Decline in Activity and Semi-retirement
Rich struggled throughout 1979 having hits with United Artists and Epic. His singles were moderate hits that year, the biggest of them on either UA or Epic was a version of "Spanish Eyes," which became a top 20 country hit. Rich appeared as himself in the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie, Every Which Way But Loose, in which he performed the song "I'll Wake You Up When I Get Home." This song hit number three on the charts in 1979 and was his last top ten single. In 1980, he switched labels again to Elektra Records, and released a number twelve single, "A Man Just Don't Know What a Woman Goes Through" in the fall of that year. One more Top 40 hit followed, the Gary Stewart song "Are We Dreamin' the Same Dream" early in 1981, but Rich decided to remove himself from the spotlight. For over a decade, Rich was silent, living off his investments in semi-retirement and only playing occasional concerts.
In 1992, Rich released Pictures and Paintings, a jazzy record that was produced by journalist Peter Guralnick. It was released on Sire Records. Pictures and Paintings received positive critical reviews and restored Rich's reputation as a musician, but it would be his last record. One of his opening acts in these years was Tom Waits, who mentioned him in the song "Putnam County" from his album Nighthawks at the Diner with the lyric: "The radio's spitting out Charlie Rich... He sure can sing, that son of a bitch."
Read more about this topic: Charlie Rich, Career
Famous quotes containing the words decline and/or activity:
“Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)