Charlie Burse

American musician (1901–1965)

Charlie Burse (August 25, 1901 – December 20, 1965) was an American blues musician, best known for his work with the Memphis Jug Band. His nicknames included "Laughing Charlie," "Uke Kid Burse" and "The Ukulele Kid." The "uke" in his nicknames referred to the first instrument he was known for, the tenor banjo, which was commonly called a "ukulele banjo" in the South. Later photographs show him with a tenor guitar, a similar instrument that he played in the same tuning.

Burse was raised in Sheffield, Alabama by his father—a hotel cook—and mother, along with seven siblings. During the 1920s, he moved to Jackson, where he met his wife, Birdie Crawford, and had three children. Burse played many musical instruments, including the piano, saxophone and spoons, and Roger Brown remarked that he was "boisterous" and "the most irrepressible person I've ever met." This contrasted with Shade, who was businesslike and orderly in managing the band. Yet Burse became Shade's most frequent collaborator and a key member of the jug band in subsequent years. Shade and Burse were recorded by blues researchers Samuel Charters in 1956 and Alan Lomax in 1959, and appeared on a Memphis TV special called "Blues Street" in 1958. In 1963, the pair made one of their last recordings, Beale Street Mess Around. He achieved an even more modern, piano driven sound in 1950 with "Shorty the Barber," one of the first tracks recorded by Sam Phillips at Sun Studios. Memphis nightclub owner Robert Henry credited Burse for inspiring Elvis Presley's signature "leg shake": "He would watch the coloured singers, understand me, and then he got to doing it the same way as them," Henry said. "He got that shaking, that wiggle, from Charlie Burse, Ukulele Ike we called him, right there at the Gray Mule on Beale." Burse's brother, Robert, performed and recorded on washboard with the Memphis Jug Band and performed on washtub bass with the Will Batts Novelty Band. Burse died of heart disease on December 20, 1965, and was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee. He was survived by his wife Birdie, children Charlie Jr., Lucille and Connie, and seven grandchildren. On May 8, 2019, Mount Zion Memorial Fund unveiled a new headstone for Burse in a ceremony.