Charlie Chamberlain

Inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 1989
Birth: July 14, 1911 – Bathurst, New Brunswick
Death: July 16, 1972 – Bathurst, New Brunswick

Charlie Chamberlain is most closely associated with the East Coast group Don Messer and His Islanders, with whom he performed throughout the majority of his career. Don Messer’s legendary, “singing lumberjack” joined the group in 1934, although he had been working with Don Messer as his lead vocalist for many years prior to that. He was also a featured entertainer on “Don Messer’s Jubilee”, which ran from 1957 through to 1969 on CBC Television.

Charlie Chamberlain’s vocal work is featured on many of the albums released by Don Messer and His Islanders.

Charlie Chamberlain passed away on July 16, 1972 at the age of 61.

A man with a round face and expressive features wears a tilted hat and a suit, looking slightly to the side with his mouth open as if speaking or reacting animatedly. The image is in black and white.

Chamberlain is fondly remembered as a showstopper, famed for his signature bowler hat and shillelagh. No matter the size of the venue, be it a small Maritime stage or broadcast nationally on CBC TV, Chamberlain could make a song feel like his own, which often made him the envy of every other performer. As a former acquaintance of Chamberlain’s recalls “He was a good-hearted, great fella and the sadder the song, the better he liked it. He’d make himself cry, and make everyone else cry too.”