Club Characters #1: Shoeshine Charley
The Continental "was his club, too, as far as he was concerned."
There’s a half-street between the Continental Club and Lucky Robot Japanese restaurant that doesn’t have a name. I propose a street sign that says “Shoeshine Charley Lane,” for Charley Miller was not only a beloved fixture at the Continental from 1991 until his death in 2001, but his association with Austin music goes back to being Earnest Charles Gildon’s right-hand man at legendary Eastside blues joints Charley’s Playhouse and Ernie’s Chicken Shack. There’s a lot of music history in that man who was a beloved flamboyant back when the Guacamole Queen was still Henrikke Moursund.
We do love our crazy characters, who may not play music, but add so much color to the scene. Curly, Looney, Elbo, and Doug the Slug were Austin’s Wack Pack. Shoeshine Charley brought the soul, muthafucka.
Charley Miller spiffed up kicks for a living, but found his greatest gift when he went from the shoeshine stand to stage manager at the Continental. How great was it to hear Charley butchering Alejandro Escovedo at the end of a glorious set? "How 'bout that Hondo Escalator?" would take Al back down to Earth. Heard him once introduce the humorless Jonathan Richman as “Jonathan Winters,” and Jojo had to take the stage to laughter without complaint. At first the flubs were genuine, but Miller started doing them on purpose, to the delight of patrons. Old black men are gold in rock clubs.
He was often cantankerous, especially when clubgoers leaned against his stand or- gasp!- sat in his chair to watch the bands. But those who steered clear of his wrath instantly took a shine to the nattily attired character who sometimes looked like he'd stepped out of a 1950s juke joint. His favorite insult was a shake of his head and “pitiful.”
“Some people would come out just for Charley,” said Steve Wertheimer of the Continental. “They didn’t care who was playing.”
Suffering from respiratory problems, Miller had to retire from the Continental in early 2001. (The city of Austin wouldn’t ban smoking indoors until 2005, with Wertheimer one of the only clubowners who supported it.) But he returned one last time for a Sept. 12 tribute concert that raised more than $3,000 to help pay his nursing home expenses. Attendance was hurt by what happened on 9/11, but Miller had such a great time that night and stayed so late he was locked out of the nursing home.
When Charley passed away two months later, his shoeshine stand in front of the sound booth became a shrine, where fans left flowers and trinkets and notes. "He left his personal stamp on the club, that's for sure," Wertheimer said.
Charley Miller was the third member of the Continental Club family to die in the last half of 2001. Percussionist John "Mambo" Treanor passed away Aug. 20, followed by fiddler Champ Hood on Nov. 3, both of cancer. Charley’s huge personality was his instrument.
Those who knew him best described a soft core to his gruff exterior. "When the Grey Ghost played the club for the last time, the Ghost was so sick, so weak, that Charley just cried like a baby," said Glover Gill, whose former band 8 1/2 Souvenirs featured Miller in its "Happy Feet" video. Miller also made cameo appearances in Lone Star and The Newton Boys.
Peppering his down-home dialect with profanities, Miller didn't hesitate to give his opinion of bands he didn't like, especially loud ones. But he was an uncle figure to a host of Austin acts, including Junior Brown, who would often take Miller on tour with him to lead the guitarist to the stage. "With me as a bodyguard, ain't no muthafuckas gonna mess with Junior," the 130-pound Miller would boast. He’d put himself across as a badass- lessons from Gildon, who always carried a piece- but, "Charley wasn't afraid to completely open up his heart to people," said Brown.
Born in Smithville in 1937, Miller began shining shoes at age 10 in a "whites only" barbershop. Moving to East Austin in the late ‘50s, he got a job at Charley’s Playhouse, where he still shined shoes- a cash business hard to give up- but also helped with the booking and the moving. Charley’s closed at midnight, so the party moved to Ernie’s Chicken Shack on Webberville Road, which stayed open, with illegal gambling and liquor sales, until the sun came up. Miller eventually managed Ernie’s until Gildon died of a heart attack in Oct. 1979 and the joint closed.
When Antone’s moved to its third location at 2915 Guadalupe in the early ‘80s, Charley’s shoeshine stand was at the back wall. And Gildon’s nephew Allen “Sugar Bear” Black was at the door. Clifford Antone was always conscious of linking his blues club to the originators from the other side of I-35. C-Boy Parks protege Steve Wertheimer was the same way.
After Wertheimer re-opened the Continental Club on Dec. 31, 1987, he tried to entice Miller to take his stand south. "I'd tell him, 'Man, you oughta shine shoes at my club,' " Wertheimer recalled, "but he'd always turn me down."
Then one day in 1991, out of the blue, Miller pulled up in a pickup with his shoeshine stand in the back. "All right, where do you want me to set up?"
It wasn't long before Charley's elevated shoeshine chair became his throne and the club his kingdom. As a former club manager, his instincts kicked in one night when a band was taking such a long break some of the audience was leaving. So, the shoeshine man went backstage and ordered the players to cut the chitchat and get they asses back onstage. Seeing how fast they moved, Wertheimer made Miller stage manager.
"It was his club, too, as far as he was concerned," Wertheimer said.
When a second Continental Club opened in Houston in 2000, Miller insisted on moving there for a few months to make sure the club was being run right. Giving new co-owner Pete “Wet Dawg” Gordon hell every step of the way, Charley’s spirit christened the new venture, which is still going strong. As is the “dive bar” next door- Shoeshine Charley's Big Top Lounge.
"Any time a touring band would come through, the first thing they'd ask is, 'Where's Charley?' " Wertheimer said. "Everybody remembered him. He was a true character, one of a kind."
Read more about Charlie’s Playhouse and Ernie’s Chicken Shack.
Good one