He lives large, but there’s a void that only shorty’s love can fill. Here’s Wilson, our vulnerable hero: the lonely playboy, marooned by wealth and success, pummeled by an intense desire for connection. “My manager’s number, my studio number - even my momma’s number!”Ĭonsider this the album’s thesis statement. Wilson is determined to change that. “Here is my number,” he bellows during the song’s climax, his voice rising with manic intensity. (Really, if you’re not having fun by this point, you’re hopeless.) After sweetly chirping that “being in love is good for your health,” he laments that he doesn’t have anyone to share his life with. Wilson drops in with a sultry, “hey girl,” and launches immediately into the most infectious chorus any pop artist has managed in the last 15 years. Got all these hot cars and hot cribs, but ain’t got nobody to share it with, baby.
We need to get out and do something, man. Kelly, crackling over a delicate acoustic guitar: “Yo, C.
The song opens with a mock voicemail from R. “Charlie, Last Name Wilson” remains the most kinetic and compelling song in Wilson’s oeuvre, and it elegantly packages the central theme of this criminally slept-on LP. The album is a dazzling, masterful display of songwriting and vocal performance, delivered by an artist whose relevance once seemed like a thing of the past. It’s a wonder more people don’t talk about Wilson, and this record in particular, as one of the great musical underdog stories of our young century.įor evidence of Last Name’s singular charm, look no further than the title track. Kelly, this pristine collection of love songs, sex jams, and polite club bangers demonstrates what makes Wilson such a quietly enduring figure.
In 2005, he dropped his most invigorated solo album to date, Charlie, Last Name Wilson. Unstoppable singles like “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” and “Early in the Morning” married four-on-the-floor time signatures with synth-heavy hooks and rich vocal production, and they helped American pop music pivot from the club-centric disco stylings of the late 1970s into the more sonically restless territory of the early ’80s.Īfter a dark period of homelessness and substance abuse in the ’90s, Wilson made an improbable return to the spotlight. Along with his two brothers, Ronnie and Robert, these three preacher’s kids from Oklahoma helped usher in a new musical era. To understand how he got here, though, we need to rewind about 30 years. Charlie Wilson - known affectionately as “Uncle Charlie” - first made his name as the lead singer of funk-R&B trio The Gap Band. (West would bring him back for Yeezus standout “Bound 2,” which was nominated for two Grammys.) Elsewhere, you can hear Wilson belting it out on collaborations with marquee-busters like Pharrell Williams, Snoop Dogg, Bruno Mars, and more. That’s him all over Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: “All of the Lights,” “Runaway,” “Monster,” and “See Me Now” all feature Wilson’s emotive vibrato on the hook. His voice contains a rich cultural history, his demeanor suggests an innocuous mass-market charm, and while much of his solo work recalls a bygone era, Wilson had a firm hand in crafting some of today’s most significant and groundbreaking pop music. Wilson is a deadly sincere, heart-on-the-sleeve soul man with hip-hop credibility and a storied past as a musical innovator. I evoke the opening line from Kurt Vonnegut’s time-bending Slaughterhouse-Five to suggest that there is something about Charlie Wilson, the Tulsa-raised R&B showman, that is stubbornly out of step with our current moment. That’s not a bad thing. Listen: Charlie Wilson has come unstuck in time.
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