Fans of Guns N’ Roses or hard rock in general likely remember what it was like when Appetite For Destruction dropped in 1987. It’s easily the band’s greatest record, one that has stood the test of time in a major way. And while the album was truly the sum of the band’s parts, they got some help from a legendary hard rock guitarist and producer who took it to new heights. That producer was Manny Charlton, who was also the founding guitarist of the hard rock band Nazareth and a legend among guitar gods of the 70s and 80s.
On this day, July 5, 2022, we lost that very icon at the age of 80. His death still leaves a hole in the hard rock world. Let’s celebrate the life of Manny Charlton by looking back at his incredible career as a rock god of the 1970s and 1980s.
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Remembering Manny Charlton
Manuel Charlton was born on July 25, 1941, in La Línea, Cádiz, Spain. He and his family moved to Dunfermline, Scotland, when he was just two years old. Early on, he was in a number of bands, including Mark 5, The Red Hawks, and The Shadettes. The Shadettes would later change their name to Nazareth in 1968, inspired by The Band song “The Weight”.
Charlton was a hard rock guitarist, but he had a notable bluesy way of playing. After Nazareth opened for Deep Purple in the early 1970s, the band earned more international attention.
In addition to being a guitarist, Charlton was also a pretty well-known producer. He produced Nazareth’s iconic album Hair Of The Dog in 1975, which features their biggest hit single “Love Hurts”.
That album was what caught the attention of one Axl Rose in the 1980s. He explicitly said that he wanted “the guy who produced Nazareth’s ‘Hair Of The Dog’” to take on the task of producing Appetite For Destruction. Geffen Records got him on, and he produced a number of songs for the album at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. A few such songs include “November Rain”, “Welcome To The Jungle”, “Paradise City”, and others. After that session, Charlton returned to Europe to rejoin Nazareth, and Mike Clink was hired to produce the bulk of the album.
Manny Charlton passed away on July 5, 2022, while visiting family in Texas. He was 80 years old. Without him, who knows what would have become of Appetite For Destruction as we know the record today?
(Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns)