Kind Regards, Walter

Definitely one of the great country songs of all time.

Well it seems the question's been answered while I was typing... I always assumed it was Charlie but didn't know for sure.

[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 20 August 2006 at 02:35 PM.]

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www.genejones.com

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http://home.comcast.net/~steves_garage

I'm not 100% sure it was Pig, but I'd bet the guys are right.
It's definately no Charlie, by that point his style was considered too individual.
His Epic albums from 1968-70 are fantastic, amazing country soul, all they needed were Al Green style horn parts, but then again Charlie recorded for Memphis label Hi Records two years before Al Greene.

Anybody who knows him only from Behind Closed Doors and later is effectively listening to someone else. He's much more of a blues/jazz/R and B artist, but he made millions as a "country" artist, and more power to him. After 15 years of playing dives and being largely ignored, who wouldn't "sell out"?

His final CD, early 1990s, with Mood Indigo, etc. is great also and reminiscent of his 1960s recordings.

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http://home.comcast.net/~steves_garage

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Don't matter who's in Austin (or anywhere else) Ralph Mooney is still the king!!!

If anybody out there knows where one can buy CDs of Pig Robbins, I would surely appreciate it if you would point me in that direction. I have looked every place I know of, but cannot find any.

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Very truly yours,
David T. Tunnell
Alesis QS8; Peavey KB/A 300; Peavey KB5; BMI U-12; Session 500

I loved his early work, and always felt that he got a bit lost in Elvis Presley's shadow.

Ronnie Milsap, too - there's another musician with hidden depths. Both he and Rich knocked me out on piano!

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http://home.comcast.net/~steves_garage

Entirely by coincidence, the personnel on "Behind Closed Doors" was the subject of discussion in another online music group of which I am a member. They were discussing whether it was Pig or Charlie on piano.

Someone went to the trouble of rooting around on the web and found those details somewhere on Sony Music's site. I guess they have the publishing.

I just copied from that source. I have always understood it was Pig on piano and that Charlie was not particularly amused---but he deferred to Billy Sherrill as producer and laughed all the way to the bank. If memory serves, Rich had known Sherrill since the early 60s when he and Sherrill both worked for Sam Phillips in Memphis, so Rich presumably had some faith in him. And Charlie probably figured they were on the right track, because he had been hitting the lower end of the charts immediately before Behind Closed Doors took off. At that time, Charlie's recording career had really been floundering for 6 or 8 years. But, Rich didn't need to take a back seat to anyone on piano.

Here's an excerpt from an interview veteran engineer Lou Bradley gave in 2000, about recording in Studio B (Billy is Billy Sherrill):

"Normally, we worked the room with the singer away from the band a little bit," Bradley continues, "but we did Charlie Rich in there and cut 'Behind Closed Doors' and those hits. Charlie played piano, but Pig Robbins would play the piano [on the sessions], and Charlie would like to stand near the piano, and so Billy got to cut everybody standing by the piano, right in the middle of the band."

[This message was edited by Mitch Drumm on 27 August 2006 at 10:01 AM.]