Matt,
You are absolutely right to be enthusing about Charlie who was a great singer and a lovely man. At the time that I knew him, the late '60s and early '70s, he was living and working at a farm near Forfar and was a great lover of and performer of the old Bothy Ballads from the farms of the counties in and around Aberdeenshire. He became a regular and popular fixture at all the TMSA Traditional Music Festivals around that time. My Last Farewell to Stirling was probably his most requested song but he had quite a large repertoire of authentic bothy songs that he sang with that deliberate phrasing and distinctive tone. The only other commercially released recording that I know of him is one track When I wis jist but Sweet Sixteen on the long deleted Springthyme LP Scots Songs and Music (recorded at the Kinross Festival) SPR 001 though lots of people, self included, sat with portable cassette recorders and recorded all the concerts and ceilidhs at those festivals.

I remember a late (virtually all) night session in a large caravan that Tina and I had rented on the Kinross camp site that included - at various times of the night - Adam and Charlie as well as Aly Bain, Joe Burke, Finbar & Eddie Furey, Jim Bainbridge, Trevor & Lyn Sheridan, Dave Goulder and Belle & Alex Stewart.

He took to singing in unison with another old bothy veteran, Adam Young at the festivals and they complemented one another in a strange way. Charlie was a much better singer than Adam but Adam had a really good presence as a performer and was garrilous and hilarious where Charlie was quiet and shy.

The person who could supply more information for you about Charlie is Pete Shepheard of Springthyme Records and there is an email contact for him on his website at http://www.springthyme.co.uk/shop/help.html

Pete sings a number of songs learned from Charlie and he will be coming down south in September along with Tam Spiers and Arthur Watson and the three of them will be singing at The Royal Oak in Lewes on 17th September - see
http://www.myspace.com/royaloakfolklewes

One last short story. I remember one of these festival concerts with Adam and Charlie singing together and they were singing The Overgate, the story of the misadventures of a farm worker who goes up on the spree to Dundee and meets "a lady of the night". They came to the verse that normally goes:-

Says I, "I've lost my waistcoat,
my watch chain, and my purse."
Says she, "I've lost my maidenhead
and that's a damn sight worse!"

Clearly singing the word "maidenhead" was too much for these two lovely old guys, so they substituted the word "handbag"!