Manny Charlton Dies: Nazareth Founding Guitarist Who Played On ‘Love Hurts’ & Produced Early Guns N’ Roses Demos Was 80
07.07.2022 - 03:33
/ deadline.com
Manny Charlton, the founding guitarist of Nazareth who played on the Scottish rock band’s best-known records, including “Love Hurts”, its LP Hair of the Dog, and also produced early Guns N’ Roses demos, died today. He was 80. His grandson, Jamie Charlton, posted the news on social media with the caption “RIP Grandad.”
Charlton cofounded Nazareth in 1968 with singer Dan McCafferty, bassist Pete Agnew, and drummer Darrell Sweet. The band found success in the UK with its 1973 third LP, Razamanaz, produced by Deep Purple’s Roger Glover. It reached No. 11, and spawned a pair of Top 10 singles in Great Britain, “Broken Down Angel” and “Bad Bad Boy.” Its follow-up disc, Loud and Proud, arrived that same year and hit the Top 10, spurred by another hit single, “This Flight Tonight.”
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But both of those album stalled in the 150s on the Billboard 200 chart in the US, as did Nazareth’s 1974 disc, Rampant, though it reached No. 13 in the UK.
But stateside success happened in a big way the next year.
Hair of the Dog, the group’s six studio disc, featured a radical reworking of “Love Hurts,” a 1960 non-single by the Everly Brothers. Gone was the Kentucky duo’s country-flecked arrangement, replaced by Charlton’s feedback-fueled guitar hook, which fed into a signature solo. The song hit No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, driving Hair of the Dog into the US Top 20 and proving to be its biggest American success. It later was featured on several TV series, including That ’70s Show, King of the Hill, Supernatural, and Scrubs and the 2005 skateboarding pic, Lords of Dogtown.
The disc’s title track — which belongs on any respectable “cowbell” playlist — also featured a driving guitar riff, and was the flip