Concert honors the many songs of Buddy Charles

• Reprints

Buddy Charles performing in 1997 | Bob Black~Sun-Times

Updated: January 23, 2012 2:49AM

By definition, a good piano man — or woman — knows lots of songs. An extensive repertoire is a required tool of the trade.

But for the repertoire of Morton Grove’s late Buddy Charles, “extensive” didn’t even begin to cover it. “He knew 5,000 songs, easy. I went to see him for nearly 40 years, and every time I saw him, he’d play at least one song I’d never heard before,” says Scott Urban, Chicago actor and cabaret singer. “I could do a six-volume CD of songs I learned from Buddy. ”

Urban wasn’t the only one to benefit from the music data base in Charles’ head, or to share his joy in good music.

So at 3 p.m. Sunday, July 17, at St. Isaac Jogues Church in Niles, some two hours’ worth of “Hidden Treasures: Songs I Might Never Have Heard if it Weren’t for Buddy” will be dusted off and performed at the third annual memorial concert to honor the piano player and benefit his parish.

A dozen top singers and piano players of Chicago’s cabaret community will pay tribute to the man Urban, the concert organizer, considers “the best entertainer I’ve ever seen.”

Cabaret stars

“We’ll also have a special performance by Pat Gries — Mrs. Buddy Charles,” Urban said. “She’s a wonderful stylist.”

The lineup changes each year, but “there is a core group who’ve come back every year. This is all out of the generosity of their hearts,” says Dee Stanton of St. Isaac Jogues Church.

Fittingly, Stanton reports, the two earlier benefit concerts have allowed the church to buy a new piano.

Charles didn’t just know how to play and sing the obscure songs he enjoyed, said Urban, “he also loved telling the stories behind them. He had a phenomenal memory.”

Among the Charles “gems” Urban plans to offer are “Did I Ever Really Live It?” a serious song by Alan Sherman, best known for his comic songs, and “a song I had heard before but didn’t know it. It’s a throwaway song from ‘The Road to Utopia,’ called ‘It’s Anybody’s Spring.’ Bing Crosby sang it in the film.”

He’ll also do a song Charles made a special point of giving to him. “I’m a big guy, 6’4” and 300,” he said. “It’s called ‘Great Big Baby.’ ”

Family man

Known for his upbeat, ragtime-influenced piano playing as well as his phenomenal trove of songs, Buddy Charles played Chicago’s late night spots from the 1950s until he retired in 1997, and then some. He loved his work, and continued performing in the city at small clubs, and was playing regularly at the Chambers in Niles even a few weeks before his death at age 81 in 2008.

It might have surprised those who knew Charles only as a performer, and one who clearly enjoyed a bawdy song or a blue joke, that he was a devoted father and husband and devout Catholic, who led prayers at his church and taught religious education classes.

“He was probably the most truly religious, spiritual person I’ve ever met,” says Urban, “and he wasn’t preachy. It was all example.”

That grounding in religion and family were at the core of Charles’ personality, and what helped make him the standout performer and human being his friends and fans remember.

“You’d walk into a room Buddy was playing and you’d feel at home,” says Urban. “He made everyone feel at home. I can’t think of enough good things to say about Buddy.”