The Long Gig: Charles “Wigg” Walker’s Life in Soul | The Sharp Notes Interview

Charles “Wigg” Walker’s voice isn’t just soulful, it’s resilient. His decades-long journey through the unpredictable terrain of the music industry is one of grit, adaptability, and unwavering devotion to the craft. From singing on Nashville street corners as a teen to warming up crowds for––and being fined by––James Brown, to reinventing himself across continents and genres, Wigg never quit. Music didn’t always pay the bills––he drove vans, ran hot dog stands, and learned firsthand that making a life in show business is often about survival more than stardom.

In this candid conversation, Wigg reflects on what it really takes to endure in an industry that can be as thankless as it is thrilling. His latest record, This Love is Gonna Last, was born from personal loss and creative renewal andcarries the weight of a life fully lived and a voice that still has something to say. Now in his 80s and performing weekly in Nashville, Walker reminds us that staying true to your voice—literally and figuratively—is a form of defiance, power, and peace. This isn’t a story of overnight success. It’s the long arc of commitment, connection, and keeping the fire lit—no matter what.

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Evan Toth: Thanks so much for doing this Mr. Wigg. Should I call you Mr. Wigg?

Charles "Wigg" Walker: [chuckles] Yes, just call me Wigg.

ezt: Congratulations on this brand-new record. I got to tell you, I read your story. I didn't know what really to expect, and I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this record. It's just such a cool, well done. It ticks all the boxes for me, so I'm really enjoying listening to it.

cww: Thank you so much. Thank you.

ezt: You're very, very welcome. I think one of the ways to approach our conversation is to just tell your story. Tell the story about where you came from and how you got to this place, because your story is really interesting, and of course, for our listeners and our audience. Charles Treadway, who helped you produce this album and also has been playing with you for a long time, he did a lot to make this album sound great too. Where are you joining me from today, by the way?

cww: Nashville.

ezt: Nashville, Tennessee.

cww: It's my home.

ezt: That's it. I'm here in New Jersey.

cww: Oh, yes. I used to live in New York.

ezt: You did a lot of work in New York City, right?

cww: Yes, I was there for 30 something years.

ezt:Well, listen, I think the only place to start this conversation is, can you tell our audience where you got your nickname, Wigg?

cww: [chuckles] I sure can. My mother gave me that name when I was born because I had a head full of hair. It was shaped like a wig, she said, so she started calling me Wigg.

ezt: You came with your own wig, man. You were ready.

cww: [laughs] Down here in Nashville, most people know me as Wigg. They don't even know Charles.

ezt: Wigg Walker, that's the way everybody knows you.

cww: Yes.

ezt: As you said, you're from Nashville. You grew up there in the '40s and '50s. Tell us what that was like. We've seen movies about this. We've read books about this time and place, but here I am lucky enough to sit with someone who was there. Why don't you tell everybody about this experience and your place in it at that time?

cww: I'm going to go to the music part because all that other stuff is irrelevant. I just want to talk about the music where I started off as a kid singing around on the street corners, in church. Then I got a singing group called The Bel Airs, and we sang around here for two or three years. I was still in high school then. After a while, we just broke up like all groups, and I went out on my own.

There was a guy that I used to work for at the barbershop here in Nashville. Everybody hang out at the barbershop. I used to be in there. I used to shine shoes and I'd be back there singing all the time so he kept telling me, "Why don't you stop all that singing and shine?"

ezt: "Get to work. Knock off the singing."

cww: Finally, he took me down to the club, New Era Club, it's a club in Nashville, big blues, soul club. I think I was about 15. He got me the job singing down there. I could sing a couple of songs. I was opening the show. I would sing a couple of songs, and I'd have to go out on the back deck and stand out there for about a year. After a while, he said, "Oh, just forget about that. Come on in." I was in the club at 16 and I was singing every night, Monday through Sunday.

ezt: Oh, I see. You were waiting outside behind the place in the middle because you were too young to be in the club. I get it.

cww: Yes.

ezt: That's cool. They knew that you were the guy. A lot of your career, seems like one of your specialties is warming up other groups, getting the crowd ready. That comes through a few times in your biography. That's a special skill. I'm a musician too. I've been an opening act a lot, and I know there's a certain little skill. Can you share a little bit about that experience of warming up a crowd?

cww: Opening up a show for especially major acts and stuff like that, you have to be able to excite the crowd with whatever you do, singing, dancing, turning flips, whatever. I was always considered a good singer and I was a good dancer. I could do all those tricks and splits and everything, and always dressed pretty nice. All those ingredients helped with opening a show.

I remember when I first got the job with James Brown, he had already seen me here in Nashville. He told me if I ever come to come to New York, look him up. A few months later, I was in New York and I looked him up. He was at the Apollo. I lived right behind Apollo. My aunt's house is right on Seventh Avenue right on the other side of Apollo. I went there and knocked on the back door and I'd say, "Who is it?" I said, "It's Charles Wigg Walker." I heard James upstairs say, "Let him in."

[laughter]

ezt: That's how you did it before email. That was the way you would hook up with people, right?

cww: You got to use your knuckles.

ezt: You would go bang on the door, "Hey, I'm looking for James." That's amazing. He saw that skill in you and I guess, you were the warmup guy for him, right?

cww:Yes, that's exactly what I was. He was the same way. I only did sing about two or three songs at the most. That's all he wanted me to do. I would warm it up and he'd come on. A lot of times I would try to do a medley of songs, and he didn't go for that at all. [laughs] He used to fire me every once in a-- If he didn't fire me, he'd fine me.

ezt: He did that stuff. He was a strict guy. He was running a tight ship over there.

cww: That stuff was all well and good. I had to learn about the stage and the road, being out on the road. You have certain things you have to do, and you have to do when you get on off that stage. If you got to do two songs, you got to warm that audience up for him to come out. If you warm it up too much, he going to cut you off. [chuckles]

ezt: Now, when you were doing that, did you have your own guys that you were playing with or were you playing with his band?

cww: Really the band that was playing behind James Brown, I joined that band, J.C. Davis. I think it was about five or six pieces. They were a good band for James, and they had been winning for a while. Then I went on with James, because J.C. Davis left along with me, a little while after me. I met him again in Columbus, Ohio and we put a band together there. Then I stayed with them for a little while.

While I was out on the road, I kept meeting musicians. As I was meeting them, I was taking down their names and everything, and what they play and everything. I started calling musicians and telling them I got a gig for them, they can come into Columbus. I put the Sidewinders together. Stayed in Columbus, Ohio for a couple of years and I finally, I called King Curtis in New York, because King was the big man in New York.

ezt: Sure.

cww:He got me back into Small's. I had been there once before and they fired me over there because I was doing one of those James Brown acts falling out and all that stuff.

ezt: They didn't want that?

cww: The guy picked me up and was taking me down, thought I had really fell out. I said, "Man, put me down. That's part of the act." He said, "Well, it ain't going to be a part of the act in here no more."

[laughter]

Photo: David McClister

ezt: How did you decide what your repertoire was in those days? What songs were you playing? Were a bunch of them originals or did you work on a lot of covers? What were you picking up then?

cww: I didn't have any originals then. I did have one original, but I didn't ever sing it. It was Blues song called Slave to Love. I was doing regular stuff like Hank Ballard stuff and something that I could do to would warm up that show. Ray Charles, I was doing. I know I was doing What'd I Say and all that stuff, but it kept me going. It kept me going for a while until I put my own thing together.

ezt: How was it leaving James Brown? Now, that must have been a little scary because here you are, you're connected with a big act and a name. Of course, this is the musician story. You want to do your own thing. You want to go out and do your own thing, but that's also scary. How did that time with James Brown come to an end?

cww: It could have been frightening, but I was ready to go because I wanted to get my own thing together. I had already talked to this guy in Columbus. We stopped over in Columbus, Ohio, and me and the band went and did a little show of our own. The guy that owned the club, I told him that I want to put a band together and I had the musicians. He said, "You got a gig here. You can practice here and put it together."

Took me about six months to put the whole thing together and make it really tight. When it got tight, I knew it was tight enough to go back to New York, but I had to have a connection. It's all about connections. [chuckles]

ezt: That's the entertainment industry in a nutshell. You made your way back to New York, and then you spent, as you said, several years doing the New York thing. Tell us about those gigs. Were they different or was basically the same kind of thing?

cww: I had a study gig at the Small's Paradise. It was the main club up in Harlem. Everybody's come there. All of the top acts, all of the people from Broadway, they used to come down to Small's. It would be three or four cars stacked around the club, just limousines and shit. [laughs] That was the best club for me to be in, and I met a lot of people in the business. I met Redd Foxx. Redd Foxx got me in Las Vegas. That's when I like to go back to connections. He got me booked in the MGM Grand. I guess was there for about two months.

ezt: Wow. This is the '70s? This would be early '70s?

cww: 1971. Yes.

ezt: Early '70s. What about that music? What were you guys playing at the time? What was the thing? What was the show?

cww:That's another story because me and the managers and everything, they start thinking about putting a, what's it called? A Vegas act together. We was doing all them, like show tunes and stuff like that. I would have a few, like Otis Redding and stuff like that. When we got out there and did the show, it went over pretty well. The manager came by and said, "We didn't hire you to do this. We hired you to do what you was doing when we seen you in Puerto Rico." [laughs] I had to stop the show right then and go right to my thing that I do. It was easy because the guys, we had been doing those shows for two or three years.

ezt: You were trying to make it more Vegasy.

cww: Oh, we bought tuxedos and everything. I had 10 tuxedos I had made up and bought the band tuxedos, but it was too much. We wasn't a show band. That's the things you learn out here.

ezt: That's a big musician lesson, too. Just do what you're good at. You know what I mean?

cww:That's right.

ezt: "I'll give you some money." "Well, what do you want me to do?" "I just want you to do what you do."

cww: That's right. He just stopped us right in the middle of the show, said, "Listen, I didn't hire you to do that. Everybody out here does that." He said, "Just do what I saw you doing in Puerto Rico." They saw us down in San Juan. He said, "Do what you was doing down there. We'll get along fine." Then I changed the show on the spot.

ezt: That day. That's good. You're doing New York City. You're doing Vegas. What happens? There's this transition where you end up in Europe and you're doing your shows there. How did you transition from New York City to Europe?

cww: That's after me and the Sidewinders broke up. I was going around just doing pickup bands. I had a few guys that I knew and put a little band together. I really didn't like that too much so I just went. I stopped playing for a while in the '70s because in the '70s, it was a lot of disco and everything, and I wasn't really a disco person. I don't have anything against it, but it just wasn't me, so I just stopped. I started doing anything else I could do to make money. I had a couple of little businesses. I had a hot dog stand. I had a hamburger place.

ezt: No kidding.

cww: I had two vans when I was with the Sidewinders. I owned the van so I started taking people up and down town in New York. I did everything to make money.

ezt: The hot dog and the hamburgers, that was in New York City?

cww: Yes.

ezt: Oh, wow. Cool.

cww: [laughs] I'd do anything, man, but just not to be out in them streets. Whatever I did, I made enough money to live okay. I was living out in the Hamptons when they called me from England out of the blue. Me and my wife at that time, we had put out a album that it didn't really catch on. It was just something to do. They called me from England to come over and do the song, and I went over. All they wanted me to do was do the-- it's a lip sync to the song. [chuckles]

ezt: Oh, I see.

cww: It was strange. I stayed in England for a while, and then I just put a band together over there.

ezt: Charles, it's interesting the part of your story here where you really saw that transition between when people would just go out to see music. They would go out to see a band, and they would sit and maybe have some dinner. From what I'm hearing, that was your experience, but really, culture changed. Culture changed in the '70s, as you mentioned with disco and all those things.

cww: It definitely did.

ezt: I guess a lot of those shows that you were doing, that style of show really changed at that time. Am I right? Especially in the '80s and '90s, it was a totally different thing.

cww:I think we probably could have kept on doing what we was doing. We probably would have to add some of the new vogue stuff, some of that disco. I wasn't really going to do that anyhow, so I just took off.

ezt: That's it. Then you were there for a while and working in Europe, I guess. What was the show business difference in Europe from what you had experienced in the States? Was it a much different experience?

cww: It's a funny thing. First of all, I was booked over there as a blues act. I could sing the blues. As a matter of fact, I had a couple of records out over there. It did all right. Over in Europe, my name is pretty well-known over there. I sang behind those records and sang behind what I already did. Sidewinders, we had a couple of things out, so I was living off of that and just making up stuff. [laughs]

ezt: No hot dogs and hamburgers in Europe?

cww: No. I wasn't going to do that again.

ezt: Well, fish and chips in the UK. You've done a fish and chips food stand.

cww: I was in the fish and chips. [laughs] No. New York is a different place than any place in the world. You can't live in New York just fooling around.

ezt: No.

cww: You'd be out there on the street with the rest of them. [laughs]

ezt: I know. It's a fun city to be in, but it can be brutal for sure. It can be brutal.

cww: It will teach you a lesson in a hurry. [chuckles]

ezt: The impetus for this album, it was a little bit sad, I guess, here at this stage in your career. Can you tell our audience a little bit about what really inspired this journey of you beginning a new record here?

cww: It didn't start off being sad. It started off being a story of what me and my wife was going through. It wasn't a bad situation. We had a great marriage. The thing is, when you're married for a long time, you have your ups and downs, so whatever. We started writing, Charles and I. Charles was already writing stuff, and he called me in on it and we started writing stuff together. Some of the songs was definitely about-- Most of them were about our situation. When she passed away, it got to be pretty hard to sing some of these songs.

ezt: It started as a reflection on your long marriage, but then changed into something different after she passed away, which of course, I'm sorry to hear about.

cww: It's different. When she passed away, I didn't realize that it was going to affect me like that. Of course, anybody in your family or in your marriage pass away, you're going to be affected, but when you are up there singing these songs, it's a whole different story. It's one song I got on there, "All About Trust", the last song on the album.

ezt: Tell me about it. Tell us about it.

cww: That one, I sit right here in the house when we had a little spout, a little argument, I sit right here in the house. I had already told Charles that, "I need to write a song about trust." Then I sitting here and we started writing it, then me and Charles got together and finish it up. That song, even today, just last week, I tried to sing it at the club and I just couldn't make it through it.

ezt: It's interesting. You sang a lot of covers. You covered a lot of other music your whole career. Here at this stage, now you're thinking about, "Hey, I got to write a song about this or that," and you're working with Charles. Where do you think that change was from? Where did you get that feeling to say, "I want to really create something that doesn't exist right now?"

cww: I knew about music and songs and stuff. I just believe that if you're going to write songs or even sing songs, it's got to be a purpose to the song. Some of them are dance songs, and some of them are this and that. When you start writing material, you got to have a purpose for writing. It's not just writing just to be writing. At least, I don't write that many songs, so when I do try to write, I write about a purpose, what I'm thinking about or what happened to me, or what I seen in life.

ezt: What was your wife's name, Charles?

cww: Marva.

ezt: Barbara?

cww: Yes.

ezt: That's my mom's name.

cww: Oh, yes.

ezt: Barbara. That was a popular name for a while, right?

cww: No, I said Marva.

ezt: Oh, Marva. M-A-R-V-A, Marva?

cww: Yes. My second wife was named Barbara.

ezt: You're kidding.

cww: [laughs] No, that's for real.

ezt: Wow. She was also a singer, a musician. You said you did a record-

cww: She was a musician.

ezt: -with her?

cww: Yes. Really, she was a classical pianist and jazz.

ezt: Oh, wow.

cww: We went over to England together, and so we was doing little gigs. We went down to Spain. We moved down to Spain from England, and we got a gig at-- What's that guy that got the airplanes and everything in England? Branson.

ezt: Richard Branson?

cww: Yes. We were playing at his hotel down there in Mallorca. We lived down there for about five years.

ezt: She was playing keys and singing with you, and you were singing?

cww: Yes. Sometimes it'd just be she and I, and then sometimes we'd add a percussionist or a guitar. We'd go into other big stages and do [unintelligible 00:24:33]. We did a lot of things.

ezt: Charles, I can't believe you had a wife named Barbara and a wife named Marva.

cww: I try to keep it in line.

ezt: That's tricky. Charles (Treadway - producer) is here off camera helping facilitate our chat. Charles Treadway, if you want to chime in, please do so. Maybe you can tell us, when did you say, "Hey, look, I got to make a record of this stuff? I'm writing some stuff here with Charles. We got some new material here, and we really want to make an album." How did that come about?

cww:: Actually, if it hadn't been for Charles, we probably wouldn't have made a record because he started writing the material first, then he called me. We were thinking about making a record, but we had to get the songs together first. As we went along, I think Charles did a great job on the writing, and the producing, and arrangements. He did everything, except for the singing. [chuckles]

ezt: Tell me about the production. Again, the sound of the record is great. You've got a lot of nods to several different R&B sounds. You can hear where you're paying homage to something, but yet it's really your own. Tell me about working in the studio. Was it fairly straightforward? Was everybody on the same page, or did you have to tinker around a lot?

cww: That's where, Charles, you need to come over here and explain that.

ezt: Come on, Charles. Tell us what's going on, Charles Treadway.

Charles Treadway: It's confusing, obviously, with two Charles. That's why we go with Wigg and Tread. It's just a little--

ezt: Wigg and Tread. That's the name of the next record.

ct: That's a lot simpler. My whole thing was I wanted to get what I would call a classic soul record that featured Wigg in a lot of different settings. He's a very versatile singer. That's me, sorry. I just wanted to represent and capture that as much as we could. That was really the motivation. You're asking about the studio. After we got these songs together, it really didn't take that long to get them together, maybe a few months.

We went in the studio and recorded them with our core band, which is organ. That's me. Then we've got a long-term guitarist, Pat Bergeson, great player, Pete Abbot on drums, and obviously, Wigg. We just cut them with that small band format, which we usually gig with, and added the strings and horns and all the other instruments later. That was how we did it. That's our core band, is just an organ trio, basically. We, as I said, gigged that way quite often. If we needed to add pieces, we will, but that was the way we did it.

ezt: Wigg, when you heard those mixes with these strings and horns and stuff, were you blown away? Were you so excited? It sounds so great.

cww: I definitely was. I knew he could do that, but the thing is, when you hear these songs and you hear all this arrangement, it makes a big difference. I wasn't even thinking about a big arrangement like that. I thought we were just going with the three-piece, four-piece thing, but I'm glad we did. I know that because I really liked the album. It's turned out to be a really good album. I hope it does well. If it doesn't, we'll be all right anyhow.

ezt: Sometimes that's the best way to approach art or making something. You say, "Hey, look, we're going to do the best we can. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work." That's a good attitude to have. We talked a little bit about It's About Trust. That's a song from the record. Is there another one that you connected with in particular that you really liked off the new album?

cww: Yes, This Love's Going to Last.

ezt The title track there. That's a great track.

cww: Also, feels like that's part of my history there. Sometimes you feel like things are turning, changing, but This Love's Going to Last is a relative term. When it feels like it's going to last, that's what you sing about. You write something about that to try to make it last.

ezt: You guys are still playing. You're still doing your thing. You've got some gigs?

cww: We work every week. We do private gigs and this and that. Right now, we're doing this gig that we've been doing for quite a while at Acme Feed & Seed down here on Broadway, down in Nashville. We're probably the only act of our kind on Broadway down here. [laughs] Nashville is a country town, too.

ezt: They like everything over there. There's a little niche for everything in Nashville.

cww: They might like it, but you don't see much of it down on Broadway.

ezt: That's true. I haven't been there in a while, but I imagine. If I could just ask again. Playing gigs here in the year 2025 versus picking up a gig in 1955, what are some of the similarities and differences that you recall throughout your time? When was it better or worse, or just getting that gig and showing up, the nuts and bolts stuff that goes along with playing a show?

cww: As far as getting a gig, I never had too much of a problem in getting a gig. It's just, you always want to go further than just having a stable gig. I wanted to be out there on the road with my own stuff, doing my own material. When you're doing a gig, you're doing a lot of cover songs. I ain't got nothing against that. I pick out the songs I want to do, and I do them. It's been okay with me because I was getting older. Then, just sitting in Nashville, I had recorded a few things anyhow. I did a few blues, soul things, albums, and they were doing okay, but not okay enough to be out on the road. [chuckles]

ezt: Right. Well, Wigg, this is a great record, and I think people should check this thing out. It's just a fun record. You sound youthful. You sound breezy, easy breezy. You sound like-- did you get that feeling? Do you still get that feeling when you're playing music? Do you feel like you're 30 years younger or something? Does it do something to you?

cww: Music to me keeps me young. I don't feel old up on the stage. I don't feel old, period. I know I am at an age, but when I'm up there singing, it's about singing. If I felt like I couldn't make it, I wouldn't be up there. I can still hit those notes, and I can still-- I just can't dance around like I used to. [chuckles]

ezt: Right. Be careful with the dancing.

cww: Can't hardly walk around. [laughter]

ezt: Dancing's overrated. Listen, it's a beautiful record. It's a beautiful tribute to your wife, and I enjoy it so much. I hope people check it out. I really thank you for taking time to talk to me about it today.

cww: It was very nice talking to you. That's an important thing, too, about giving interviews. The interviewer got to be good at what he's doing, and you've been really good at it too.

ezt: Thanks, Charles. I appreciate that. You've probably had a few interviews in your day.

cww:: Oh, yes. I've had a few. Some of them, I just sit there and look at the TV. [laughter]