a club people wanted to hear many different things, so there was lots of variety in what we played. Carlton leaned more to rhythm 'n' blues and funk, I liked it too. You know the funk and the rhythm 'n' blues was great and people loved it, in this area. Although, I crossed over to country and did real good on the road. But you know then I went into the Marine Corp, and Carlton went onto college we went our separate ways for a time. What did he study? Carlton went to college and studied music. You joined the marines? Yeah, I went to college later, much later, where I majored in anthropology, but first I went off with the Marines. So you must have been shipped out to Vietnam? Yeah, I am of that era, but I carried on playing, doing music with a band called the "Orbitts". One of my buddies and I started that band. Yea, when I was not in the bush I played music overseas. We even played at the famous Susie Wong club in Hong Kong. Then I came out the Marine Corp and came home and Carlton had a band. He was playing regular and he was a real fine musician, he was really good. All the time I was playing guitar with him he was playing funk and rhythm 'n' blues, he would play country too but no more than he had to! He liked the boogaloo, that's what he called it - 'the boogaloo' or 'the get down'. What instruments did Carlton play? He played some rhythm guitar, he was a good bass player, real good, he was excellent, when he got the B3 he would play bass with his left foot Of course, instead of the bass guitar. Yes, he'd be playing with both feet sometimes and both hands: he came up with some real syncopation, he was real athletic, he liked playing basketball so did I, you know when I sunk the ball in the net, I'd just go straight up and drop the ball in the net but Carlton would jump up, twist his body around in mid air and he would put the english on the basket ball, you know like in pool when the player puts the English on the ball? Well he'd do that and I would think, oh my goodness that was fantastic. He was real good at the syncopation stuff. Where did he play, was it local or did he tour? He played lots on the South Louisiana circuit, he had that real good funk 6/8 style developed really good, with the RnB 6/8 feel. I mean he was a real expert at it. He was real popular all over these parts. You know there is such a melting pot of cultures here, black, white, French-Cajun, German, Native Amercian etc., and they have real varied tastes but he played it all. He started off at the Imperial Lounge on Macarthur Drive in Alexandria. This was in the 60's - '67 and '68, I joined him and played guitar, he was playing the Hammond B3 at that point. You say he was popular, do you mean in a mainstream sense or was his career more club orientated? Oh well you know Carlton and I never was with one of the "7 sisters",   we were on the club circuit but we played some big and nice venues: you know, a thousand capacity venues, and I mean we played all the time. Carlton was the hardest working man in the music business, he went 30 years without a vacation, gigging, playing every night except on Sunday, well even on Sunday occasionally! I used to tell him stop! Take a break. He would not stop! Anyway of course in the music scene there used to be a lot of clubs in Louisiana. It used to be, that someone could make a lot of money in the music industry then. There were so many clubs to play at back then. Now the casinos have taken over everything, therefore it hurts the nightclub scene as everyone goes to the casinos. Did he ever find his way down to New Orleans? He played New Orleans a few times, his main stay was Alexandria, Lafayette and Lake Charles. He played a long time at a big place called Boo Boos. I didn't know much about Boo Boos but Carlton played there for several years, that was a big gig for him. That was a 1000 seater. Then he played another place, a long time, he made a lot of money at this place... Leroy's, that was in Alexandria Louisiana. He had a tremendous following. When did Carlton begin to write his own material? I went on the road to play country in1970 and I remember saying to him that I needed a song of my own to record, so he said, "I'll write you one, come by tomorrow and I might have you one". So I did and he had it, it's a great song. It was called "A cigarette, a bottle and the blues".   We released it on Freedom Records and it went up in the charts real fast in the state of Michigan. It was nearly a huge hit. It was the first time he'd ever written a song! I wrote my first fiddle tune in the 50's but as far as I know he'd not done any writing until the tune for me in 1970. Once he started he just kept going. What label was that on? That was on a small label called Freedom. Ahhhhh... I was wanting to get to Freedom Records, so where did Freedom come from, who owned the label? Freedom was our label, we were 13 hrs away from Nashville, in central Louisiana. There was not a lot of good studios here, so we decided to build one. Find some equipment and build one ourselves, so we needed a name and we came up with the name Freedom. The studio started behind Carlton's house on Marye Street in his garage. Then when I left to go on the road Carlton moved it to another location off highway 165 south, there he called it Contemporary Sound Studio, but the label remained Freedom.   We had a brother in law and sister that helped us out there, all of us had an interest in it but eventually they left and it was just Carlton and myself. What other acts did you release? As well as Carlton I know of the vocal group The Illusions, they cut an incredible soul record "Just An Illusion" with one of Carlton's songs on the flip "Take It Easy". Yea, we started putting out records and eventually more people would come over to record. The Illusions, I remember them, Carlton recorded them, and they recorded on Freedom. That's Carlton playing B3 on that cut.   He wrote a number of tunes like that. I'm trying to think what happened to the Illusions, they were just a local group from central Louisiana, they went two or three years then busted up. What musicians were you using at Freedom for the "Don't Chain My Soul" session? Oh, well, Carlton on B-3, Myself on guitar, also, Kirby Clark and maybe Jerry Rachal on drums.   We did have a certain group of musician who did a lot of the stuff there. I remember Leonard Parker, Kirby Clark, Charlie Maybou, Rodny Desoto were all working at the studio at one time or another. These guys were all good musicians. Who would have played the drum part? Oh wow, lets see, well I know the drummers that were around the studio, the best funk drummer at that time was Jerry Rachal, or Clyde Revoht - a great drummer, his name was Belgium or German or something, not sure how you'd spell that surname? The bass would have been... Leonard, Carlton or Charlie Mabou. I'm not sure if Charlie played on that, he never played with us in nightclubs, he played in another group who were our competition, but he was so good Carlton may have hired him. When was it cut? Oh around, the early 70's, probably '71 or '72, I'd have to check through all the boxes of paperwork to find out. What would be typical of the quantity of records that you would have pressed up? First we would press 1000, during those days in promotion you had maybe 30 key areas across the United States where you could break one out. So we would press 1000 and sell 500 locally quick and take the others on tour with us and give them away to key places, if they did well we would order our second order, that would be maybe 5000 and if it sold well we would have gone back for 15000. There was another band I recall called The Crowns, they recorded on freedom, there was several bands who did. Freedom Records started somewhere around 1970 and was pretty active, you know real active in the early 70's but not so much in the late seventies, then it lay dormant a few years. I was in Nashville in the 80's and Carlton contacted me and said he wanted to revive Freedom so I said of course. Was that when he released his cover of Chuck Berry's Nadine? Nadine, that was late '80's, that got real popular around here. Did he collect records, what would a flick through his collection reveal? Emerson Lake and Palmer, Jimmy Smith, Groove Holmes etc. Emerson Lake and Palmer! Really? Yeah, Carlton could really get into some heavy stuff, but he played for the people, our daddy taught us to serve the people, that was the way to do it. Carlton's personal taste was from very simple music, to gut bucket blues straight up to classical, he played what he played cause of where he played but it didn't mean he didn't like other types of music. He was very diverse. If we were out and we'd wind up at some ones pad, he may play Emerson Lake and Palmer then put on some classical, or real down funk; Joe Tex, Carla Thomas, James Brown... just a big variety, tremendous variety, he and I both liked ZZ (ZZ Top), they were our favourite redneck blues rock group, we enjoyed them. Me too! Oh yeah, one particular band he had, I'd come in from somewhere, I think it was Vegas, and I wanted to see my brother play so I went to this club "The Briarpatch" it was called, and was standing outside and I could hear this great sound, I thought the band were on a break and the juke was playing ZZ, but I paid to get in and it was the band playing. Carlton up there in a three piece really going for it. I said to him, "bring that to Vegas and I can book you into clubs for thousands!" He just said no, he liked doing what he was doing. Meanwhile you were successful with the country music? I started playing a place called Gillies, it was the biggest country nightclub in the world. Several times I almost had a hit record that almost made it, I played nice venues. Did you just play country straight up or did you ever dip into some rockabilly or rock 'n' roll? Oh yeah I had to! Every other song was rockabilly or rock 'n' roll at one point, from the gulf of Florida to Mexico you had to play that, they loved it. The lord blessed me with very fast hands and fingers, I could play show pieces, which I enjoyed doing, or I could play club and dance music.   I liked it all. Country, if you want to, can be played a lot like jazz... and I really like jazz.   You know, with all the "passing chords" and such. Yea, for a while Carlton and I really separated musically, he did what he liked and I did what I liked, but for the last 5 years of his life we played together almost every weekend.   That was really nice! When did Carlton pass away? Oct 26 th , a couple of years ago, a little over two years. He had diabetes, he had to cope with amputations, he was really suffering there, I don't know why he had to go through so much pain. I really don't. I'm sorry to hear that Charles, what was Carlton like as a person? He was a real family man; he was, "true blue." If he told you something it was gold. He loved his family and spent time with them. He was a jokester, a prankster he could tell a great joke, he'd have people rolling on the floor. But he was a Christian. Music is what he did, and Christianity was who he was. His persona was definitely Christian, he was family orientated and loved his work. He and his wife had 4 beautiful children and then grandchildren. Look out for a forthcoming re-issue of Don't Chain My Soul by Tramp Records, the flipside is still to be decided but is likely to be one of Carlton's incredible recordings with The illusions.