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- A lot more than 50 years back, Monk co-established the well known Place Radio Seminar and hosted its New Faces Clearly show additional than 40 situations
- Monk grew up in a tiny Alabama town in a house with no plumbing or running h2o
Charlie Monk, an upbeat audio business networker and radio individuality known as the Mayor of Songs Row, died at dwelling Monday afternoon. He was 84.
Monk, who co-founded the common Country Radio Seminar much more than 50 years ago, gained his nickname by glad-handing and encouraging others for decades in place radio and nation songs publishing. He hosted the profession-launching New Faces show at that radio seminar much more than 40 times.
An Alabama indigenous who grew up filth poor, Monk fought really hard to make a little something of himself − and to be well-known, he informed The Tennessean three a long time in the past.
Nevertheless he felt he never ever attained that 2nd intention, Monk launched a occupation in radio and new music publishing in which he served propel lots of artists to superstardom.
“I have assisted a great deal of people attain their plans,” he reported. “I observed out I was better at touting other men and women than I was at touting me.
“I finally reconciled with the point that I’m not a superstar. I eventually turned the greatest Charlie Monk there was,” he explained in 2020. “That is terrific. I really come to feel that way.”
Amongst those people grateful they satisfied Monk are some of the major stars of the genre, which include Garth Brooks.
“I really like you, pal. I just can’t thank you enough for all you’ve accomplished for me,” Brooks claimed in a latest video tribute to Monk for getting honored by the Nashville Association of Expertise Directors.
“But the fact is, you have completed it for all people. You’re one of people men who is aware of a ton about all the things…. Severely, guy, each individual time I discuss to you, when I go away you, I’m ready to go out and kick the world’s a**. And that is a reward you have. Thank you for sharing it with me.”
“He always has a huge smile on his confront and has performed so significantly for state songs. I love him to pieces!” Reba McEntire explained. “He has been around forever, and I know, mainly because I have been, far too!”
Hillbilly tunes on a battery-operated radio
Monk grew up in Geneva, Ala., inhabitants 4,400, with a chip on his shoulder. He expended the relaxation of his existence battling from the ghosts of those several who said he and his spouse and children weren’t worthy of a lick.
“The women preferred to day me. I was the very best dancer in city, charming, sensible, humorous and cute,” Monk claimed, his smile turning into a wince.
“The mothers didn’t want their daughters dating me due to the fact their daughters might bump in to my loved ones, who smoked, drank, stubborn and chewed.”
Monk’s father left his mother when he located out she was pregnant in 1938. Monk, his mom, stepfather and siblings grew up taking in authorities cheese in a home with no plumbing and no functioning h2o.
The spouse and children listened to hillbilly songs and significant band new music — with plenty of Frank Sinatra — on a modest, battery-operated radio.
Monk study Hollywood magazines and gawked at big celeb houses on those pages for hours. He at some point acquired a position putting marketing flyers on people’s windshields for the town’s film theater, a work that paid out in free tickets.
“I sat there in the dim and fantasized,” he explained. “I usually wanted to be a star. I wished to have a significant fancy car.”
In significant faculty, Monk went to WGEA radio station in his hometown, received a task cleansing up for $5 a week, sooner or later landed a weekend on-air shift and identified a way to simply call a bunch of ladies in city. Monk’s relatives didn’t have a cellular phone, so he used the 1 at the station incessantly.
Monk finally settled on a person lady, Royce, his wife of 63 years. The couple moved all over as Monk’s radio occupation took off. He went from Geneva to Troy to serving in the U.S. Military to Tuscaloosa to Cell.
Charlie Monk Lane
In 1968, Charlie and Royce Monk moved to Murfreesboro to system WMTS, one of Middle Tennessee’s to start with comprehensive-time state format stations, which Jim Reeves’ widow, Mary, has just bought.
Once he acquired to Center Tennessee, Monk rapidly located his way on to Tunes Row, initial doing the job at royalties-collecting agency ASCAP, then as a tune publisher, aiding folks like Randy Travis and Kenny Chesney get composing and report offers.
About 1969, Monk aided radio promotions guy Tom McEntee commence Place Radio Seminar as a way for the handful of all-region stations to battle the Best 40 pop stations that dominated radio.
No functions, no cost-free booze, none of the artists’ concert events or shmoozing events that CRS is recognized for now. It was some media professors and business specialists making an attempt to figure out how state radio could increase sales, Monk said.
Since then, CRS has grown into a weeklong conference that attracts more than 2,000 individuals, a convention peppered with reside performances and artist showcases all in excess of Nashville for out-of-city radio programmers.
And considering the fact that then, Monk has been inducted into the Place Radio Hall of Fame, the Alabama New music Hall of Fame and the Tennessee Radio Corridor of Fame. His hometown renamed a avenue “Charlie Monk Lane.”
Monk returned to radio in 2004, on satellite’s SiriusXM state channels, as the Mayor of Songs Row.
He continued to say hello and shake palms with individuals when he was out in public. It was a trick he uncovered from Frank Sinatra, whom he saw greet each and every one particular of the 50 men and women backstage at a private Opry party in 1974.
‘Truly the definition of a New music Row storyteller’
Monk said he even reintroduced himself to persons he has previously achieved.
“It will save people from humiliation if they simply cannot try to remember your title,” Monk stated.
The stars definitely remembered his title and his tenacity in receiving photos with them, photographs that afterwards in his vocation he posted promptly on Facebook.
“Whatsoever it is, you’ve generally been all above it like a rash that will not go absent,” Dolly Parton reported, smiling, in a video tribute marking Monk’s honor from the Nashville Association of Expertise Administrators.
“For each individual press conference that I’ve done in Nashville to every single Region Radio Seminar that I have been to, and the film that we did decades ago, ‘Blue Valley Songbird’ — oh, you was the star of that, was not you, Charlie? — to usually trying to get another photo with me.
“Properly, you’ve earned your designation as Mayor of Tunes Row, I can tell you that,” Parton ongoing. “And in all seriousness, you really are the definition of a Songs Row storyteller.”
Monk served on the boards of Leadership Tunes, the State Radio Broadcasters, Nagtional Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Nashville Songwriters Association Global, Gospel Songs Affiliation and Nashville chapter of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artist. He also was a member of the Region New music Association and the Academy of Country Songs.
His honors include induction into the Nation Radio Hall of Fame, The Alabama New music Corridor of Fame, the College of Alabama College of Conversation and Information and facts Sciences Corridor of Fame and a Life time Accomplishment Award from the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame.
Monk gained awards from the Alabama Home and Senate, the Country Radio Broadcasters, Inc., SESAC (1998 Publisher of the Calendar year), BMI (publisher for “Most Done Song”) ASCAP (publisher for “Most Done Song”) and Nashville Songwriters Affiliation Worldwide.
He acquired a CLIO Award for commercial voice perform, an Addy Award and awards and honors from the Mobile Push Sign up, the Countrywide Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and the Nashville Association of Talent Directors. In 2021, Monk turned the ninth recipient of the CMA’s Joe Talbot Award for “outstanding leadership and contributions to the preservation and progression of Place Music’s values and traditions.”
Funeral preparations are still pending.
Monk is survived by his wife, Royce Walton Monk sons Charles, Jr. (Sukgi) and Collin (Grace) daughters Capucine Monk and Camila Monk Perry (Scott) sisters-in-regulation Peggy Walton-Walker Lord (Larry) and Elsie Walton (Colin Hamilton) grandchildren Sam (Christina), Nathan, Christabel, McKenna, Theodore, Ella, Walton and Douglas wonderful-grandchildren Alexis and Sophia and nieces Clara and Linda and nephews Wayne, Brian and Chip.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions could be produced to MusiCares, Community Care Fellowship, Calvary United Methodist Church, Rochelle Center or CreatiVets.
The relatives has specified publicist Jackie Marushka, [email protected], to obtain any inquiries.
Attain Brad Schmitt at [email protected] or 615-259-8384 or on Twitter @bradschmitt.
