His second AEG/P Music Group arena tour, “In It to Win” in 2017, grossed $15.2 million with 32 shows and 13 sellouts. Graduating to his first AEG- and P Music Group-produced arena tour in 2015, “Forever Charlie,” Wilson grossed $19.4 million over 38 shows, with 18 sellouts, according to Billboard Boxscore. “To fans, he’s an artist who cares that they paid their money for tickets, got a babysitter, and came out to see him, making them feel that they’re getting their money’s worth.” “People call him Uncle Charlie for a reason,” notes WBLS/WLIB New York operations manager Skip Dillard. And he’s become an elder statesman of sorts to the hip-hop community, contributing to top 20 Hot 100 singles by Kanye West (“Bound 2,” “Runaway”) and Snoop Dogg (“Beautiful”). Like Mick Jagger, Charlie sings and dances like he’s 35.”Īlso boosting Wilson’s performances is his catalog of solo hits beyond his Gap Band legacy, like “Charlie, Last Name Wilson,” “You Are,” “There Goes My Baby” and the latest, “I’m Blessed,” which led both the Adult R&B Songs and Hot Gospel Songs charts in April.
“That’s how I came to describe Charlie as the Bruce Springsteen of R&B. “A lot of buyers don’t really understand the R&B world,” says Siegel of challenges he and Paran still sometimes face. Cole and Khalid, agreed to represent the 11-time Grammy nominee. That’s when ICM’s Siegel, whose clients include Babyface, J. Paran found another believer in 2006 after the release of Wilson’s image-defining gold album Charlie, Last Name Wilson. National Museum of African American Music to Honor Charlie Wilson, Nile Rodgers & More Charlie just needed someone to believe in him.” And that’s been the attitude these last 20 years: get him in front of as many people as possible, because after that he sells himself. “I had to rip that away to move him forward.
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“The real challenge was how to make people see Charlie as Charlie Wilson, not the lead singer of the Gap Band,” says Paran. Invited by Wilson to manage the band, Paran later assumed the manager role for Wilson himself, his only P Music Group client, when the singer formally launched his solo career in 2000. Wilson was in his mid-40s at the time, newly sober after a struggle with drugs and homelessness - at one point literally living in Hollywood alleys for two years - and still performing local club gigs for $5,000 a night with the Gap Band. Putting Wilson front and center has been Paran’s main strategy since he first met the singer in 1997. But it was more important to get Charlie in front of this broader audience of people.” “Charlie lit the place up so hard that it was like seeing Bruno before Bruno performed,” Paran recalls. In fact, Paran and Wilson’s agent at ICM Partners, partner/head of music Mark Siegel - in association with AEG - pulled off another coup in July, when Wilson performed for the first time on the Hyde Park Festival’s main stage in London on what Paran calls the festival’s “young night,” a bill that also featured Bruno Mars, Khalid and DNCE. Wilson’s two-night Bowl stand is just the latest salvo in manager Michael Paran‘s long-term game plan to rebrand the 65-year-old R&B veteran and former Gap Band frontman as a tour and festival headliner.
3-4), backed by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. That’s what Charlie Wilson will no doubt be thinking as he steps onstage at the prestigious Los Angeles venue this weekend (Aug. From homeless to headlining the Hollywood Bowl.
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