Charles E. Banks Papers, 1956-2000

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Summary

Creators:: Banks, Charles E.
Abstract:: Bay area blues musician and artist Charles E. Banks (1938-2000) was born Charles Edward Banks in Taylorville, Illinois, December 4, 1938. The Charles E. Banks Papers include assorted biographical material, concert flyers, posters, programs, song lists, club advertisements, entertainment calendars, reproductions of artwork, photographs, handwritten poems, and three audiocassettes featuring Blues on Tap's live and studio recordings.
Extent:: .75 linear feet (1 box + 1 oversized box)
Language:: Languages represented in the collection: English
Preferred citation:: Charles E. Banks Papers, MS 213, African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library. Oakland, California.

Background

Scope and content:

The Charles E. Banks Papers are arranged into six series: Biographical material, blues career, the Fish of Charles E. Banks, photographs, poetry and audiocassettes. Biographical material includes various diplomas, business cards and Banks' Parks Air Force yearbook. Banks’ blues career material consists of concert flyers, posters, and programs, song lists, club advertisements, entertainment calendars, and assorted printed material. The Fish of Charles E. Banks series includes Banks’ artist statement, exhibition mailers, juried art show programs and reproductions of artwork. The poetry series consists of eight original poems handwritten by Banks. Included in the photographs are group portraits of Banks in various promotional images and performing on stage, as well as documentation of his visual art. The papers also include three audiocassettes of Charles Banks and Blues on Tap’s live and studio recordings.

Biographical / historical:

Bay area blues musician and artist Charles E. Banks (1938-2000) was born Charles Edward Banks in Taylorville, Illinois, December 4, 1938 to parents Edward and Grace. His mother, Grace Drasdale, played piano at the local Baptist church, and his father was a day laborer who sang in the church choir. Banks graduated from Taylorville High School in 1956 and joined the United States Air Force. While completing his tour in Spokane, Washington, he met J.J. Malone who taught him to play the electric bass. Banks was given a room to rent at Malone’s home and would take guitar lessons from him on weekends. Together they formed their first band, The Rockers (later the Tops in Blues), playing radio stations, and hospital wards and frequently for Nez Perce audiences across the Idaho State line. After leaving the service, Malone and Banks formed the Rhythm Rockers in Fresno, California, adding C.A. Carr, Calvin Peele, and former rockabilly Troyce Key to the lineup.

By 1967 Malone, Carr, and Key had left the Rhythm Rockers. In 1968 Banks relocated to Oakland, California, to join Malone, attending college at California State University, Hayward. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in geography in 1975, becoming employed as a health worker for the City of Berkeley and continuing to play with Malone. Banks would feature on Sonny Rhodes’ 1977 I Don’t Want My Blues Colored Bright, and the Rhythm Rockers’ albums I’ve Gotta New Car (1980) and Younger than Yesterday (1982). In 1986 Banks formed two bands, The Bluesmen and Blues on Tap, a 1940s-50s-sounding jump band in the Louis Jordan style, which were featured weekly at such Oakland blues venues as Eli’s Mile High Club, The Fifth Amendment and Louis KeeSee’s Your Place Too (previously the Don Barksdale’s Sportsman Club and later The Grove).

Throughout the 1980’s Banks was active with the Oakland Arts program “Blues in the Schools.” His music career ended in 1989 as the result of debilitation due to spinal stenosis. Banks took up and devoted the last decade of his life to painting, watercolors, and mixed media artwork, exhibiting and winning several awards in international contests for disabled artists with his series The Fish of Charles E. Banks. He passed away on December 20, 2000.

Processing information:

Processed by Sean Dickerson.

Arrangement:

Series I. Biographical material Series II. Blues career Series III. The Fish of Charles E. Banks Series IV. Photographs Series V. Poetry Series V. Audiocassettes

Rules or conventions: