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CHARLOTTE WHITTED
Charlotte Gay Whitted was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the third of four children (the middle child…). Her father, Jim Gay, directed the local barbershop chorus, so Charlotte developed an ear for harmony early on. “I can’t remember not singing,” she recalls. Her mother, Thornie Worley, encouraged her to join the church choir and participate in musical theater.
During her college years at UNC-Chapel Hill, Charlotte wrote songs and sang with guitarist/songwriter Doug Hampton at coffeehouses and churches. After college they formed a band, Quiet Game, which recorded a six-song demo and played regionally for a couple of years. She briefly joined hard rock band Haymarket Riot, but found metal music wasn’t suited to her vocal style. “I missed tight harmonies and the subtleties of acoustic music.”
While working for several years in non-profit, Charlotte and her husband Gordon started a family and purchased a farm north of Winston-Salem. She shifted her musical focus to singing to her daughter Emily and set songwriting aside. In the meantime, daughter Anna was born. As Emily approached kindergarten age, Charlotte and Gordon decided to look for a different farm in the mountains with a house and enough cleared pasture for the sheep flock he managed, close enough to a town and a good school system to raise their family as they originally envisioned. A farm in Burke’s Garden, Virginia, renamed Weatherbury Station, was the right fit. Charlotte helped on the farm, while continuing to work in public relations part-time, and along came a third child, son James. Performing in church in the occasional duet was the extent of her musical activity then.
In the fall of 2004, music began tugging at her again–songs she had in her head, but didn’t have recorded. “Every mother sets things aside to focus on her family, but it was time to take something back–for me it was music.” When helping a friend with back-up vocals on a recording project, Charlotte was able to get down three of her own songs in a cappella form and give them to family friend, George Hamilton, IV.
George not only listened to Charlotte’s songs, he took them to his record label, Lamon Records, and played them for Dave Moody, President, and Nelson McSwain, Director of A & R, who offered her a recording contract and co-publishing agreement with Lamon. Charlotte’s 2006 debut CD, Middle Child, was produced by Grammy-nominated guitarist and Dove award winner, Dave Moody while George Hamilton, IV helped out with vocals on a duet, “The Note.”
“I’m proud of the record. Dave and Nelson really shaped the sound, but most of it came out like I heard it in my head. I didn’t realize folks would label it ‘Americana’–to me it’s just my music. I just hope it sparks some interest in my songs. I did a lot of singing in my twenties, but I didn’t have as much to say until now.”
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| COPYRIGHT
©2007 APPALACHIAN ARTS CENTER OF SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE |
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