Music like Charlie Rich

Charles Allan Rich (December 14, 1932 – July 25, 1995) was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. His eclectic style of music was often difficult to classify, encompassing the rockabilly, jazz, blues, country, soul, and gospel genres.

In the later part of his life, Rich acquired the nickname the Silver Fox. He is perhaps best remembered for a pair of 1973 hits, "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl". "The Most Beautiful Girl" topped the U.S. country singles charts, as well as the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles charts and earned him two Grammy Awards. Rich was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2015.

Rich was born in Colt, Arkansas, United States, to rural cotton farmers. He graduated from Consolidated High School in Forrest City, where he played saxophone in the band. He was strongly influenced by his parents, members of the Landmark Missionary Baptist Church in Forrest City, as his mother, Helen Rich, played piano and his father sang in gospel quartets. A black sharecropper on the family land named C. J. Allen taught Rich blues piano. He enrolled at Arkansas State College on a football scholarship and then transferred to the University of Arkansas as a music major after a football injury. He left after one semester to join the United States Air Force in 1953.